Welcome! Foolish Mortals, to the haunted mansion, I am your host, your ghost host. (OPEN)

[whosalicewhite]

Who: Parker and OPEN
What: Parker's been living in the Haunted Mansion.  Careful of any traps.
Where: Just off NO Square, Haunted Mansion
When: Very late week three
Warnings/Notes: Well, it's Parker, so warnings are likely to come.  Also, there may be blades in those oranges.

Parker's been busy.  Even if anyone wanted to get this ride restarted, they couldn't.  Much of the mechanics, metal cables, pulleys, have been pulled out, and used to booby trap the doors.  Not that Parker's needed doors.  No, she's been living in the upper eaves, using the windows at the very, very top, to come and go. Climbing through windows is Parker's preferred method of coming and going.  She has jury-rigged a harness to make climbing easier.

She tried sleeping in the coffin the first night, but discovered how awful the spider bites are.  It's easier to control the pests, cats and rats, in the eaves.

Parker's been out at night for oranges, and has chowed down on a couple of rats that got too close.  She's not been hungry much, this Hunger Games. 

She's kept an eye out for those she knows, but hasn't seen anyone, as of yet.  She's all prepared for Eliot, if he wanders by.  Either way, Parker is watching, and sees this area as hers: likely not the best idea.

Comments

[shambler]

Music. R never could resist music.

There are a few creaky strains coming out of the Haunted Mansion, enough to make R pause in his shuffling and crane his head. It's nowhere close to the sound quality he got used to back home because he's a snob and he's spoiled on his vinyl, but hey, it's still music. Music's music and he's always been drawn to it. If anything, he can waste a few days listening and swaying.

The zombie starts shouldering his way past the entrance of the Haunted Mansion, zeroing in on the music.

[whosalicewhite]

If Parker didn't know the oddly shuffling man was a tribute, she would've thought he was an invention of the gamemakers. How is he not dead, given that she's seen a piss-drunk Nate walk more quickly and evenly?

Not that Parker's going to believe he isn't dangerous. Most think she can break like a twig. In the last arena she was killed by a woman who made bubbles.

The first thing that will happen is he might get hit on the head with a head, well, a bust. There's the sound of a loud chain, triggered by anyone's entrance. Parker's made it so the only safe way in and out, is by climbing the outside.

[shambler]

This is probably the part where a normal person would go "oh, shit!" and duck or do anything besides stand there and take it.

The bust sends R staggering to the side. By some miracle it doesn't cave in his skull and re-kill him for good, the zombie struggling back to his feet, his eyeball popped back out and swinging against his cheek. Good job, Parker.

[whosalicewhite]

R can't see it, but Parker is making an epic face of ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Seeing how he took it, the eyeball, the stumbling, makes her feel bad. It's a hard thing for her to identify, particularly under the grossed out.

"You're supposed to duck."

Is she beating up young men without any capability of defending themselves? She chews her lip, worrying.

Lemme know if he was supposed to hear or not, I can change if not.

[shambler]

Ducking is off the table once you've died.

R isn't clutching at his head like someone should, although he's got stumbling around like a drunk down to a T. The zombie gives a kind of slow shiver at the voice, turning toward it and there's nothing accusing in his face - in fact, in the dark, there doesn't seem to be anything at all, just a curious blank. He decides to let rip with a groan then, rattling out of his chest.

He was supposed to hear her!

[whosalicewhite]

Parker doesn't have a clue of his true state, and a groan, or grunt, is sometimes how Eliot communicates. Therefore, it's not a sign as it would for more. Then again, who thinks zombie, and not, emo-kid who hides from the sun?

How he looks at her makes Parker feel worse. "Your eyeball -- it's --" she leans out to be seen, and points at her cheek.

Re: He was supposed to hear her!

[shambler]

R had a habit of seeming to be constantly looking past Parker, not actually at her. It's a Dead thing.

"I....know," R managed to groan out. He reached up, as if it was no big deal, and clumsily mashed the eyeball back in. "Your...music?"

Re: He was supposed to hear her!

[whosalicewhite]

Parker's not the best with eye contact either, so she's fine with that.

That grossed out face is back again, this time with sound effects.

"The mansion's?" Parker ducks away for a minute, and there will be a loud clunk. It's her kicking the the sometimes working, sometimes not, sound system.

For twenty two seconds, the music plays.

This has little to do with accommodating him, it just gives Parker the time to get down to the lower level, and get a better look at him. Upside-down is a perfectly valid way to look at someone.

[shambler]

Having an upside conversation is a first for R, the zombie staring with his good eye and thinking yeah, that doesn't look right in the back of his head.

At least the music's enough of a distraction. The zombie's right where she left him, swaying slightly in place and listening to those twenty-two seconds snatches of music. He'll grab any music he can get, crappy sound quality or not.

"Is there...more music?" R asks. Squint and he might even sound hopeful.

He's either looking at her expectantly, a little bit hungrily or a weird mixture of both.

[whosalicewhite]

Parker's not sure what to make of him. That whole shoving an eyeball back into his head was cool, yet gross.

Squint Parker does, but it's more to try and figure out exactly what's up with him. He sort of looks like someone who has never been outside, or understood the purpose of a washing machine -- not that Parker's own clothing is now the epitome of cleanliness.

Considering her inability to read normal people, zombie is beyond her, even if it does put her brain at risk.

"Comes on sometimes. Can't always make it work." She points towards the controls, even though they can't be seen from where they are standing.

"Electrical short in the sound system."

[shambler]

"Should...fix that," R says with a shrug, turning to watch where she's pointing. It's a vague point, he guesses, because he has no idea what he's supposed to be looking at. Anyway, he's totally not volunteering himself to go fix it: he's a corpse, that's shooting way too high. "It's...better than...nothing. You like...music?"

He peers at her with his good eye, feeling that girl squinting at him and he's wondering if he should be squinting back or something. The fact she's not bolting for the hills or curling her lip in disgust at him makes R want to try pushing his luck and...have a conversation.

R's starved for conversations. There's a point where he gets tired of shambling around and thinking about food all the time, so if he gets a chance to skip all that, he'll grab at the chance with both hands. He just has to remember no grabbing at the girl while he's at it and murdering whatever good impression he might've made.

[whosalicewhite]

"Set up the traps first like," Parker points at her eye, and then at his.

"Some." It's a truly honest answer. "I know someone who plays violin. I like that." Parker won't admit that Hardison's playing has even made her cry in the past. She's not one to easily admit to crying.

[shambler]

Yeah, the concept of traps is a bit lost on R - he knew humans used them but zombies didn't. R stares at her. He probably should be offended that trap almost brained him, but somehow he can't manage it.

"Not...bad," R says, although he's not a violin corpse himself. "Beats...the silence."

[whosalicewhite]

Parker moves her head from side to side. She's not really sure what she's noticing, but it's something. Maybe he can follow her with the eye he's just put back in his head, maybe not.

"Not not bad. Good. He's very good." She may have difficulty expressing feelings but she can discuss talents.

"You know how to fix the short?" Parker hasn't really bothered to, but if music is all he wants, then it doesn't bother her.

[shambler]

Her experiment proves that nope, his bum eye doesn't follow her around. It sits there in the socket, basically just decoration at this point.

"Fix...ing?" R has that lost patrol look, big time. "I...'m...not quali-ifi...qual..."

Getting too ambitious there. R sighs and dumbs it down so what he wants to say can get past that wall between his mind and his mouth.

"I can't...fix things. Sorry."

[whosalicewhite]

Parker shrugs. That eye thing just gets cooler the longer she looks at it.

"If you kick it, sometimes it plays." It is how she distracted him in the first place.

Maybe she can offer some hope. Besides, he's not overly chatty. That's better than most people here.

"Kick well?"

Hey, would it be cool if I maybe wrapped up the thread in a bit? Getting swamped :(

[shambler]

That sounds like pretty good mechanical advice if you asked him. R stares at her, then turns to stare the box, dented from where he assumed she was kicking it earlier.

"I'll...try." And just like that, R shambles over to the box. His kick is sloppy, barely grazing the edge and the music only stutters on before shutting off again. He'd make a crappy soccer player.

Hope this wraps it up nicely :D

[whosalicewhite]

It is a universal truth that an electronic device kicked by an angry human, will come to life briefly, in a mockery of said human's hanger.

Smaller objects are hit, or banged against a larger object.

Parker, content that dude with the weird eye isn't here to harm, will let him beat up the sound system as much as he likes.