Open House of the Living Dead

[Lydia]

"Nothing." Lydia answered with frustration creeping into her voice. The upstairs hallways were old and run down, like the houses on her world. The floor creaked, there were holes in the walls. It shouldn't be so hard to find the guy behind all of this. "The asshole's real good at hidin'." She walked to a door and yanked it open, just to see a room filled with creepy dolls. "Are ghosts real in Pandora?" She asked. Just about anything could be. Maybe York wasn't crazy and he was talking to ghosts. "Do you see one here? Do they like dolls?"

There was just enough time for York to answer, and then a loud bang and more growling could be heard below them. "Fuck." Lydia muttered. "I think the walkers are loose."

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

York thought for a moment, "Ghosts probably are real considering the other strange things in Pandora. You probably should check those dolls. One of the many things I've learned from movies, is that ghosts absolutely love to hang around creepy dolls-" his answer was cut short when the door was broken down.

A hoard of 12 zombies were rushing towards the FBI agent, he had to act fast.

He focused his Psych-Gun on the group and discarded all unnecessary thoughts besides from that of his targets. All his thoughts of movies, creepy dolls, and ghosts drifted away as he trained his disfigured arm on the approaching walkers. To the scar-faced man there was now nothing else that existed in the world besides for their disfigured rotting heads, and his arm.

He fired off a bullet.

The bullet branched off in 12 directions, simultaneously piercing the skulls of all 12 zombies, killing them instantly.

He grabbed a cigarette and his lighter, and let the ensuing relaxation ease him back into his current worries.

He took a puff, "Lydia, our walker friends are no more. Did you find our ghost yet?"

 

[Lydia]

Lydia rummaged through the dolls, looking for a potential weapon as much as she was looking for a ghost. Most of them were too soft to force through even the most rotted walker skull.

She found a porcelain doll and prepared to smash it, as she heard a bullet fired. She looked over to see all the walkers dead. Real dead, all from head shots. Damn, she must have missed it and that would have been really amazing to see. It was a good thing that she never told him her own mother might have been hiding in a walker suit. His morals might have stopped him from doing what had to be done.

"Not yet, but I found this." Lydia set down the porcelain doll and picked up one of the soft one that she had discard earlier.

The doll said "Mama" and made a laugh similar to the earlier one.

"That might mean somethin'." Lydia said softly. "My Mama's not a ghost or nothin'. She is evil." It was starting to feel more and more like whatever was behind the mystery of the house, knew about her and her past.

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

York gave the teenager an understanding nod, "I understand how you feel. I feel a similar way about my father..."

As he said this, the white-haired man ran his fingers across his scar.

Snapping out of his discomfort, the FBI agent glanced at the porcelain doll, "...You should keep a close watch over that doll. I have hunch that it will be important later, and my hunches are normally spot-on."

 

[Lydia]

Lydia wasn't good at talking about feelings, especially in a messed up situation like this crazy house. The closest she could come to telling him she understood, was a simple "Parents can be real messed up." With her, it had been her mom that did the hurting. She knew for Daryl, it was his dad. She figured the end result was the same for all of them.

"Okay." Lydia agreed; she figured she should go with it. The walkers were dead and he must know ghosts better than her. She glanced back towards the discarded dolls. "You wanna look through'em and see if any of'em mean something to you?"

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

"Okay, Zach and I will take a look," replied York confidently as he walked up the stairs, entering the room of porcelain dolls.

He rifled through the pile of porcelain terrors, none of them were giving him any kind of reaction. Besides for the one in Lydia's possession of course.

"The only doll that looks important is the one you're holding onto. It could very well be related to the reason we're trapped here."

 

[Lydia]

"Like my mom's part of the reason?" Lydia asked, looking down at the doll doubtfully. Her mother was a different kind of evil. She'd have killed them by now. Or she'd have found Daryl's head on a pike. That was her mama's style. Dolls were for children and nobody got to be a child in her mom's world. Unless that was the message.

"Like she's mad at me for being too much like a kid." Lydia wondered out loud and another thought occurred to her. "Or someone's mad at the stuff she did and is after me because of it." She paused for a moment. "That don't explain why you're here. Maybe you just got shit luck." She shrugged. The why didn't matter as much as getting away. "Should we look in another room?"

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

The FBI agent gave the teenager a sympathetic look, "I'm very sorry you had to live with someone like her," he paused to exhale some smoke, "Children are supposed to act like children. It's the way the world is supposed to work."

He let out a laugh at Lydia's other comment, "I'd argue that I have pretty good luck to be in such an exciting situation. But you might be right about this being a trap for you. Zach and I are gifted when it comes to seeing these kinds of things, it's very possible that a normal person wouldn't have been able to enter this home."

York put his light out, "Anyway, let's check another room. But stay vigilant, there are probably more threats present in this house."

 

[Lydia]

"Not in a world full of walkers." Lydia said simply, sparing him the details of what happened to the really young ones in mom's pack. That was more thing that people in Pandora didn't need to know about. She was learning how bad that stuff was, to normal people.

"You saying I ain't normal?" Lydia asked, giving him a glare for a moment, before lightening up her expression to an amused smirk. She knew she wasn't normal. She'd been through too much. She was developing a sense of humor slowly in Pandora. It could be twisted and dark, as her past. At least she was learning.

Lydia nodded and walked to the next room. A bathroom. Plain and boring, except for the hissing noise from the bathtub. She pulled back the shower curtains to see snakes in the tub. "Are they supposed to be scary? They're really good. They could make meals for a whole town.."

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

York was unsure if he offended the teenager. Although he personally, saw nothing wrong with abnormality, he knew that it was a touchy subject for some, "Not at all Lydia, I meant "normal" more in the metaphysical sense, not the mental sense," concluded the white-haired man, glad to have cleared up the misunderstanding.

The FBI agent shrugged, "Some people find snakes to be quite scary. But personally I never really understood it, as long as you don't aggravate them they're harmless-" it took him a moment to fully process what Lydia had said, "-Have you eaten snakes before?! That's incredible! What did they taste like?!"

 

[Lydia]

Maybe Lydia wasn't learning as well as she thought. Her attempt at humor hadn't been clear. She might ask Daryl about it later, though he had a similar kind of humor.

Lydia nodded. Even poisonous snakes didn't cause much trouble if they weren't pissed off. "They taste a lot better than worms." She answered. That was her easiest reference. Worms were all she had to eat most days, before she met Daryl. "Not like chicken. People here keep saying stuff tastes like chicken and it don't. Snakes taste more like fish. Like a white fish." After a few seconds of watching the snakes, she added. "They taste best when they're cooked. I never had cooked food 'till I met Daryl. He cooks'em over a fire." Though they hadn't needed to resort to snakes in Pandora.

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

"Fish huh? I must say, that's much less exciting than what I was expect-" while York was far from the most rational guy around, even he was disturbed by the girl's comment, "-Lydia, I sincerely hope that you've known this Daryl person for a long time, since otherwise Zach and I have no idea how you've been surviving all this time."

 

[Lydia]

"You want excitement try eating'em alive. At least worms are easier when it comes to that." Lydia shrugged. "My mom kept me alive by making us live like animals. It was bad." No details needed; she figured that was obvious. "Daryl saved me from her and taught me to live like people. He's my second dad. I had a first dad, but he died when I was little." She didn't know the word adopted - only how Henry had explained about his two sets of parents. She'd have to make sure Daryl knew she loved him just as much as her first dad. "I've known him here for about a year, plus a little bit back home."

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

After hearing all that, York had a hard time restraining himself from smoking another cigarette, "That's incredibly sad, Lydia. No person should ever have to experience being treated like that, zom-walker apocalypse or not," he gave into his desires and lit another joint, "I'm glad he's here with you, it's important to be around at least one person who truly cares about you. For me that person is Zach, and I don't know where I'd be in life without the knowledge that he's watching over me."

The FBI agent exhaled a large puff of smoke, "Let's hurry with finding a way out of here, we shouldn't keep Daryl waiting for you too long after all."

 

[Lydia]

"It was all I knew then." Lydia said with a shrug. It had just been normal to her. "Yeah, it's important to keep them safe too." She added. She hadn't been able to protect Henry, or anyone else she cared about in the past. She'd do better for Daryl. Maybe that was why York kept his friend in his head, instead of a real friend. Easier to keep him safe that way.

Lydia nodded and walked out of the bathroom, into the hallway. She clamped her hand over mouth and swallowed back hard against the bile that was rising in her throat at what she saw there. Doll heads, just the heads, on spikes. It was an eerie reminder of what her mother had done to Henry. She took her time to compose herself, then moved her hand back down slowly. "If we can get those doll heads off, we got weapons. If they're sharp enough, we can try using them on the windows." It might not work any better than their previous attempts to break the weapons, but at least they'd have tried.

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

Although York was far from the most socially aware guy around, even he could tell that the sight of the impaled doll heads were difficult for the girl to handle. He gave her a sympathetic look, "You know Lydia, if this is too much for you, you can just stand guard while I grab the spikes," he held out his handgun, "You know how to shoot, right?"

 

[Lydia]

Lydia shrugged without taking the offered gun. "I know you point and shoot. I ain't used one. My mom's pack didn't use guns. Henry had a staff. And Daryl's gotta a crossbow." She was just starting to learn how to use that. She was more used to kills being up-close and personal. Even hunting had to be done by hand sometimes. Not to be cruel; it was just part of living like an animal.

"I handled the real thing, I can handle dolls." Thing was an easier word than heads, and much easier to say than Henry. She took one of the spikes that had a female doll head, so it didn't look like him and started pulling the head off.

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

York nodded at Lydia, "In that case, Zach and I will stand guard. But if it ends up being too much for you, then just tell us and we can can take over," with that the FBI agent unholstered his handgun and peaked outside the room; ready to pacify any potential intruders.