CLOSED

[shambler]

WHO | R and Daniel Jackson [Closed]
WHAT | R wanders away from the Cornucopia and runs into his very first archaeologist
WHEN | The night of the Cornucopia run
WHERE | The Indiana Jones ride - before the boarding area
WARNINGS / NOTES | Zombie attack stuff, probably R losing a body part.

R shuffled. Shambled. Did it even matter at this point?

All he knew was he got tired of listening to his shoes scrape across the ground, day in and day out, this background noise grating against his skull. Every morning R he told himself today, today is the day he won’t drag his feet, he’ll pick them up and walk with his head held high. Today turned into tomorrow. Tomorrow turned into never. R continued to drag his feet.

One of them caught on the rubble. It slid and flopped.

He guessed his ankle was broken. After the Cornucopia most of the Tributes scattered on him, leaving R to pick a direction and hope he could find food there. The blood on his face dried, flaking off as R scrubbed at his mouth almost self-consciously with the back of his hand. The hunger pulled him in different directions. Every now and then R stopped, listened, looked both ways and sniffed at the air. Followed the tug like a leash. The zombie’s head flopped back down to staring at the ground – or nothing at particular – as he let that leash lead him on, lost in his thoughts.

R knew in the back of his mind he was being a wuss. The thing to do was man up, cross his heart and say he ate his last meal, honest.

Eventually it occurred to him that stumbling out in the open wasn’t getting him anywhere. As evening fell on Disneyland, he didn’t see anyone wandering in the shadows. Just him. The one dead guy out here. Great. He was lonely all over again. R briefly wondered where Karis went. Knowing her, he bet she had no problems chowing down by herself. Karis struck him as that kind of overachiever.

The pyramid in the distance rose above overgrown trees, drawing R’s attention. Between the Living scent trail and the fact he hadn’t seen a pyramid in…forever, R decided he might as well try there. It was night by the time he crossed the border into Adventure Land, an hour later before he arrived at his destination. The broken foot slowed him down. His dislocated shoulder jiggled.

“IND__NA JON_S” the gate’s sign said, washed out by the elements.

R stared up at it (yup, still illiterate), shrugged, and headed in.

Comments

[hi_there_aliens]

Hours earlier, one of the Tributes had made their way inside, stopping for a moment to grimace at the gate sign that could only have read "Indiana Jones".

The sneezing had stopped. Thank God. But it had cost him a chance at the supplies, and once he saw the fights that had broken out around him, Daniel found that supplies were the last thing on his mind. Maybe there weren't weapons provided, but some of the Tributes were doing their damnedest to kill with their bare hands. Tributes were snatching up bags left and right and booking it. And there were those who weren't. At first, Daniel could only stare, rooted into place. It was one thing to get caught in battle, get shot at, to see the toll the Goa'uld took on their slaves. It was another to see a such a bloodbath. Screams and swears filled the air, gurgling and cries of pain. With it came the same heavy iron smell of blood. Daniel could see it in their eyes. There wasn't any trying to reason with some of these Tributes: what mattered to them was only their survival, or killing because something got off on it, and no amount of words was going to change it.

He had to move away, before the bloodbath included him.

Daniel had clumsily turned, eyes still dry, stinging, and taken off. He had to find shelter. That was one of the big rules for survival; shelter, water. Food you could do without for some time, but he needed to find some place where he could grab sleep, someplace safe from someone stabbing him in the back, and better yet, somewhere he could have the space to think.

The archaeologist settled on what looked like a good place, maybe because there was a very passing familiarity to it, and that whispered safety. A crumbling pyramid-like structure, but certainly not accurate to any pyramid he'd ever seen. Jungle, real and fake seemed to press in, digging away at the decaying structure. He could have sworn this wasn't there when he'd gone to Disneyland. A lot's changed, Daniel thought bitterly, Indiana Jones rides, teacups, and battles to the death. Welcome to the happiest place on Earth.

Daniel didn't go inside at first. Instead, he trotted around the perimeter, then somewhat satisified, slowly made his way inside. It seemed empty so far. And while deteriorated, not nearly so bad that he had to fear the place collapsing around him while he slept. The first hour, Daniel searched high and low around the entrance and that of what had to be the Jungle Cruise. It was another twenty minutes when he located metal that was suitable and looked like it could be broken off at a weak point. Daniel worked on it, wrapping the cape several times around his hand. Back and forth, back and forth, and all the while, he waited for another Tribute to come out and catch him unawares. Daniel nearly cut himself looking back over his shoulder for the fortieth time when the metal came off at last. The metal piece was sharp enough that maybe he could defend himself if he had to.

Daniel returned as soon as he could into the dark entrance of the pyramid, and then, ventured a little deeper inside. He didn't let the entrance completely out of sight; better to have at least one exit in mind than trap himself inside. The archaeologist, wrapping the metal up in the cape, eventually squeezed all six feet of him into an alcove. He pulled over some of the lighter rubble to block the sight of his legs hanging out. It wasn't comfortable, but most of him was protected. Daniel lay back and stared into the darkness, waiting for sleep to fall. He kept a grip on the metal, laying it across his chest.

[shambler]

R bumped his way down the curving halls. It was new enough to make even him look around like a gawking tourist, his mouth dropped open as he lurched deeper into the fake caves.

He might've been here when he was alive. Heavy emphasis on might. R couldn't recall any specific memories - no faces - but he remembered...he didn't know, a ton of waiting. The impression of standing with the sun beating against his shoulders, waiting in line, then waiting to get back in line. A deep voice. Something about a bumpy ride? It blurred together.

Story of his life.

The zombie pressed on ahead, sometimes running his shoulders against the wall whenever his steering went sideways, which seemed to happen a lot with the bum foot. He paused a few times, sniffing, nostrils flaring. Life. One of the Tributes? Worth a look. It wasn't like R had better things to do with his time. He followed it more urgently than before, not caring it was dark and creepy or that there was a weird, musty odor in the air that should've hit all his Danger, Will Robinson buttons if he was breathing.

R only pressed in deeper. Eventually the scent of Living was so strong that he sped up, shuffling closer eagerly. Maybe this time he could feed and get it over with. R even let out a low groan, the kind that would send any respectable Living scurrying for their shotguns, but listening, he didn't hear any other sounds. Maybe he was asleep?

He totally was, R realized as he came into view. Sneezy, the nerdy guy with glasses he eyeballed back at the Cornucopia, was crammed into a corner, barely visible except for his leg hanging out. R didn't waste time. He was so stupidly hungry that he went for the first thing he could get his hands on.

R fell on his boot, gnawing away at the leather, and starting to leak black fluid all over it as he reopened his wounds from the Cornucopia. His eyes didn't roll up. They focused on nothing, past nothing, waiting for that spark when he hit payday.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel couldn't tell when he'd fallen asleep exactly. There had been times back on Abydos and on Earth when he'd been so exhausted that he'd known he'd knock out within seconds of lying down. You had an idea of what to expect. This one crept up on him. One moment he'd been lying, wedged into a space that would have been uncomfortable if he hadn't spent a good deal of time squeezing himself into all kinds of ruins, and a scent of rot and mold ontop of that, and the next moment... he seemed to hover that line between dreaming and half-asleep, that kind that ultimately had you waking up twice as tired as when you set down, and not entirely sure you'd ever fallen asleep in the first place.

There was a pressure on his foot. Daniel tried to nudge it off. How was he supposed to think up a good way to get the fighting to stop when the mastadges seemed to gravitate towards him, shuffling through the sand and snuffling. Maybe they caught a whiff of something. Daniel tried to feel around his clothes, to make sure he hadn't any food on him, but his clothes felt too tight, pressing in. Probably a lot like how Lara's dress had felt. Okay, maybe not that much. He could still breathe.

No, no food on him. His stomach rumbled, and weren't hunger and thirst not a thing for dreaming? Anyway, the best solution that he could come up with, that would both cause the Games to fail and to embarrass the Capitol would be a non-violent protest; all Tributes sat down and refused to participate. Unfortunately, that meant everyone had to trust each other. Unfortunately, that required a way to getting everyone in on this, some way to communicate with them all, which he didn't have yet.

...And unfortunately - Daniel was starting to dislike the word, namely because it felt like all his options were starting out like that - that was if the Capitol didn't have a way to discourage that before it got off the ground or assuming the plan could work, that they didn't try to force the Tributes' hands on the matter.

And he could think a lot better if it didn't feel like his boot was trying to fly itself off his foot. Daniel mumbled, eyes starting to flutter open.

[shambler]

R was busy trying to work up a drool when Sneezy mumbled.

His eyes drifted up, checking to see if the Living man was going to wake up but knowing that even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. He’d still keep chewing. It would just be a lot more awkward if Sneezy woke up. If there was a good way to die, doing it in your sleep was the best way to go in R’s opinion. Peaceful, not filled with those last seconds of blood and fear, and seeing a dead guy fishing through guts and that was when the shrieking usually started. Don’t wake up. Sleep through it, R prayed. The smart thing to do was stop chewing, force his way into the alcove and rip out Sneezy’s throat. Nice and quick.

He wouldn’t even know what hit him.

For some reason R was fixated on the boot, though. Don’t ask him why. He continued to jerk, tug, and drip black oil. R’s eyes took on that far away look again. The zombie worried at the boot, trying to puncture the leather, enjoying the feeling of finally chewing on something that wasn’t flailing into his face. Or kneeing him in the crotch. Or trying to scream him deaf. Not that it hurt. He wished it did, sometimes. Teething on something made him feel better. So long as R kept himself busy he could forget, only not really, the people screaming and bleeding because of him.

Talk about a hypocrite.

He didn’t notice Sneezy shifting in his sleep. R was too busy teething away, his good hand grabbing the man’s calf and half-dragging himself closer, his bite attempts starting to become more urgent. There were only seconds before he worked his way up past the boot…

[hi_there_aliens]

Something was pressing against his foot. There again, but at the side of the foot. It left off for a moment. Daniel, half-asleep, waited. Then it returned. It had the tip of his boot, shaking his leg about like a dog trying to snarl open an especially air-tight container, roughly twisting it about. There was the sensation of grit digging against his back as he dragged an inch of the shelter. Daniel came awake suddenly, eyes snapping open.

It took less than a second to take it all in. There was a man, the same pale one who had been staring at him back at the Cornucopia. Now that he was looking at him face to face, it wasn't so much a pale look as a lifeless look to his skin. In the dim light, there was a feral look to his grey eyes, almost animal-like with the way they glinted as he twisted his head. One white hand scrabbled to get a purchase on his calf. A thick, black fluid was all over one of his boots where the Tribute's mouth had been.

And hadn't he just been mentioned to Enjolras the possibility of cannibalism in the Arena? It was one thing to mention it in passing. It had been more of an academic exercise than anything else. One thing to accept the possibility. Another to find a Tribute already gunning for it. No amount of years in the field or weeks of the training Jack had made him go through to let him on SG-1 could prepare Daniel for waking up to this. Frustrated by the boot, the Tribute heaved upwards, mouth opening and looking for somewhere easier. Yellowed teeth suddenly peeked out, bloodied and with bits of meat stuck in them.

Daniel yelped in surprise, and flailed, kicking out at the man to get him off.

[shambler]

It was as if R was subconsciously sabotaging himself. That had to be it. He could've easily killed this man in his sleep. Fed in peace and quiet. Spared both of them the inconvenience. Instead he went for the boot like a newbie.

Corpse priorities. Awesome life choices weren't exactly a thing for him these days.

R was about to sink his teeth in Sneezy's thigh when the man jerked awake, yelled bloody murder, and then kicked out. With the boot he'd been teething on. Right at R's face. At close range. The zombie didn't even think to dodge. The boot slammed into his face, his nose broke, part of his cheek bone shattered and – a big gaping nothing. Uh? Suddenly R couldn't see out one side as something almost casually popped out of his eye socket. It dangled against his cheek. Whatever it was, it was still attached to his face, if only barely, a squishy wet thing brushing against his skin as R staggered backward into a fake rock pillar. More of that black sludge he called blood oozed down his ruined cheek.

It dawned on him, then, what happened:

Sneezy kicked his eye out.

R had no idea you could even do that. Now he knew. And they said zombies couldn't learn new things.

The zombie swung toward where he last saw the Tribute, disoriented between the eye flopping against his face and his broken ankle that was two seconds away from going “screw this” and calling it a day. Where was he? R hunched his shoulders as he made a blind rush at what looked like a man’s shadow, his hand trying to claw around for purchase.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel felt the sickening crunch more than he heard it. The wild kick had hit home.

That had been bone cracking, he was sure of it. For a sickening moment, Daniel was sure that he'd killed the other Tribute. The other Tribute staggered back, and Daniel took the opportunity while he had it. He immediately squeezed out, the sharp metal in its cloth wrapping, digging into his palm as he wormed his tall frame out of the gap. Daniel turned as soon as he could, afraid of what he'd find.

What he found was almost as bad as actually killing the man. The Tribute swung drunkenly on what must be a broken ankle (not his work, Daniel was sure of it), and a face with one side that looked slightly mushy, caved in. The same black fluid that was on his boot now trailed down the Tribute's face. Worst of all was the eyeball that hung clear out of its socket, swinging and flopping like a pendulum.

The archaeologist's stomach gave a running flip flop.

"Oh shit." Daniel bit back the urge to ask if he was okay. Of course he wasn't okay! And he got the impression that the Tribute both didn't give a damn, not really, about it, and that he certainly didn't have Daniel's interests in mind, even if he hadn't meant to hurt him like that, only get him away. Daniel sidled out of the way, sliding against the wall. The Tribute kept coming for him, hand out stretched and fingers clawing in what was a sick parody of Marco Polo.

[shambler]

R turned on his good heel, trying to listen. An impression of movement ghosting past. A boot scuffing against the floor.

The breathed "oh shit" gave Sneezy away.

The zombie lunged forward, knocked his hand up against the wall, and began trying to follow the sounds of someone Living trying to escape in the dark, his one good eye wide and searching. R tried to ignore the other one. He continued to pursue the other Tribute in the dark, sometimes broken up by holes in the ceiling that let in dim moonlight, his shuffling gait speeding up. It wasn't quite a run, but he was definitely trying to put his back into it.

[hi_there_aliens]

He could see when the guy knew then where he'd gone, despite the injury. His shuffling pace began to speed up.

Daniel's bruised side gave a twinge of protest as he slid past the Tribute. He pushed his hand flat on the wall, and began to make his way as quickly as he could. The place was dark enough, decayed enough, that it would be dangerous to break into a run. If he fell through somewhere or got stabbed or anything, he'd be a sitting duck. The other Tribute would have all the time in the world to get what he wanted.

So he forced himself to move carefully but as quickly as he could, setting a speed walk. Steady and careful did nothing for him when his nerves were just about fried. Daniel could hear the shuffling and groaning coming up behind him, like he had a glorified zombie on his tail-

...No. No way. Daniel looked back, and sure enough, the Tribute was pursuing him doggedly. The pale moonlight caught his features, pale as the dead, lank hair and colorless eyes that glinted in the moonlight. The dangling eyeball swayed. He stepped forward on his broken ankle, staggered, and kept going.

It was enough to put the disbelief out to pasture. Daniel doubled his pace, and hoped he hadn't made a wrong turn somewhere in his panic.

At last, moonlight. He only had a few more feet to go.

[shambler]

And now...it was down to this. The slowest chase in history. This kind of thing happened more often than he wanted to admit.

R wanted to sigh. The part of him that wasn't going crazy with that hunger shriveling all his dead organs in on themselves wished he could access the part of him that somehow ran only a few days ago with Julie.

That or he learned to stop teething. It was one of the bad habits M used to get on his case about. "Stop teething. Stop playing with your food, for Christ's sake," M used to nag, "Just stick it in your mouth and eat". Okay, okay, so maybe not exactly in those words or with many words at all, but that was basically the gist of all M's long stares and pointed shoulder hunches. Maybe. Actually, now that he thought about it, R wasn't even sure. Zombies did tend to stare. That stare could mean anything. He probably would've been learning all about who Sneezy was, really, if he hadn't stopped to teeth, so maybe M had a point and a right to groan "I told you so".

R strained to hear the man moving up ahead. He was moving slow, like he was unsure of his footing, trying to keep quiet. He could hear his panted breaths several yards away, practically visualize that healthy, beating heart pumping all that blood and Life through his body demanding he steal it and do it ASAP. ASAP worked for him. R bumped against a railing as he pursued Sneezy, his good arm raised and groping, the other one dangling at his side.

Eventually they both stumbled outside, the moon peeking out of the clouds long enough for R to get a better fix on the man.

there, there's your Bengal Barbecue place, HAPPY?

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel headed for what looked like it might have been someone's idea of a tiki hut/tower complete with fake bamboo barriers made for lines of people that the park obviously hadn't seen in decades. Several had fallen down, but a number remained intact, and Daniel ducked under them, and moved until he had these between him and the other guy. This wouldn't be his first choice if he'd had anyone else after him, but for a zombie (Daniel found himself trying to avoid saying the word, even then, like he still couldn't get used to the idea), it had to be the world's toughest obstacle course. Next to ladders.

And sure enough, no sooner than Daniel had straightened up, did the zombie come shambling out. The remaining grey eye locked on him, frighteningly fast.

"I don't know if you can understand me, but I don't want to fight you. I'm sorry about your eye," Daniel tried. Negotiating with a zombie mid-pursuit in a wrecked Disneyland. He never saw that coming.

Good lord, they've jumped in prices sob. :( DISNEYLAND.

[shambler]

R was hungry enough that any words he tried to force out were the usual Dead moans and choking rasps. Great. The one time someone actually tried to talk him down and - wait, did he just apologize? For defending himself?

That rocked R's world. (It didn't rock it enough to make him back down. He did appreciate the gesture, though).

He tried to say "no hard feelings" but when it came out, R thought Sneezy would be lucky to understand any of it because even to him it sounded slurred into nothing. Not one of his better, more coherent days. The zombie bumped up against the barrier, teeth exposed as he tried to swipe at Sneezy and realized he didn't have the reach for it. R tried again, just to be sure. Yup. His arms weren't suddenly longer. Frustrated, he let out a guttural moan at Sneezy, convinced he should've just gone after him at the Cornucopia in the first place.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel stared, wondering if maybe he was seeing things. Had he just tried to groan out something? As in, almost words? For a moment there, it really did almost sound like it...Or, Daniel had to lean away, thankful that the barriers held as the zombie clawed at the air, he was just responding to stimuli.

He tried one last time. "Can you understand me? Groan twice for yes, groan once for...no."

Maybe not the best test.

[shambler]

No, not it wasn't. Especially when R apparently was having a hard time counting in an orderly fashion on a good day. On a day where he was swimming in that hunger? Yeah, right. The zombie started to give his two groans, but the second one caught in his throat and just turned into a dry dead man's rasp in his chest.

R settled for another mindless swipe at Sneezy across the fake bamboo railing.

The railing, already on its way out after all this time exposed and zero maintenance, gave a dangerous creak as R lurched against it harder and harder and not even thinking about pushing his luck. The thing snapped. A splinter of it went right into his lung. R gurgled, annoyed, as he realized it was long enough that he'd have to back up, not keep clawing his way forward.

There was no blood from the entry wound. Instead, a tiny bit of black liquid, like thin mud, began to well up at the edges, almost as if getting stabbed was an afterthought and not something worth screaming his head over.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel, despite everything telling him to run, while he could and three minutes ago, waited, hoping. There had to be something in there, some part of the human he had once been. There had to be a way to communicate.

One groan bubbled out from the other Tribute. Daniel actually started to lean forward. The seconds crawled on. The other groan, come on, Daniel silently willed at him. Nothing came out. The Tribute took a swipe at the air, and there was a heart-stopping creak from the old wood as the zombie pushed against it, like ocean or sand wearing down a hard surface given time and force put at it. Slowly and surely, the wood started to crack. A sliver of it went unnoticed into the zombie's chest.

Daniel could practically taste the disappointment going down, a bitter tang. There was nothing there. No helping this Tribute. He had to go. "I'm sorry." the archaeologist said again, and then darted away, vanishing into the night.