Thread: Monster [ Burke x Arianna  ]

The ride home, uneventful, would be blurry indeed. The driver would hurry, both for the health of his tip and out of an instinctual urge to dump the customer as fast as possible. The radio captain had contacted the driver, and asked, Unit thirty-eight, this is dispatch, confirm uhh... status and location, over. He'd given the name and place of his destination previously, of course, and scribbled her into a log, and the confirmation felt like somebody else's mistake. The cabdriver did not at first respond, and stared straight ahead with a miserable expression on his face. Uhh thirty-eight this is dispatch, are you there, over? The cabbie removed the tiny microphone from its holder and sighed. Yeah. Thirty eight is that you? Yeah. Unit thirty-eight report in on status and location, over. South on... Windetta. Heading toward Michael Street. Unit thirty-eight, what is the exact address? The cab driver read the numbers back off his clipboard. Are you currently with client, over? Yeah. Report on that, over. It's a young female, single. His jaw worked, and the muscles in his cheeks flexed with tension. It can be a long fourteen hours when you don't like one of the dispatchers, especially if they hate you right back. Report in again when you drop her off, over. The man on the other side squawked. He sounded like a small person. The cabbie did not respond. This woman was bizarre, and the driver did not appreciate being put on the spot. When the dispatch chased special fares, it sometimes meant the cops were looking for somebody. It always meant somebody was looking for somebody, and what got looked into and why was not made the concern of the drivers. Carl the cab driver was hoping to keep it that way. The cab disappeared, but was replaced by another of the same company one hour and twenty-eight minutes later. Shauna would stumble out of a cab, and drift to the door, running her fingers down the buzzers for every unit in the place. Several people buzzed in to ask who it was, and she waited to say, Hey. It's me. Let me up. And the buzzers rang through, unlocking the handle and granting her access to the complex. She floated through the lobby and into the elevator, her clothes mussed, a shine taken to her with the glazed over eyes and thin sheen of sweat oozing heatedly out over her too-pale skin. She looked ill, and feverish. The leather of her hot pants squeaked while she walked, tugging dreamily at her tube top and shooing hair out of her face. One foot in front of the other, her stiff legs carried her down the hallway of Alexandra's third floor, and came to slump against the back of her door. Hello? She knocked, sliding down to her knees, sitting in the doorway, leaning heavy on the wood. She knocked continuously. Lexi... She croaked, dropping her hands at her sides. Her head lolled up to stare at the ceiling, a single red dot decorating the fleshy area in the crook of her elbow. She'd been shot up, and dropped here, come searching for Lexi. The address and room number were written in pen below the shot on her left arm, the writing too messy and masculine to conceivably belong to the well-kept Shauna's. If the door would open, she would with it, and sprawl onto her back the second there was room to. Until that happened, she would sit propped, and talk to Lexi through the door. Lexi... it's me. She called out, singing the words with haunting dismay. It's me, I'm here to get you. She stared blankly at the white tile above her. It's your big sister. Tears welled up, falling silently on porcelain cheeks. Relaxed. Void. Expressionless. Her eyes were black, like a crab's, completely dark. There were no whites in her eyes, that is to say, the flesh of her lids just opened up into a shroud. Her chin rested on her collarbone, limp-necked, the muscles in her body lax, leaving her draped over the threshold. Lexi. She called out, knocking again. I have something to show you. Shauna called through the wood of the door. Her body lurched, curled her into a ball for the moment, and the skin on her back stretched with the rearrangement of joints and musculature structure. Her jaw extended with the swelling of muscle up under her throat, and the veins in her arms stood out while the bone mass reconstituted itself and expanded to support the increasing weight and demand of her changing body. I want to tell you a joke. She called out, distantly.