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Livin' it up, livin' it up, oh yeah…Friday night.
Being a superheroine has its up and downs, but sometimes, Lorraine just wants to be Lorraine. So she can play at a life where her biggest claim to fame was as 'the Senator's daughter.' But she is walking along the sidewalk, having just stepped out of the Chinese joint at the corner and making her way towards Broadway.
It is June, 1965, and the night holds limitless promise.
June 1965, New York City- an era when there was no real idea of what Drunk Driving is. Someone speeds down the street in their enormous car, honking the horn as they and their friends rocket through the streets of night-time New York City.
They didn't see the cat in the road. But someone did- DEad Girl sees it as it's coming and rushes out into the street without a single thought for her own safety. She manages to grab the cat and give it a toss. It lands, with a yowl, at the side of the street before running off.
In the same moment the squeal of brakes and the sickening thud of a body being hit- and then rolled over by the wheels of a car.
Organs spilled out from the gut. A bent and messy body with limbs contorted. Twitching as it lies in the middle of the road. A neck twisted in a way it clearly wasn't designed to be.
The Car swerves, and crashes into a parked car- the people inside suddenly shouting. "Holy shit, you hit that woman!" one woman says, the driver- a man- shouts back. "She came out of no-where! Holy shit! Holy Shit!"
Lorraine is horrified, looking around just once before running out into the street, foregoing her transformation in favor of seeing if the girl is all right, even though she can't possibly be all right. She has seen her share of blood, but this turns her stomach. "SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE!" she nearly screams before she gets a good look at the girl.
She knows her. She…she called herself Dead Girl. Well, if she hadn't earned her name before…
In the midst of her horror, her brain remarks idly, *So that's what the large intestine looks like in real life…*
"Goddamnit…" Dead Girl grunts from the ground as she shifts and somehow stands- despite the fact her body is bent in all the wrong directions- arms and fingers and legs creaking and cracking as her baleful, glowing red eyes turn towards the people in the vehicle. They shriek- even as Dead Girl's intestines start to snake back into her middle- as if it never happened. She begins to shamble towards the vehicle, growling quietly. "You idiots!" she shouts, her voice surprisingly loud as her head dangles limply- broken arms lifted to set it properly on her shoulders. CLick-Click.Clack… Her body rearranging itself by inches at a time. Returning to it's 'whole' form as she gains speed.
The man in the car tries to start his vehicle- the hood is bent, and the radiator is cracked, the car is having trouble starting. "Jesus Christ! JESUS!" he shouts- they all shout, slapping the windows of the vehicle as Dead Girl approaches.
For a few seconds, she simply stares. One year, her physics teacher had been playing a film, but turned the switch too far and the movie began playing backward. DG's body was doing something like thatsomehow REWINDING the traumaand the sight of it made her a little queasy. She swallowed nervously, then looked to the man at the phone booth. "Hold off on that ambulance…for now…" she says, her voice almost strengthless as she follow behind Dead Girl at a fair distance.
By the time they manage to turn the car over, Dead Girl has reached the driver's side door. Her hands have changed- were they always like that? Wickedly sharp claws- finger nails or fingers themselves digging into the steel of the door as if it were tissue paper. She tears the door off with almost no effort, before she grabs the driver and throws him across the street into a pile of garbage. THUD!
"You drunken moron!" Dead Girl shouts next as she leaps to him, grabs him and lifts him as if he weighed nothing at all. "You almost hit that poor kitty!"
Lorraine starts running when she sees the claws. She can't afford to become FireHawk here, not with all these people watching. "Wait…" she calls out, almost calling her by the title she had given herself, "…uhm, miss! Someone's calling the cops…can you just…put him down, please?"
Dead Girl gives the man a shake- he's sobbing as this corpse woman holds him. Her eyes flash and he shrieks like a little girl as he covers his face. "JESUS CHRIST, GRANDMA, I'M SO SORRY!" he shouts as he wets himself. Only then does Dead Girl drop him.
The man is sobbing quietly, curled into a ball as he shakes in fear. Rocking quietly to himself. "Don't drink and drive you goddamn animal!" she says, giving him a kick to the stomach. He grunts in pain. It wasn't a hard kick, clearly.
"Call the cops, then!" Dead Girl says, "This drunken moron just hit someone in the street. I didn't commit any crimes here!" she notes, "It's illegal to drive drunk in this state, you yahoo!" she calls again, angry, at the weeping, shaking man who just saw the dead before his eyes- assaulted with visions of his own grandmother's disappointment at his behavior.
"Ugh!" Dead Girl says, giving a stomp on the ground. A stomp others can feel as her foot hits the pavement. THUD! She's strong.
After a moment, Lorraine takes a step back. No idea what might happen if he crowds her. "Okay…okay. They'll be here soon." She looks around. "Uhm…are you okay, miss? I've…I'm sorry, I've never seen anything like that before."
"Oh, I'm fine." Dead Girl assures Lorraine. "Didn't even hurt." she says, as she stretches and a few more clicks can be heard as her body fully readjusts to just how it is supposed to be. "Man. I need a smoke." she says as she begins to walk down the street like nothing happened, "Oh, I'm Dead Girl, by the way!" she says over to Lorraine with a friendly smile- despite the baleful red of her eyes. "Pleased to meet you!"
The man's friends have escaped the vehicle and are running down the street now, away from Dead Girl.
Lorraine doesn't even spare them a glance. Their cowardice may be telling but this guy was the one behind the wheel, and his abandonment should be part of his punishment. He looks into those eyes, takes a deep breath, then says, "Hello there. My name is Lorraine. Do you have a name other than…Dead Girl? If you have to keep it a secret, I would understand…I'm just curious, really."
"I prefer to go by Dead Girl." Dead Girl replies with a smile, "It's fitting to my style." She offers simply as she gets a bit of pep in her step- almost skipping down the street now with a happy kind of energy. "I'm an open book, ask away. I know the walking dead aren't common, even herein New York City with all the heroes and mutants and stuff." she offers, as she finds a bench, and sits. She pulls a bag of rolling tobacco out and starts to roll herself a cigarette. "Cigarette?" she wonders of Lorraine
Lorraine smiles thoughtfully. "No…I never picked up the habit. Are you sure if…" She stops, giving an embarrassed chuckle. "I was about to ask you if you knew it was bad for you, but I realized it must not be. Do you…get tired, or sleepy, or worn out? Or do you just…keep going?"
"Not really, not any more. Don't sleep. Don't eat. Don't need water. I can go forever." Dead Girl says as she lights the cigarette with a cardboard match from her other pocket. Inhaling slowly. Just a memory. "It doesn't do anything for me, I mean- I can do those things, I just don't need to." she then further explains, "I mean, I'm dead. I'm medically a corpse."
Lorraine nods, then looks up as she sees flashing red and blue hues on Dead Girl's white face. She looks over her shoulder as two police cruisers pull up, and three uniformed police officers step out. "All right," one of them gruffs, "what happened?"
"Reckless driving." Lorraine pointed down at the coowering man. He hit someone and hit a parked car. He's probably as high as the Chrysler Building."
Dead Girl takes another long pull at her cigarette as the cops arrive. "He's sauced, man! He almost hit a cat." she notes, as if that was important to the dead hippie dressed girl- the cops undoubtedly giving her more than one look-see. She's creepy to most of the living, after all.
"He's a menace." Dead Girl says next, "I mean, look at him!" The man has managed to sit up- the alcohol and fear have both run their course. He looks like garbage.
One of the cops sighs. "It's Travers' kid, Mike."
"Mike" looks to his partner, then sighs, "We'll take it from here…whoever or whatever you are. We'll take him home, let his parents deal with him."
Lorraine stepped forward. "He BROKE THE LAW. He needs to be charged, booked, and arraigned…not 'taken home.'"
Mike looks back to her. "Sorry, honey. He's a cop's kid. We'll handle it ourselves."
"Well, give him a once over, at least!" DEad Girl says, "Kick his ass a little!" she says with a bit of a grump, waving her hands with a bit of emotion. "He's a piece of trash! Who drives wild like that in the middle of a city, there are a bunch of empties in his car and his friends ran off to leave him here!" she shakes her head, "No justice for the dead, I swear." she grumps again, before taking a long pull on her cigarette.
Lorraine smiles suddenly. "I'll SEE your 'Cop's Kid' and RAISE you one 'Senator's Daughter.' And I saw the whole thing."
Mike smirked. "And who are you again?"
"LORRAINE REILLY."
The smirk froze. "You lie."
Lorraine reached into her purse, eyeing the cop he slowly reached for his weapon. "WALLET, officer." She pulls out her wallet, tossing it to the cop.
He caught it, then opened it with a look of irritation…and then he went as pale as DG. "Uhhhh…" he said softly.
"I'm just a nameless, Dead Girl." Dead Girl offers, "Ooh! Look at the color drain from his face!" Dead Girl says with a giggle. "Man, is your dad really a senator? I'm guessing yes by the look of his face- almost as pale as mine!"
Dead Girl and Lorraine are sitting on a bench, maybe fifty feet from a recent car accident- no one died, although, DEad Girl was hit. Luckily, she's already dead. Like super dead.
To those who know, there is no hiding her lack of life. Her body a pale-blue. Her body cold. Her eyes glowing angry and red like baleful damnation from beyond the grave- Angry ghosts in her gaze. The pall of death hangs on her like a coat. Necromantic energy is weaved as easily as breathing- ghosts and spirits follow her- and yet, she is as natural as the trees. This, somehow, is meant to be.
Mike heads back to the police car, calling it in. "Yes, ID check on a…Lorraine Reilly." He rattles off her ID number, giving them the stink-eye.
"Dispatch, confirming ID, positive for Lorraine Reilly."
His partner says quietly, "Ohhhhhhh…shit."
"Indeed," Lorraine says sweetly. "And dear father would be INTRIGUED to see your Blue Brotherhood protecting a druunken idiot. In fact…he may visit your watch commander PERSONALLY."
"Now both of them were pale. Mike says nervously, "Put…the Travers boy in your squad car and take him to the precinct. NOW."
Travers looks owlishly at them. "But…my dad's a COP!"
Dead Girl stands up, looking at Travers, as she throws her cigarette to the ground. "Hey! We both know what your Grandmother said, don't we?!" she asks of Travers- baleful glowing eyes there. "I heard her! I called her from the void! She rose for a moment from her slumber to tell you those words." And what words did Dead Girl bring the dead to bare for? Who knows. "Clean up your act, Tuppie!" A name only his Grandmother used for him. "You almost killed an innocent cat!"
This almost killing a cat seems to be a serious point of order for Dead Girl.
Travers shrank back from Dead Girl, and the two cops pick him up and put the cuffs on him. "Uh…you can tell your dad we did our job."
"Don't worry. If you don't…HE'LL KNOW."
That sent the cops back to the squad car in a hurry. "They'll be back to get your statement and mine, and then we can go." She smiles wryly. "I don't often do that, but that guy…he needed some proper justice. And yes, my dad is one of the Senators for new York State." She winks. "And he does dote on his daughter."
Suriel has come upon the scene of an accident, it seems, and old habits make him slow down. He's not rubbernecking, exactly, but once upon a time he would have stopped, and looked for wayward souls, and taken them to where they were supposed to go. Dead Girl makes him look twice, because she's in the flesh, but she's dead. Then again, supers come in all sorts, these days.
"Neat. My Dad isn't that important!" Dead Girl says with a grin as she sits down and starts rolling another cigarette. Chain smoking really doesn't hurt dead flesh. She lights up again, sitting back. "So, I'll give a statement, I guess- but I'm not sure the law really applies to the dead in the same way it does the living." Dead Girl notes, "Anyways, he couldn't hurt me if he tried. Lucky I was there for the cat, though. I bet that cat has quite a story to tell all her cat friends."
Perhaps it was a bit silly, but Dead Girl isn't the most serious person- far less serious than one might expect of the deceased. "So, what do you do as a senator's daughter? I mean, are there things you're supposed to do? I don't know, like.. peace summits or something?"
Dead Girl's glowing red eyes turn towards Suriel- there she sits. Dead in every conceivable way.
Lorraine looks thoughtful. "Well, I have to support my father. Dinners, fundraisers, that sort of thing. I'm also studying law in college. I'm thinking about becoming a public defender."
She smirks at that. Becoming MORE of a public defender than she currently is, anyway.
"Right now I'm taking the summer off, but already planning to go back in the fall." She looks over to Suriel, following DG's gaze. "You know that guy?"
Suriel asks Dead Girl quite worriedly, "Are you all right? Are you lost? I can't help you go wherever it is you need to go anymore, but I can try to help." He shines slightly with a muted radiance, as if the sun really loves him, and his voice is softly musical, subtly soothing. He nods courteously to Lorraine, too.
"No, I'm in midtown Manhattan, pretty good idea where I'm at." Dead Girl offers, first, to Suriel. "I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be, you know, like that's how the world works man. You always end up where you need to be, you know, even if you don't know it. I mean, clearly, I was here to save that cat." Dead Girl says, beaming brightly. "And now you're here, with me and Lorraine. I guess the question is why." she wonders, mostly to herself.
"But, that's pretty neat, I don't know much about the law, you know? I mean, it seems complicated. People seem to find a way to ignore it. I mostly just sort of help out ghosts."
Suriel's nod to Lorraine is rather cautious, for he can sense the great power encased behind her shield.
Lorraine looks thoughtful. "You speak to the dead. That's…kinda amazing." She ponders. "Is it rude to ask questions of the dead? I know I can't see them, but…I wouldn't want to offend anyone with my curiosity."
"They're dead, there isn't a lot they can do. Anyways, most of the time, the restless dead are just sort of hanging around. There seem to be two major kinds- those who don't know they're dead, and those who are really hanging onto something." Dead Girl offers simply, "There are a lot of them who just.. refuse to know that they're dead. THey kind of… just keep doing the things they did in life, even if they don't really apply to the world they're in anymore. There's a guy who sweeps up the streets here. He just keeps sweeping the streets. Says hello to everyone who passes- and then keeps going on his way, just sweeping. He's been doing it for a long time, I think. He's dressed funny. Like old-timey funny." she explains.
"And, I mean, I can do a lot of things with the dead. I can even call them back into their bodies, if they're dead really recently. Or as ghosts." Which, as some might note, is powerful necromancy.
"Sometimes," Suriel states softly and sadly, "You just can't help them move on. Usually they're brought to wherever they should do, but sometimes, it seems like they still have something to do right here. Or perhaps they just fell through the cracks, there's a lot of paperwork in Heaven."
Lorraine looks thoughtful. "Would it be wrong to try to call someone back for answers? A few months ago, I was…well, something happened to me. I would like to know who was behind it…but if it's wrong to disturb the dead, then I don't need to know that badly."
"Eh. It really isn't something you do willy-nilly, you know?" Dead Girl says, "I mean, I can do it. It's easier if I can get access to their body, though. It connects to them, still." Dead Girl offers, "But, really, the Dead aren't usually very good at interacting with the living. A lot of things just… stop making sense to them, I think, when they're just hanging on."
Dead Girl looks over to Suriel, "I don't know anything about that." Dead Girl notes- although her existence would likely be one of the worst possible screw-ups in heavenly paperwork. Like divide by zero screw ups. "Anyways, Lorraine, I'm not going to just call the dead for someone on the street- no matter how fantastic she is." she offers, "It's asking a lot. A whole heck of a lot."
"I don't do that kind of thing anymore," Suriel apologises to Lorraine, "But there's a lot of stuff involved anyway. Rituals, sacrifices, stuff like that. Window dressing is important. But have you tried a Ouija Board?" He seems earnest, as if it might actually work.
Lorraine looks down. "You're right…forget I asked. I'll just have to find out the old-fashioned way." She smiles ruefully. "Old-fashiioned detective work." She chuckles to herself. "At least I can do that while only disturbing the living."
"Anyways, most dead people are weird and obsessive." Dead Girl offers with a smile, "Oh yeah, a Ouija board! Those are a lot of fun." she notes, "It's really trippy if you're on LSD, too. Man, I miss drugs." Dead Girl says casually, "Let me tell you, drugs were a heck of a lot of fun. Almost as much as sex. But, really, not something I do much of these days." She's got zero shame, clearly.
"Hey, you seem to know a lot about ghosts." Dead Girl notes of Suriel, "Why?" she wonders, "ARe you like a medium or something?" She wonders, next, "Or just someone who's read a lot of spiritualist books or something? I mean, most of that stuff is horseshit, you should know."
"I used to show them where they needed to go," Suriel states gravely after a moment's thought about how to answer. "But I'm not in that line of work anymore."
Lorraine raises an eyebrow. Definitely not a conversation she expected to get involved in, especially in public, on a Friday night. A few of the rubberneckers are giving DG odd looks.
"You…might want to tone down on the sex talk, Dead Girl, before you find yourself slapped with an indecency charge. Those cops would REALLY like to find a way to render you useless as a witness…or a defender."
"I'm really difficult to keep a hold of." Dead Girl notes, "And- as I said- I'm already dead. I don't think those laws really apply to me anymore." she says with a grin, "Shame is for the living." she says simply, "Anyways, they'd need to catch me, right? Hold on to me?" Dead Girl's body goes somewhat translucent, and she stands up. She then seems to dance on air- floating up into the sky, before suddenly she dives down towards the street.
And Right through as if there was nothing physical there in front of her at all- leaving only a burning cigarette behind on the pavement.
She's not gone long before she slides out from under the pavement- just floating through solid material as if it wasn't there. She becomes more solid herself, sitting and grinning.
"I think," replies Suriel cautiously, "That the laws of men bind everyone if we choose to live among them. Who knows what ways they have to lock us up?" Clearly, he doesn't want to find out.
Lorraine sighs, saying just loud enough for Suriel and DG to hear:
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you've heard this…person's statement about my client's behavior. I would like to call your attention to her statements later on, about how the witness enjoyed drugs and sex. Your Honor, in light of this information, and the perverse nature of this witness, I request her account be stricken from the record, as she has no credibility."
She looked back to Dead Girl. "Well, at least they won't dare call you as a witness."
"MAybe, but you've got a pulse." Dead Girl notes, "I'm a corpse. I can play dead like no one's business." She says with a grin, "Like seriously." Dead Girl shrugs to Lorraine, "I'm not interested in going to court. For any reason." she remarks, "Anyways, I scared him good. His Grandmother is super disappointed and he won't forget that. I bet he changes his ways, Grandmothers are scary when they visit from beyond the grave- and let me tell you. That lady was cranky."
Suriel tilts his head at Lorraine, looking from her to Dead Girl and back again. Everyone's so interesting today! "One tried to beat me with her umbrella once," he offers, about dead Grandmothers. "It's strange, what souls choose to bring with them. She didn't seem worried about the rain, just beating me about the head."
Lorraine nods. "Well, we'll see." She was swiftly losing track of the conversation, being drawn into topics she knows absolutely nothing about. Talking to spirits? Seances? Ouija boards? Ghosts? She doesn't know anything about that, and the recent altercation has already unsettled her slightly. Right now, it's all she can do to just smile, or nod thoughtfully
"Well, in her defense, she was probably pretty scared." Dead Girl notes, "Or, completely unaware. One of the two is usually the case." Dead Girl shrugs, "Anyways, I think I'm going to blow this scene." she says, "It was super cool to meet you, Lorraine." she says to the Senator's daughter, "I got a thing I should get to doing. I've entered a drinking contest." she says with a little grin, "Who can drink the most alcohol!.. I'm sure to win."
"That's an unfair advantage," Suriel agrees, but without much evident censure. "Good luck!" He, too, starts to move on, beaming at Lorraine, too.
Wow. It will probably be interesting to watch Dead Girl pickling her own internal organs, but it was probably time to go before she thought about this too much and it spoiled her sleep. It would have been nice to talk to the ones who had tortured her. The scientist who had altered her forever.
But all she can do is wave and try not to think about it. It's better that way.