September 9 2007

Who: Olivia and Mathias
When: Early evening - before sunset
Where: Math's house

She'd spent the day cooking after finishing Herbert's dinner. Given the lack of groceries they had, she'd stuck to making a couple more casseroles, which was horribly domestic and boring, but it was easy and passed the time which kept her from going out and doing anything else incredibly stupid - which she had determinedly decided to stop doing earlier that day. Time to grow up, make wiser decisions and stop with the self pity - and all that. Olivia noted the time after pulling the last casserole from the oven and debated over whether or not to call Mathias. She had no idea if he planned on going out again once the sun set and the vampires came out to play and really, she always felt somewhat awkward discussing anything of importance on the phone. So after showering and changing, Olivia dumped the beef and potato casserole into tupperware and headed out. The sun was still high enough that she wasn't worried about getting stuck outdoors. It was convenient that she lived just across the park anyway. Still, as she neared Mathias's place, she slowed her steps, feeling a bit off and unsure. Was she allowed to just stop by without warning? Would he even be home? Was it weird, bringing him food? Olivia took a breath, yearned for a cigarette to calm her nerves, but took a determined step forward, deciding to just stop overthinking things and drop off the damn food. Once at his door, she knocked once and took a step back from the door, praying that his brother wouldn't answer. She was still learning how to deal with Mathias - she didn't want to have to face his younger brother just yet.

As it happened, she was in look and Mathias opened the door, looking a little surprised to see her. "Hi - erm, come in," he said, smiling a little and stepping back. That was when he noticed what she was carrying. "You... brought food," he stated, the surprise back again, along with a little bafflement.

2:38PM, Sunday, September 9
Music: Rise Against, Torches

So I slept from about eleven last night until about noon today. I fell asleep in the van, for crying out loud, because I was too tired to drive home. And then was stuck inside until it started raining and I could get home in the five minutes before the sun peeked out again. Theresa says I got sunburnt even through the clouds, but I think she's just trying to be bitchy and make me worry. I don't think I can get just a little sunburnt. I'll just ash up and die, or something.

New thought.

Who: Doc and Synnove
Where: the Martens home
When: late night

Who: Herbert and Judiel
Where: Judiel's apartment
When: Early evening

With dinner eaten, a video game or two played-- with Herbert still soundly defeated, though he didn't care at all and lost with a smile-- and duckling surreptitiously fed behind a closed door and then put back to bed, Herbert was faced with Olivia's tupperware of casserole and the promised trip to Judiel's to give it to him. He wasn't sure it wouldn't put him square in the middle of a lover's spat, but he'd promised, and he did kind of want to know how Judiel was doing about it all. And know, if he could subtly sniff it out, whether he really did hate Olivia.

Privately, Herbert doubted it. Hate was strong, and Judiel didn't seem the hate type.

Who: Helen and Sammy
Where: The grocery store
When: Mid-afternoon

There was a dire need of more soap. Well, maybe it wasn't dire, but Geo and Sammy did need it - at least they needed non-spiced soap, as currently the only stuff to be found was loaded with mace, clove and cayenne pepper, and when it got into cuts it stung like a mother. Sammy shoved his hands in his pockets, playing with the bills and coins as he wandered through the aisles aimlessly with the basket held in the crook of his arm, edge resting against his hip. Already in the basket were two loaves of bread for the ducklings who had hatched earlier, and a box of cereal, and oh, look, there was the soap. ...and Helen? Sammy couldn't help the surprised choking sound that escaped him as he took a step back quickly.

Packing was a bitch. Unpacking was even worse - they had nothing to eat. At all. Helen had drawn the short straw, so, well, here she was. She'd had to exert herself in the liquor aisle, not to blow the whole wad of bills in her trousers on beer. She heard a small sound as she added a bottle of soap to her cart - and when she looked up, her dark eyes narrowed to slits. "...Sam? What the hell are you doing here?"

Who: Herbert and Olivia
When: Late Afternoon
Where: Apartment

Olivia had gotten home a bit earlier, thanks to a ride from Dexter, and had gone about putting the food away before taking another shower to ease the tension and curling up on the couch with her journal. After writing a lengthy couple of pages in her journal and feeling incredibly refreshed, Olivia went into the kitchen and set about making something to eat, unsure as to where Herbert had gone. Maybe she could try to make a veggie casserole or something and put it in the freezer, then he would just have to put it in the oven later when he got home. It sounded like a good idea, so she got to work, placing a pot of water onto the stove to boil. It was rainy, and dreary, but she was feeling okay. A lot better actually, after having written in her journal and coming to some pretty cemented conclusions about what to do with herself. In fact, she could feel a tiny smile forming on her lips every now and then, despite dreading what she knew she would have to do eventually. No matter. If she thought too much about it, she might revert back to cowardice, and that was something she was determined not to do. Slicing through a couple carrots, Olivia popped a piece in her mouth and refocused her attention solely on Herbert's dinner.

It had been a much better afternoon than Herbert had expected. Charlie had been happy, despite everything; it had been good to see Peyton; and he had a duck! A little baby duck that looked dwarfed in the palm of his hand, but that he carried carefully the whole ride home. It-- she, Edna, if Sammy was to be believed, and he had no reason not to believe him; she smelled a little female-ish, maybe-- was sound asleep when he climbed the stairs, so he tried to do so carefully and quietly.

Who: Herbert and Peyton
Where: Peyton's House
When: Early afternoon, 1:30ish

Peyton was finally taking a break from focusing completely on werethings and vampires. She was sitting at her piano, trying to do nothing but pay attention to the notes she was playing. It had been a surreal couple of weeks. Everything seemed to have completely unraveled when Isaac disappeared and now she was pretty sure nothing was going to be the same again. She wasn't quite sure how to feel about it, or what to think. It was a new experience, frightening and a bit exciting - the non-scary stuff. People she knew were beginning to tell her things she would have scoffed at weeks before, but how could she not believe them now? Now that she's seen David, and Geo shift, and Thom and Isaac perform magic? She had to believe now, didn't she? Peyton shook her head, reminding herself that she wasn't thinking about that right now. All she was going to think about was playing music and pretending to be a normal teenage girl, completely oblivious to everything going on outside the sanctuary of her own home. Just for a few more minutes... and then she would go back to blatantly worrying about it.

Oblivious, himself, to how he was likely to upset his friend's moment of not-thinking-about-it, Herbert was cycling slowly up to Peyton's house, mostly just coasting and sitting back, one hand on the handlebars and the other cradling the newly-hatched duckling against his chest to keep it warm. He was wet-- he'd ridden through a spat of rain on his way over that had the duckling shaking its downy little feathers and quack-peeping in surprise-- but he didn't particularly care. He was in a much better mood now than he had been before, and a little rain wasn't going to spoil that.

Dismounting and setting the bicycle against the porch steps-- fun to do one-handed-- Herbert climbed the stairs and shook himself off a little once in front of the door before knocking. He'd probably make an interesting picture: still bruised, hair and shirt plastered down with rain, and a tiny, dozing duck on the palm of one big hand.

Who: Herbert and Sammy
Where: Williams' house
When: 11:47 a.m.

The night previous Sammy had crashed, and crashed hard. The caffeine and sugar had worked it's way out of his system and sent him crashing into the couch cushions as soon as Geo had worked his hair out of the braids. The rest had been welcome, and unlike the night before he'd slept without waking -- scratch that, he'd slept. His body was so tired that by the time he woke up Sunday it was 11:30 in the morning. Sammy swung his legs over the edge of the couch and pushed himself up, rubbing at his hip where the cellphone in his shorts' pocket had been pressing up against it as he stumbled into the laundry room to check on the eggs still nestled in the blankets. He blinked, stopped rubbing his hip, and fumbled for the phone which thankfully had enough battery power for him to send off a text to Herbert.

Water's broken! It said. Two small funny words. The power on the phone died - it had been on for days now - as Sammy fell to his knees beside the basket with a wide, sunny, happy grin.

Who: Herbert and Charlotte with animal and mother cameos :)
Where: Charlotte's house!
When: Late morning

Though he'd only actually been to Charlie's house once, Herbert didn't have any trouble finding it again. The whole evil-cat incident had rather firmly engraved its location in his brain, even if he wasn't already good at that sort of thing. He wished he could be coming over in some situation that didn't involve worrying about whether she was safe, though. They needed to just hang out, sometime, without migraines or evilness or stress. Yes, there definitely needed to be less stress.

After parking his bicycle beside the porch, Herbert climbed the steps to knock on the door. He didn't really look any better than he had the day before, as the bruises were just changing different colors and he had just replaced the band-aids on his neck with fresh ones rather than foregoing them altogether, but at least the Charlie-smell about the place made him smile.

Who: Brian, Domino, and Marlowe
Where: A house somewhere off of 41
When: Ten-ish

Rain drummed the roof of the log house, flickers of light blinked through the unshaded windows on the first floor. The place had been the home of Edyta and Drew Thompson, and their two teen age sons. The place was theirs no longer as a small handful of vamps had been able to coax their way into the house. With the family mutilated and fed from, their lifeless bodies left scattered on in the front yard, the vampires made the place their own. A place to torture, feed and kill their victims, with an occasional turning thrown in to keep their numbers up.

Who: Herbert and Stacey
Where: The phone, yays
When: Morning, around 9

One of the people Herbert hadn't gotten in touch with yet was Stacey, and as he had time this morning-- and didn't feel quite as much like he'd throw up at every little thought of biting things, and so thought maybe it was safe to talk to more people without getting into badness-- he set about to remedy that. After he plugged his number, along with others, into his cell phone, at last.

The phone he called from was still the house line, however. He was definitely not going to rack up expensive minutes on the cell phone until he had a job to cover it, and that was that. He punched in her number and waited hopefully for Stacey, or someone in the house anyway, to pick up.

Who: Brian and Domino
Where: By the side of the 41
When: 7:45 or so

There were, Brian had discovered, much worse things than having to go out in the rain to pick up someone. Even worse than doing so in the pouring rain. Or while in fear of vampires and what he might find when he got there. Much worse.

Who: Joshua and Lullaby
When: late night
Where: Osbourne house

Lullaby felt shakey. All over. She didn't know if she was shaking, but she felt like she was. It had hurt again, in a vague sort of way, when she'd come back to life. Just drawing that first breath made her chest hurt, though everything else was perfect. Sean had picked her up and she'd had a few brief moments to be amazed at the fact that she was being carried. By someone who was flying, and then it had been over. There weren't the gunshots from when she'd cut out, just...one second the world had been full of awful badness, and then it was all silent and hushed. To say she wasn't sure what to do would have been understating it. Her mind was a mess, not sure what to latch onto or even if she should. She didn't even know where she'd been brought in at, but there was Joshua there. That filtered through better.

Who: Doc and Mourning Star
Where: basement, the Martens home
When: immediately after this

Who: Dean and Joshua
When: a little before dark
Where: the Osbourne house

Joshua had slept some, in a light and shitty kind of way, helped out here and there where he could, and felt quite a bit better when Oz had given him a job for the night. He could be a lookout, he was fine with that. At least it wasn't being stuck down in the basement all night, which was what he'd half-expected to be told. So instead he was going to be upstairs with a walkie-talkie, working on spotting the vamps where he could. It would at least keep him occupied until the twenty-four hour mark rolled around and he started watching for Lullaby instead. Once she was safe ... back to the vampires -- if any showed up, he hoped to god they didn't. There was a bit of time left, though, and Joshua found himself walking through the house, sort of masochistically looking for Dean.

Dean was in Thia's room. Sophie and he hadn't been back for very long - he was sure that she'd kept him out of the house for most of the day on purpose in an effort to keep his mind off things, or some bullshit like that. Whatever - like that was going to work. But they'd had to be home well before dark and he'd driven them back about half an hour ago - successfully managing to not crash at all. Which was a triumph for his first driving lesson, as far as he was concerned. Now, though, he was unpacking her stuff that he'd picked up from Journey's, putting it all in drawers, cupboards, adding in the bags of things that Sophie had bought her on the basis that no girl could possibly survive with so little. Especially not shoes - Sophie had jumped right on the absence of shoes. It was taking a little time, but the pile he'd dumped on the bed was going down. And Dean was refusing to even consider the possibility that she wasn't coming back to use them.

Who: Kaysen and Thom
Where: Thom's basement
When: Around lunchtime

who: oz and sean
where: upstairs
when: before dark

Oz had spent most of his day helping Billy get the house into something resembling working order again. It wasn't exactly easy, and there was a lot to actually be done. Which meant while he'd gotten a bit of a nap in in the afternoon area...he'd been up the rest of the day and was going to be up the rest of the night, too. Joy. It was starting to get late, and that was when he went to find Sean, to discuss a little something he'd overheard earlier. The angel was upstairs, mending the window he'd broken through the night before, and Oz entered the game room, then shut the door behind himself. Walking over, he leaned back against the wall. "I'd like to have a discussion." he said. And it wasn't necessarily a 'can we' sort of deal. He wasn't sounding hostile or anything, just firm.

Sean wasn't exactly doing a great job of the window, and he was aware that Billy could have probably done a much better job, but the handyman was elsewhere and Sean didn't like the idea of there being an open window - even if it was several stories up. Anyway, it had been raining on and off all day and so he'd taken a couple of sheets of ply and some nails and had been boarding it up when Oz turned up. He finished nailing (crookedly) the final corner of the sheet in place before turning to the guy. "Sure," he said, easily. "What's up?"

Who: Sean and Joshua
When: early morning
Where: Osbourne house

who: seph and syn
where: streets/their house
when: night

Synnove flicked her wrist to snap the chambers back into place on her revolver, and fired off a quick two rounds at the blurred vamp barreling down on her and Seph. There were spent shells littering the sidewalk around them, and good goddamn, didn't these things run out of soldiers? Seriously. How many of the fuckers were in the woodwork here to come jumping out at them? It was getting tiring--which meant they'd been at it for a while.

Seph blinked a stinging bit of sweat out of his eyes as his pistol moved in a different direction and fired again, the two special rounds turning the vampire's head into red mist and bone chunks. He aimed at another one's kneecaps, and dry-clicked on the second squeeze. It didn't drop the thing completely, and he cursed internally, one hand dropping quickly to find another clip as the fingers of the other flicked the switch to drop the spent one out.

Who: Marlowe and Brian
Where: Phone call
When: 7ish

"Eldon, will you please get back in the damn car. All you're managing to accomplish is getting soaked down to the bone." Marlowe leaned over to yell out the crack of the window while she fiddled with her cell. The red head was trying to accomplish two things at once. Convince her brother to just give it up and get his ass back in the car, and get a call placed. A call that in the midst of her swinging her attention between her brother outside getting drenched through and through, and making a call to a neighbor somehow had gotten misdialed and misdirected, and ended up being placed to Brian's residence.

The siblings had been on their way back to Marquette. Things in Munising had run longer then they anticipated, which had the Evanses running behind on their return trip to the small town. And the light rain shower that started just as they were leaving didn't help things in any way. On things from then on only seemed to get worse. The rain got heavier the closer they got to Marquette, and then on top as they neared the town limits, the Impala started to sputter and then chose to just up and die. The numerous turns of the ignition got the same result. Nothing. Just the sound of the key turning in the ignition. Not a sound emitted from the engine that would signal that it might be trying to kick over with the futile attempts.

Who: Brian and Hunt
Where: Hunt's house
When: 1:30PM

On top of everything else, the world had to go and ruin Brian's day even more. First, he was hungover, exhausted, tense, bored at the diner as so very few people came in, alone in the kitchen because Olivia hadn't come in and nobody else really wanted to chat, and itching to call people again and pester them to make sure they were okay. The icing on the cake, to make all of that worse? It was raining.

Who: Eddie and Seph
When: mid afternoon
Where: in town

Hunting had been good to the twins the night before. If he was going to be completely honest, Seph was having the time of his life. It was such a rush, the way they worked together, the general ease in which they took down the godforsaken bastards. They'd come away again only with minor cuts and bruises and hot guns, and he was getting encouraged that maybe they -- combined with the other 'vigilantes' he was hearing about -- could drive this menace out of town. Maybe. In any case, even with Doc temporarily out of commission, they were doing awesome. After waking up around noon and just relaxing for a while, Seph found that he was famished. So he put on some clean clothes, and headed into town to hunt down some food, if he could. The whole town had been thrown into panic-mode, and he was sure the grocery stores were either insane or still cleaned out, and he wasn't sure what was open. But he was going to find out.

Eddie had rolled into town just behind the edge of dawn, trusting the sunrise to keep him safe as he stuffed his car in a parking garage, shot up, and fell into a deep sleep that only lasted a handful of hours. Like Seph, he'd woken around noon and decided to spend his first chunk of the day relaxing. Unlike Seph, there was no clean clothing to pull on, no hunger to quell, and not much money to do so even if he was famished. He'd left his car behind, locking his guitar case full of tools and components in the trunk but taking the other with him as he hit the streets. Just like in Wisconsin, the skies were ashy overhead. Unlike there, though, there were still signs of life. The town was standing even if there wasn't a lot of foot traffic, and Eddie was taking it as a good sign. There was definitely more life outside a little grocery he passed by, but you didn't need any extra perceptions to see the fear gripping this place.

who: thom and kaysen
where: the treehouse
when: morning

Kaysen was not in a good mood. She hadn't slept well, she'd had a bad night, and generally speaking, she was of the opinion that Everything Sucked. So when dawn had hit, she'd left, being very quiet about it, but she did in fact take off. she'd considered going inside her house, back up to her room to sleep or something, but in the end decided she probably wouldn't do that anyways. So she'd climbed up into the treehouse, and sat up there, curled up with her hoodie pulled over her knees, arms hugging them, even her hood up as she sort of glared out at the dreary world. She could see little lines of smoke in between the leaves, and tried to resist the urge to push the branches back to see them better.

That she managed...she probably wouldn't see the source anyways, she'd probably just see more smoke, and have it pounded home even better that the world had gone to hell. She was really heavily down in her own mind, not paying attention to most of her surroundings as she brooded.

Thom had missed Kaysen leaving - once dawn had come, his guard had dropped somewhat and with the texts from Leija and generally being dead on his feet, he'd headed up out of the basement to brew some really, really strong coffee. It was only when he'd down his first cup and poured himself another that he realised that she was missing. So, he went looking for her, carrying a couple of mugs of coffee and some granola bars that would pass for breakfast. In actual fact, the tree house was one of the first places he looked - mostly because he doubted she'd hang around his house and he didn't particularly want to face her parents, so down the garden seemed like a plan. And he was rewarded by the sight of Kaysen-feet, though obviously drawn well back. "Can I come up?" he called. "I have coffee and, er, breakfast," he offered, suddenly realising that he didn't actually know whether she drank coffee or not. Oh well.

who: eury and aiden
where: downtown
when: after vampy doom starts

Who: Dean and Jordan
Where: In town
When: Early afternoon

Apparently Sophie was going to be taking longer than she'd initially thought, which left Dean wandering round town. Really, he thought that it was a conspiracy to get him out of the hose. He wasn't stupid, he could imagine Oz and Sophie deciding that him hanging around the house waiting to see if Thia would come back would be 'bad for him' and so he'd been lulled into town under the pretence of a driving lesson and then left to wander. Which was what he was currently doing, looking in shop windows and trying to figure things out. Things looked... odd... to him - some of the stores were closed, others boarded up. Signs of the nighttime troubles Marquette was experiencing. A whole lot of Not Good.

He wandered until he turned a corner - and promply walked in to someone - he really should look where he was going.

Who: Dean and Caleb
Where: Park Ramp, center of town
When: Around midday

Who: Dean and Oz
Where: Their House
When: Sunrise

When dawn came, Oz had still been outside gathering up bits of Lullaby. The vamps had retreated a while ago, after he and Billy had gone out to pick as many off as they could. Which was probably one of the most awful things he'd had to do in a good long while. Or...possibly around ever. He'd fought things, he'd seen awful shit, but gathering pieces of a teenage girl that was killed on your lawn...that wasn't pleasant. Especially when he'd kind of liked her in the first place. Either way, he was doing it, because it didn't seem right not to. He was still tracking some pieces down when he noticed something weird going on.

He'd laid her body over by the porch, not sure where else to put it quite yet, but as he watched, dawn starting to shine a little brighter now, he could see her...fading out. Almost like the breeze that was blowing across her corpse was blowing away ashes. He padded over, but it happened pretty fast. One minute she was there, then next...poof. Blinking a few times, he stared then slowly started to squint his bad eye shut more, with the morning light getting brighter. Unable to do anything else but stand there staring, he turned, and headed back inside. Once in there, he ducked into the bathroom and shifted back to his human form, throwing clothes on and ignoring all the aches and pains screaming at him.

"Sunshine, I'm going to go let the boys out..." he started, sounding distracted. He'd tell her in a second about the magic disappeary body. Then he padded barefoot down the steps, keys still in his pocket since he hadn't left them down there. He walked over to the cage, and unlocked it, more or less standing back just in case there was something inordinately violent going to happen...though he kind of doubted it. Best safe, though.

Hey, George, it's Syn.. I just wanted to check in to make sure you were alright, and you got your family to safety and the like. I'm still fine, though the town's obviously still fucked. Call me back.

who: eben and stacey
where: downtown
when: noon

Eben was decidedly confused. It was difficult, walking around town, watching all the lines of chaos and where they led back to. Whatever was going on in town had the lines going fucking insane. He'd never seen it before. It was like chaos had just wandered into town, pissed all over the place, and hung out for a while. It was far more concentrated than he was used to, that was for damn sure.

Who: Leija and Thom
When: a little after dawn
Where: across phone lines

Another sleepless night, with the TV staying on the news channels, muted and close-captioned so her dad could sleep in the single bed next to her's. She'd been lucky and hadn't been called out. Very lucky. But that didn't stop her stomach from feeling like someone had jerked ten or twelve knots in it. Leija had left the gauzy curtains on the window open, so she could watch the sky. Once it had lightened, as promised, Caleb called to check in. Which was a relief in and of itself. The exchange was brief, but he was okay. After hanging up, her thumb hovered over the contact list. Thom had said she could check in, so that was what she'd do.

You ok? -L

Short and simple. She put the phone down and hugged her knees to her chest, glancing at the clock and waiting -- or hoping to the point of nausea, whatever you wanted to call it -- for a reply. Waiting was the absolute shittiest.