Chapter Two: Act II The Bee Swarms into Violence ATTN Chris, Joshua, Liam and Sara

The morning dawns on a day that promises to be warm. The day before, the group had met Morgan, the new employee. Sara had an interesting time the day before...
Seryna: Wishing to share the information she had gleaned instead of Liam, a meeting was organized to share what she had learned about 'Grandma on Speed'.

"So...am I going to lose my liver or what?"

Sara had jotted down all the the newfound information that she had gleaned from Alastor, the occultist. While she hoped that the Padre would feel better if he learned more about his..."boiling" ability, she was also concerned he wouldn't be able to handle it. It was a lot to learn. She pulled up a seat at the meeting place, and studied Chris for a moment. "I told you to get checked out by a medical professional."

"Yeah, been a little crunched for time on that one." Chris frowns. "So what do we know about this Grandma Indian lady anyway?"

Sara looked genuinely irritated at the lackadaisical attitude. "Crunched for time. On checking whether or not you're going to drop dead," she stated, in a deadpan tone of voice. Not feeling in the right frame of mind to spoon feed another adult about priorities and health matters, she pressed on. "She goes by the name 'Spearfinger of Grandmother Death', which should give you a little idea of how this lady works. She's nomadic. Chases livers. Likes 'em a lot," she added the latter portion, with a quick glance back to Chris.

Joshua sat on the edge of the table, looking concernedly at Chris. "I think perhaps this obsession is taking over your life, Chris," he said quietly, his voice warm with genuine concern. "You need to take care of yourself first. Or you're going to get yourself killed."

Chris shakes his head at the Priest. "Obscession? Ha, that's probably an understatement. You're right though...I really need to get off my butt and get a check up."

"Yeah, you do," Sara growled frustratedly. "Acting like a tough guy, or a laidback idiot isn't doing you any favours. The occultist suggested you get checked out too. Do it."

Joshua shook his head slightly. "Somehow, I'm starting to believe this isn't the healthiest line of work for you, Chris," he said sympathetically.


Chris nods his head sullenly to Sara but he can't help but grin when the Priest makes his remark. "Really? I think its damn right therapeutic." He says sarcastically. "Look, I'm fine really. I feel great. But I'll go to the doctor just to be safe. That's never a bad idea."

"Good," Sara responded, before turning her full attention to Joshua. At least she could be relatively sure he wouldn't dismiss any concerns with an illogical, macho attitude. "I asked Alastor, the occultist, about people who might be able to...to burn someone by touching them. He said people with extreme Faith have been known to cause damage to spirits. And that woman was a spirit."

Joshua blinked a little bit. "I've heard of holy items doing damage to Demons," he said quietly. "Are you telling me that I did that because of my belief?"
Jack Robinson: Sara nodded. "Maybe, yeah. That's what it sounded like. I... get the feeling if anyone knew, this guy would."

"So if its a ghost, is there anything we can do about it? Aside from that one movie, I've never heard of anyone actually being able to do anything other than excorcisms, but that's when someone is already possessed."


Joshua frowned. "It's not a ghost, Chris. Ghosts are just lonely, trapped souls that want out. They've never bothered me before. Usually you can just talk to them and find out what they want," he said quietly, his gaze distant. "And it wasn't a Demon. I know Demons."

At the mention of a ghost, specifically the word ghost as it was used, Sara's attention flickered quickly around the room. It was as though she expected him to be right there. Her demeanour tensed, though she leant back in her chair as though relaxed. "Good. Not a ghost then," she murmured stiffly.

Joshua's gaze moved over Sara for a moment, and he looked faintly worried. "Are you alright?"

"I don't know about you guys. But I'd rather be trying to deal with something that I can actually do something about. Like the Harper's kidnapping people. I say we go check out at least one of those buildings tonight. Didn't Morgan mention some kind of trap door at that courthouse?"

As the three talk, they hear a helicoptor fly down the nearby street. A glance reveals that it is a police helicoptor. The bull horn makes an appearance, a disembodied voice speaking down to you from above. "The Detroit P.D. will be enforcing a curfew starting tonight. Please check your local news station for developments immediately. Ignorance will not be an accepted excuse upon apprehension.." The helicoptor drones down the street, intoning its edict.

"The fucking PI is checking the Goddamn buildings for a reason, Chris," Sara suddenly snapped. She made as though to answer Joshua, but was cut abruptly short by the arrival of the chopper. She frowned. "The fuck?"

Joshua looked up with a frown. "A curfew?" he said quietly. "I think we should get somewhere secure and inside before we all end up arrested."

Chris nods his head and looks for his car.

"A TV would be handy, too," Sara remarked, her expression still etched into one of confusion. A curfew? What the Hell? "Head back to my place. In case something comes up, we don't want to be stuck unable to reach each other."


"Yeah, that's alright with me." He nods in agreement.
Joshua nodded as well.

"Alright, follow me in your cars. Try to keep up," Sara instructed, as she headed out of the building to her car. This was messed up. Completely messed up.

As the group relocates, they couldn't help but notice passing a patrol car every so often on the short trip. Once, they noticed a police officer frisking two pedestrians beside the road, relaying something over a radio to someone unknown. It was clear that whatever had happened, police were taking it very seriously.

Sara put her foot down a little bit more, eager to get back to her apartment as soon as possible. She wanted answers. She turned the radio, flicking through local stations to see if she could pick anything up.

Chris frowns slightly. This didn't look good.
"..thank you, Kelly. Now to reiterate, no one ought to panic." The radio filled the car with bad news."- There is no manhunt for an escaped criminal or anything like that. The police are simply trying to protect the citizens after the atrocious events of last night and this morning..'

"Bullshit," Sara snorted. Needless to say, she didn't believe it for a second. Police didn't cordon off shit and create curfews, because of a little fire. She pulled up in her usual space and, trusting Joshua and Chris would follow her up, headed to her apartment without waiting. She left the door open and moved immediately into the living room, to turn on the television and scan news channels. The apartment was sparsely decorated, but pleasant enough. A black leather couch and matching chair faced the TV, and along the back wall was the computer desk. A laptop was set out on top, and on the wall behind a series of pictures. It looked like they were a few years old, taken in happier times. They were in a variety of locations, quite obviously pictures of her unit.

"This is really not good." He frowns. "And all I wanted was a nice easy story and some good photographs. Like Emily Gillen. Completely insane for sure...but I was on such a roll back then. This...this is just beyond me." He mutters.

Joshua followed Sara into the room and immediately felt like he was intruding in some part of Sara's life that she didn't want open to the public. His gaze flickered up at the photographs on the wall, and when Chris spoke, he sighed. "Maybe if you weren't only in this for the glory, Chris. The other people involved here are in much direr straits than us."

Sara was in a few of the photographs, hair tied back and camaflage paint on her face. A couple more showed a smiling blond man in a wheel chair, taken at a hospital. In another, she was embracing someone who actually looked a few inches taller than her. Sara sat down on the couch, shaking her head. "This is ridiculous- get on with the fucking story, damned newsreader."

Chris just looks at the preacher and shakes his head then looks back to the television.

The reporter glances down to her notes and looks up at the camera for a minute, composing herself for a minute. As she speaks, she paints a picture of the events of yesterday and the early hours of this morning.
Friday:
Two waitresses were accosted and died alone on the pavement on Plum street, no one responding to thier screams. The police state that they died from massive blood loss." The reporter paused and went onto the next paper. "At Wayne County Community College, someone broke into the co - ed dormitory and slaughtered twelve students. A few had to be identified by dental records."

The worst happened in the dawn hours this morning at Wayne County Memorial Hospital where the E.R. was targetted by group of knife wielding men. Thirteen people were attacked, including patients brought in for treatment. Macy Gerrais, a local mother; Dr. Harriet Janeway, an E.R. doctor; and Luke McCabe, a local baker were killed as a result of thier injuries. The ten survivors remain in critical care at the same hospital.

As a result of the violence, police are issuing a curfew of 7: 30 P.M. to all minor children not in the company of thier parents. All adult citizens are asked to be within thier homes by 9 P.M.
Police will be patrolling the city and will approach all individuals outside after 9 P.M., determining if they are part of the criminal element. Zero tolerence will be enforced." The reporter lowered her paper. Someone else spoke, suggesting that they go to weather.. The current stories of death and despair of the citizens would now be buried under witticisms about weather...

Sara paused, shaking her head slowly. It all seemed so...pointlessly violent. As though people had made a unified decision to go around slaughtering, like a pack of wild, hungry animals. How had they not heard about these sooner? Her attention remained on the television as she spoke: "You mention that this has something to do with the Harper's, and you're getting tossed out of the windows."

"I'm tired of speculating. We need facts. We need new sources of information."

"Tragic," Joshua said quietly, watching the images. "This is terrible..." He took a breath. "I need to call my wife."
Sara nodded, and indicated a small table by the door. "Phone's over there." She rubbed her eyes, getting her head around this newfound information.

Chris rubs his face. "If its alright with you Sara. I think I should stay the night here. When morning comes, I'll go back to my place and start working my contacts."

"Yeah, I don't think anyone's going anywhere. One of you can take the couch, and there's a sleeping bag in the cupboard."

Chris nods his head and takes his shoes off as he climbs on the couch. He was tired and was in a rather dismal mood. Nothing seemed to be going right lately. He thought to himself.

Joshua nodded quietly. "Of course," he said quietly, stepping away to call Terri and let her know that he'd been stranded due to the curfew, and where he was, so that he wouldn't worry. He wished he was at home.

Sara got off the couch, since Chris had decided to swipe it, and went to route out the sleeping bag from her bedroom.

Terri answered and replied that she understood. She was already at home; having watched the same news program.

"Stay safe, love," Joshua said quietly into the phone. "I'll be home in the morning."

"You too, honey." Terri replied. In the background you hear the drone of the weather from your own television..
Chris closes his eyes and hopes to forget about things for a while.

As the night tiptoes towards midnight, Chris, Joshua and Sara hear the sound of metal clashing below. Someone squabbles below, angry voices rising up towards your window. The dumpster slams against something. Across the way, another light flicks on.

Chris ignores the sounds and grumbles. He turns over on his side.
Sara hadn't been sleeping; rather she had been waiting to see if anything else would crop up on the news. With how busy it had apparently been with crime lately, she had been anticipating something. Moving to the living room window, she turned off the light and flicked aside the curtain a crack to study the night.

Joshua slept fitfully on the floor of Sara's spare room, dreaming of burning hands that seared the flesh of old women. The crash woke him, and he blinked a few times to clear his head, dragging himself up out of the tangle of the blankets. He moved up to the window, looking out into the darkness without turning the light on, so his night vision wouldn't leave him.

Looking below, you see the forms of two men shoving one another. One crashes against the dumpster again, the noise jarring bones in sympthy. The fight flares to ferocity, a uppercut there- a tackle there. Nearby, the warning growl of a police cruiser approaches.

Chris tries to shoot a video from his vantage point, and observes what is going on.

Sara grimaced, but didn't move to head outside and stop the fight. The sounds of approaching sirens gave her hope that they would arrive in the next couple of minutes; if it got worse, she didn't know if she could remain inside doing nothing.

Josh murmured a prayer for both of the men, and hoped that the police would stop them before anyone became too badly injured. People seemed to be acting so strangely.
Chris captures the figures as they roll along the ground, the punching growing to a flurry of blows. The voices that bark insults are slurred, punctuated by alocohol or some other sunstance. Yet the lights o the cruiser approach, casting your faces in the ever changing jeweled hue. The next few minutes unfold with police hauling the men up and frisking them against the cruiser. You sense a tension in the police. They always watch the men, one frisking, one man back with a hand on a taser gun. You wonder what horrors these men have seen this week.


That's a relief, Sara mused. She genuinely didn't like having to get involved in random, pointless brawls - and that was what the police were there for. At least none of them had been stabbed, or shot.

Joshua included a soft prayer for the police officers. They must have been suffering as much as everybody else, with the atrocities of the last few evenings.
The night is turbulant, punctured nearly every hour with a siren. Once, glass shattered below, startlingly close. A glance below reveals a car on the street has been dented across the hood, the windshield shattered. You see a figure roll out from below the car and stumble away, holding something beneath his arm.

Sara frowned, watching the figure rush away. She assumed her wasn't too injured, if he could move away without crying out in pain. Still, she had lingering doubts and curiosities: was it a weapon he was holding under his arm? Was he rushing off to hurt someone? Sara gritted her teeth, the inactivity galling to her. As the hours passed, the moved away from the window to prepare food for Joshua and Chris. It was relaxing to do something mundane in a time like this. Come morning, she announced breakfast and plated up a variety of pop tarts.

The morning dawns with a quiet hush. As the light rolls across the street, you see signs of a busy night - the dumpster once again moved since you saw it last, discarded cans of spray point roll in the street. Few people stumble out from their apartments, rubbing sleep from their eyes and voicing their dismay. A few drift towards the street, off towards work. Most sniffle into a Kleenex and dissapear behind the closed doors of their apartment. You imagine the sound of locks sliding into place.