The Sound of Bugles

[ViolentMedic]

((Russell ‘Fitz’ Fitzroy continued from This Can Only Go Well.))

The surgical mask helped hide how green Fitz was.

The cold of the island had slowed decomposition, but it had by no means stopped it. Alex had been dead for long enough that he’d long passed the rigor mortis stage, and was in the ‘bloating and being generally gross’ stage.

Fitz had put on the surgical mask and gloves. The rifle still sat next to his open first-aid kit, alongside the machete. He’d dragged Alex a little further into the room so that he could spread his kit out next to the body. So that he wouldn’t trip on whatever came out of the corpse on his way in and out.

Kaede was still there. She had stuck with Fitz, despite some brief and casual threats from him the prior night when he’d said, “Don’t touch my stuff while I’m asleep or you’ll be on the announcements the next day, okay?”

She probably hadn’t tried. Fitz was waking up at the tiniest noise nowadays, and he’d kept the gun in his arms the whole time. He’d put it down now, right next to the first-ait kit and the machete.

Other than that, much like with any other 'allies' after Cedar and Tenshi, he’d for the most part ignored her and gone about his business, but he had made no great effort to stop her from following him.

Fitz picked up the machete, and he looked at Alex’s neck. At the eyes and tongue that were bulging in death, and how the skin was tighter than ever around the collar thanks to the bloating. Fitz scrunched his nose up behind the mask, picked up the machete, and tapped it lightly at a spot on the neck inches below where the collar was now stuck.

The announcements crackling to life over the island caused Fitz to make a quick turn away from the corpse in favour of retrieving his manual to write the next lot of deaths down.

“I better write this down before my hands get all sticky,” he said outloud, more to the squirrel puppet in his pocket than Kaede, his tone slightly strained.

He adjusted the mask to block out the smell before writing the tally marks next to today’s killers – no names this time, no new killers. Most of the newer ones had also been crossed out. Prior allies weren’t fairing well. Victor had been shot. Adam had been pushed off a ledge. Dawn had walked into a danger zone.

When Lily came up, and the reason for it, Fitz did pause in his notes. He blinked a few times, then continued writing while murmuring, “I hope it was worth it, girl,” under his breath.

As he wrote ‘BKAx3’ next to Kitty’s name, the explosion rang out.

Massive and ear-splitting across the island. Fitz dropped his piece of charcoal and the manual, not even reaching to pick them back up again as he stared upwards, hands instinctively going back to hover over the rifle.

Shouts. Then silence, except for an explosion that still faintly echoed in the air before fading away.

“...Whoa!” he shouted after several seconds of silence, falling backwards into a sitting position and still staring upwards. Hands in the air, he turned his attention finally to Kaede, eyes wide. "You heard that, right?!"

[decoy73]

((Kaede Tsurumi continued from This Can Only Go Well))

She was wrong. It was that bad. The idea of killing people still made her a bit uneasy, but now it was more an issue of actually doing it rather than steeling herself up to do it. Besides, the guy had already been dead for a while. It was the fact that Fitz had decided to perform a beheading, like there was some trophy involved, and it was making Kaede simply ... avert her eyes. Yeah, that was it. She was going to avert her eyes and forget that this was happening. The only that that had even paused it was the daily announcement that gave the usual - Kitty had killed, Salem had killed.

Lily Larsen broke the rules ... somehow. Dawn had opted out. It was all hum-drum for the most part and

BOOM

Kaede flinched from her position by the wall. She would have fallen over, if not for the wall in question.

At Fitz's question, she just stared and nodded.

"Yeah."

[ViolentMedic]

“Okay. Okayokayalright. I’ve been talking to a squirrel puppet all week, thought it might have been a hallucination. I heard it, you heard it, he heard it… fuck.”

Fitz got to his feet and started pacing, wringing his hands to try and get the jitters out of them.

“Okay. That… well, that's definitely not part of their plan. Maybe someone's actually found us.”

He rubbed his gloved fingers together, then turned back to Alex’s corpse. He considered it for a moment, then instead returned to his attention to his dropped list. He picked it up and eyed it for a moment, gaze flickering across each of the killers, before he put it down to the side. He took Armand out of his pocket and placed him there to guard the list.

“Kaede, do me a solid. Just peek out the curtains and see if you see anyone, because either that’s going to make everyone calm down, or it’s going to make people go absolutely bonkers.”

As he spoke, he crouched back by Alex and picked up the machete. He glanced up again, looking around and locating the cameras, then looking down again for a few moments.

“I'll try and be quick with this. In case we gotta hustle."

[decoy73]

Kaede nodded as she went to the window and peeked out of the curtains for a good while, taking in the scenery around her, which was, in fact, all she saw. She then simply went away from the curtains and looked at Fitz.

"Nobody out there."

[ViolentMedic]

“Alright. Alrightalrightalright,” Fitz muttered. “Maybe keep looking. It's probably fine... I wouldn’t advise looking too hard over here, because it’s about to get gross.”

He gazed down at the machete, and the odd way it curved into a point at the end. Fitz’s mouth tightened behind the surgical mask, before he shifted forward and jammed one knee into Alex’s chest. He pressed his free hand into Alex’s face, digging his fingers down to try and keep the head steady. His eyes briefly twitching in revulsion and panic when he accidentally jammed one of his gloved fingers into the mouth while doing so.

“Euuuhhgggh… m’fine,” he groaned. He counted to three almost inaudibly, then continued on.

He touched the machete point to two inches under where the collar had gotten stuck, then pressed down hard with the point. Blood welled, dark and sluggish. It dripped rather than splurted. Fitz pushed the machete down, wriggling the machete when it met resistance, trying to pierce as deep as he could.

The tip of the knife scraped against something hard, and Fitz froze up. He turned his head away, though that didn’t stop the physical sensation of grinding a machete against bone, and looked at Kaede instead.

“So!” Fitz said, raising his voice as if the smell and feel of the corpse could be talked over if he was loud enough. “I’m wondering, by the way, what you’re hoping to get out of following me. I know the choices are limited by now… but there’s no way I can be high on the list.”

[decoy73]

And there was the question. Why did Kaede stick with Fitz? It had never occurred to her exactly why. Well, the answer was simple on its face, but hard to actually say without upsetting them.

"Ah ... I've been alone for the past few days. There was one alliance, but it broke up when there was this big shootout. I met up with a few other girls - Dani, Wendy, Karin Han, but Dani and Karin are dead, too. Then, I met you, Matthew, and Shawn, and none of you tried to kill me, even when you could. I guess I can live with that."

That was probably the best way to put it - the answer to Fitz's question was a slightly nicer "Because you were there." Of course, it meant that she might have to take the gun eventually when Fitz died, whether by her hand or someone else's. She was just hoping that by the time it happened, it wasn't some grand betrayal, but just an inevitability.

[ViolentMedic]

“Oh yeah,” Fitz said, his voice squeaking as he tried to keep his mind on the conversation and not on the beheading.

He gritted his teeth and let go of Alex’s head in order to push down with both hands on the machete, trying to crack through what he assumed was bone.

“Eugh. Yeah, I met Karin. She stole my gun. I traded some supplies back for it, kept things peaceful, then she ran off and got shot by Matthew. Fucking--” He put his weight on his hands, rocking left and right. “--jeez.”

There was a cracking noise, like crushing walnut shells.

“So it's the bare minimum, basically.If we’d had this conversation five minutes ago, I’d tell you what I told everyone else. I’m not protecting you. Don’t stare at my gun. Don’t point your gun at me. We’re all going to die horribly. Etcetera.”

Fitz grasped Alex’s face again and shifted where he was sitting. When he shifted the knee he’d been using to pin down the torso, it felt unpleasantly squishy in a way that living torsos didn’t. He inhaled sharply, which cut off abruptly. He sat still for a moment, all focus dedicated to not vomiting. Eleven days of breathing in reeking corpses had not made this much easier.

He turned the body a little, and started cutting around to the back.

“Thing is,” he said, picking up like he hadn’t stopped. “I’m not sure if we’re all going to die horribly any more. I don't know what to do with that information.”

[decoy73]

"Yeah. Maybe. Maybe someone's going to come." It didn't seem likely, but it did now seem, well, possible. The idea that it was possible felt ... good. No grim satisfaction, but actually good.

Of course, it didn't make what Fitz was doing in front of her any easier to behold. In fact, it has occurred to her that Kaede had absolutely no idea why Fitz was beheading a corpse.

"Uh, if you don't mind my asking," Kaede rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "Just ... what exactly are you trying to accomplish with this? I mean, I know you're doing it. I just don't know why."

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz didn’t immediately answer the question, focusing primarily on continuing to cut through Alex’s neck, one jagged slice after another.

“Vengeance, maybe,” he said after a while. “He killed Cedar. Tenshi, Tully, Mildred, they were all his fault, too. And I’m glad Kitty did the hard part, but I promised Tully and Mildred vengeance. Figured it wouldn’t hurt to fuck up his ghost a bit.”

He shifted under the guise of rearranging his position, putting his back to the camera and briefly blocking off view of Alex’s head. He continued chattering as he shifted.

“It’s like… I wonder how excited this guy was to play. I wouldn’t have figured him for it beforehand, he was interested in all the conspiracy behind it and all but I didn’t think it was in a jerkoff way. I know I said to Kitty that it doesn’t matter in the end, and maybe it doesn’t… but there were five of us against him, none of us were aggressive, and he made it a fight. Like he just couldn’t wait. But who knows. I can’t ask him unless we find the ouija board belonging toooo… uh, I think Betty Quinn has it. Had it.”

He looked at Kaede and made a quick shush gesture, bloody finger hovering near his surgical mask, before lowering that hand and giving the collar a brief flick with his fingers. It barely moved, stuck so close to the neck due to bloating.

“So, yeah. That’s why I’m cutting off Alex’s head,” he said, stressing Alex’s name a little more than he needed to.

He kept cutting, the date machete not designed for any sort of smooth action. But with an unpleasant squelch, the head finally detached from the body, hanging on by a few muscles. That, the date machete was more suited to deal with. Its curved shape dug through those last few strands like the branches it had been designed for.

“Woo!” Fitz said, holding his former friend’s head in his hands and turning it around so they were face to face. Neck dangling down, collar still stuck to the swollen skin. “You might just make it to the boats after all, man. Hey, Kaede, there’s a spare bag in my pack somewhere. Get it for me without going for my gun or ammo, open it so I can drop this guy in, and I’ll let you have the machete.”

[decoy73]

The flick at the collar meant something. Kaede realized that much. She didn't exactly know what it meant, but it was something important enough for Fitz to be hush-hush about. Kaede simply nodded as she went for Fitz's bag, and looked for the bag within the bag. She was willing to just shut the hell up and go just for the bag. Firstly, because a machete was an excellent step up from pepper spray, and secondly, she didn't really want to look at Alex's severed head for any longer than absolutely necessary.

"'Ere." Kaede tossed the empty bag over to Fitz. At least there would be nothing more to worry about severed heads.

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz dropped the head into the spare bag. It landed with an unpleasant thud.

“Thank you.” Fitz wiped the machete off on Alex’s pants, then placed it within reach of Kaede. “There you go. If you try to stab me, I’ll be really disappointed in you.”

Fitz peeled off the plastic gloves, flicking them onto the headless body while trying to touch them as little as possible. He got up, then picked up his pack and slung the strap over his shoulder before picking up his rifle. He rested the rifle over his shoulder, then picked up the bag with Alex’s head in it.

He looked down at the bag, then at the stump that was Alex’s neck. At the dent in Alex’s chest from where Fitz had jammed his knee in, and the mottling of what skin was visible, with all the blood having sunk down the body due to gravity doing its work. The stump oozed old blood, and he could see bone that he’d just hacked his way through.

Fitz’s face, mostly concealed behind the mask, went green.

“Excuse me one moment,” he said.

He stepped over the body and walked towards the door, feet gaining speed as he moved before he shoved open the door, made it a few feet outside, and promptly dropped everything he was holding, doubled over, and wrenched the surgical mask off his face just in time to vomit onto the snow.

“Chin up, Fitz,” he rasped, before repeating it in a slightly higher voice, akin to at least one of the voices he’d attempted to use for the Mister Fluffernutter formerly known as Armand. “Chin up, Fitz!”

[decoy73]

((GMing approved by Medic))

A machete and a threat. That was reassuring. Of course, anything that wasn't getting stabbed with the machete that Kaede was picking up was reassuring. She was about to thank Fitz for the machete when he ran out suddenly.

Rude She rolled her eyes just as she heard the retching outside. She looked outside and then back in and oh yeah. Headless corpse. That would throw anyone off.

Kaede just averted her gaze and walked outside and just pat Fitz on his back (with her free hand, thank you). She wasn't going to judge him for that (anymore).

[ViolentMedic]

“I’m alright. It’s just the smell,” Fitz rasped. Then his eyes found the bag, head sitting inside, and he covered his mouth and turned away from it. “Just the smell,” he repeated, voice muffled.

He staggered to his feet, and responded to Kaede’s backpat with a brief shoulder pat back.

“Thanks. I think we’ve stuck around here long enough. I’d like to find the collar radar, or look for some rope. Or get some news or something. We should go and--”

Gunshots rang out from somewhere else in town.

Fitz immediately picked up the rifle again, reaching out to lightly gesture for Kaede to crouch. After a moment, during which it seemed like the bullets were not so close as to be a personal danger, Fitz climbed to his feet and took a step back towards the nearest wall, putting his back to it.

“...or maybe we could lie low,” he finished meekly. “For now. Until news comes to us.”

((Russell ‘Fitz’ Fitzroy continued in Like A Glove.))

[decoy73]

Kaede understood the smell part. The stench of blood (and puke) was almost overpowering. But Fitz was at least only being made ill from something the two of them could block out. That was okay. Either way, the idea that they should at least see of they could get the collar radar was okay. They just had to ...

Bang bang

Hiding was a good idea, too.

((Kaede Tsurumi continued in It's Quiet ...))