2020.04.10: Heads or Tails/Text

Communal Warren

Clickclickclackclackclickclick. Seated at a table with a laptop plugged into a spare network jack, John Bellamy ravenously types with his long, spindly fingers. A hood is drawn over his head, though he remains in his natural, grotesque form. He seems intent on what's happening on the laptop screen. Focused. Something's going on. Otherwise, the room is empty of other Nosferatu.

Montegue slinks in through one of the tunnels, a shambling mound of tattered clothes and discovered rags all within the veil of a long, black coat and a dark-grey hoody. "What's this?" a gravel-worn voice rasps in question and pauses by the entrance. "I guess the rumors were right...for once." The figure's voice, obviously male, has a faintly European accent - like a British man who's been in America long enough that it's started to fade into the background.

"Oh yeah?" Bellamy rasps in his New York City brogue. "What rumors might those be?" The typing does not cease, though he does look up from the laptop screen, briefly, to take note of his new companion.

Montegue explains, "That we had another down here with us. So few make themselves known in the area." He starts to approach to a nearby seat, close enough so that he might try and see what the man has focused his attention on. With an audible huff of air, like an old man easing himself into a seat, the tattered figure plops himself down and starts an introduction. "I'm Montegue Summersby - though most call me Monty. I've learned to accept it."

Bellamy nods. "Ah, yes," he agrees. "I just got to the city about a week back. New York had...many more of us." He turns his attention from the computer screen, which is consumed by different text-based terminals with lots of glyphs flying past. Those with familiarity would recognize a number of text-based hacking utilities being used. "I'm John Bellamy. Bellamy," he introduces. "Do you /like/ being called Monty?"

Montegue shrugs his slumped shoulders, "I gave up concerning myself with such things as /likes/ some time ago." He pulls his long-fingered hands to an almost rat-like posture before his abdomen having no real place to put them in his rags. "It's almost odd to hear my 'real' name these nights. We all have our own transformations."

"Indeed we do," Bellamy rasps. He's hunched himself, which fits nicely when one is in front of a computer screen. A hand is brought underneath the table and produces a backpack. The backpack seems to be jostling around on its own and there's a faint high-pitched noise coming from within. Bellamy carefully unzips the larger compartment of the bag, just a couple of inches, and stuffs his long fingers inside. He produces a rat, transfers it to his other hand, and then produces a second one. The bag stops moving. With a tight grip, Bellamy extends one of the rats as an offer to Montegue.

Montegue shakes his head, "Thank you, no. I prefer more sentient prey." He watches the other figure and his bag of rats curiously, "Did you cal those to you?" He tilts his hooded head a bit to watch how the creatures seem to react to hits touch and adds that he's never, for one reason or another, found it within him to communicate with the four-legged varity.

"Same," he replies. "But there just isn't time right now." He stuffs the refused rat back in the bag, zips it, and bites into his. With chunks of blood and hair falling from his mouth, Bellamy shakes his head. "No," he explains. "I can't do that. Got 'em the old fashioned way."

Montegue nods, "I have my little friends bring to me the bad men they find on the street." His smile ripples across his haggard features, exposing the faintest edge of his fangs. "Mostly those that abduct and abuse them in one form or another - what was that line from /the book/? Evil doers taste better?" A dark chuckle escape his parched lips and he shakes his hood at the thought. "You're welcome to join me if you'd like. They usually have more than I need but they spoil so easily if left alone down that pit."

A glance is given to the laptop screen before Bellamy reaches out to slam the lid closed. "Let's do it," he declares. "Thank you! This is going to be a welcome change after spending so much time with the 'pretties' this past week." He stands from the seat but retains his hunched posture.

Montegue stands from his seat with another, audible, huff of a grunt. "I trust you have no ill-feelings to finishing one off..." he asks and turns to leave the warren for the network of tunnels and passages that take them across town.

The laptop is unplugged and stuffed into the backpack. Bellamy slings it over one shoulder and then shrugs it. "I guess it depends on who we're talking about, here," he rasps as he moves to follow Montegue.

The pair finally emerge into what appears to be the basement of an old and abandoned warehouse. The sound of a man in pain, fitfully moaning can be heard as they clear the last tunnel and step into the dark cavernous room. The scene before them is something out of a B-grade horror movie.

A large man has fallen through a hole in the ceiling and landed some feet below upon the pile of broken blocks and pipes; clearly snapping one of his legs in the impact. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, the man stumbled around in the dark with his injured leg and stumbled into a veritble mine field of large bear-sized traps. His good leg snared by one of the traps as well as one of his hands, he's nearly immobile and spraled upon the basement floor - a prize to be plucked.

"My friends are -ever- so clever. Always bringing me so many gifts." Monty comments and gestures to the moaning man.

"You ever see the film 'Saw', Montegue?" he rasps. A smile crowded with crooked teeth forms on his face. Bellamy's eyes trickle from wall to wall, trap to trap, and then finally upon their quarry. "Who are these friends you keep mentioning?" he asks.

Montegue turns his hood to Bellamy and doesn't seem to recognize the title. "Sorry, I haven't been to a cinema since Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea." Slowly, the tatter-coat makes his way along the floor, making it a point to demonstrate where to walk and where not to step so that his companion does not fall victim to the very same traps that hold their quarry. He pauses around the wounded man, just outside of arms reach, and explains this his friends are the street urchins that have come to him for protection and aid.

Bellamy nods his head a couple of times. After carefully following Montegue through the obstacle course, Bellamy points a long finger at the wounded man. "So," he rasps. "What's the story with this one?"

Montegue shrugs, "Does it matter? He followed them to this place with blood in his thoughts and violence in his heart - and that is how he shall leave it." The man moans louder, trying to turn upon his prone posture on the floor to lay eyes upon the sources of the two figure's voices. Though his wounds are bloody and viciously inflicted, he's not bled out. There's plenty within him though he's been left to fall into shock down here in the basement floor.

"Heads," the Nosferatu asks, pulling an overly large coin from some hidden pocket in his coat, "...or tails?" He gestures between the man's head and his snared arm or to his legs and his trapped ankle and broken leg.

"I told you," Bellamy rasps. "Tails never fails." He nods to Montegue and takes a careful step closer to the man. The Nosferatu reaches up to draw the hood from his sweatshirt down and off of his pale head. Instead of moving towards the man's head, the cleaner option, Bellamy takes his place at the man's leg. He brushes off the dirt and slime that's accumulated and hunches forward to sink his fangs in. He has left the clearly superior spot to his gracious host.

As Bellamy closes in for his particular part of the man, Monty shambles forward to approach the prone victim's head. Still thrashing as much as he can considering that he's got bear traps on two appendages, the host Nosferatu pauses just before sinking his fangs into the villian's neck, "Welcome to Prospect..." and with that, the moans of pain become shrilling wails of new found horror and panic.

After what probably feels like an eternity to one of the inhabitants of this chamber, Bellamy breaks his seal from the man's leg and reaches a forearm up to wipe the grime from his lips. "I can't say that I taste the evil, as you say, but it's better than rats," he rasps. "Thanks for your hospitality, Montegue."

The man's thrashing and screaming eventually stills as both of the Nosferatu pull off of him; his heartbeat fading from a rabbit's pulse to fall still and cold like the body that lies dying before them. "I feel no remorse for their death - and the lack of any pains of guilt makes it all the sweeter." Once Bellamy has finished up and moved to the side, he reaches over and quickly snaps the dying man's neck to either end the slow fall from mortality or to prevent any possibilty of his somehow surviving.

"Be a sport and free his ankle if you please," he asks and moves to glides over to unhinge the trap that had caught his wrist. "I'll toss this down in one of the deeper tunnels - give something for the pets to feed upon."

Bellamy gives that a moment of consideration. "That makes sense," the younger Nosferatu rasps. "I was looking for a word to describe that...that /taste/ that would be there, sometimes. Remorse." There's a brief look of intellectual satisfaction that sprawls across Bellamy's face, as though a mental splinter had been finally removed. He nods at Montegue's request. "Sure thing," he exclaims with a sudden vim and vigor in his voice. Bellamy bends a knee and begins expanding the bear trap's vice with his hands. With the trap expanded, Bellamy shuffles it free of the man's leg and allows it to snap closed, empty. "I think you're on to something here, Montegue. My only reliable sources are ones that I'd rather not let expire. This seems better."

Montegue nods, "It's not all that reliable. My little friends aren't in the business of luring people to their deaths but every once in a while it's quite a nice touch. Then again, I'm sure that there are plenty more where he came from." He hefts the corpse up to a shoulder with only as much effort as one might lift a small child and turns to head back to the tunnels, "I will let you when we get another live one..." He rasps, "...for though damned we are - why walk the nights alone?"

"Why indeed?" Bellamy agrees. "This kind of hospitality reminds me of how things were back in New York." He smiles a crowded smile as he follows the other Nosferatu's path to the tunnels. "So, how can I repay this kindness, Montegue?"

"Become better than you are - better than /they/ think you are," Monty rumbles as they pass through tunnel, corridor and chasm. "They will never let us forget who and what we are so why try? They offer us shit and expect us to smile for how they wrapped it. But we know their secrets...we know where the bodies are burried and what skeletons they got in their closets. And one night...oh...one -glorious- night...things will be different." He hisses and turns the corner to stand upon the edge of a great abyss of a hole in the floor of whatever tunnel they've come to.

The nosferatu sort of adjusts how he's carrying the body on his shoulder, going through the guys pockets one last time before being satisifed there's nothing left. Without ceremony or word he chucks it down into the bottomless darkness before them and turns to hand the newly-discovered compatriot, "Here's his phone - if you want to see if there's anything on there. I think he was a dealer." He offers and starts to head back to the Warren. "Could come in handy."

Bellamy takes the phone in an outstretched palm and slips it into a pocket. "Montegue," he rasps. "Your optimism is infectious." He reaches up to tighten the straps of his backpack and ducks into the tunnel. "I'll let you know what I find on it," Bellamy begins. "Might be able to use it to find you more." He shrugs a shoulder and follows the other Nosferatu through the darkness.