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Post by kinrrataiyath on Dec 7, 2007 13:15:22 GMT -5
((Open to everyone at this point. Just pop in with what your characters have been up to lately and all that.))
After two years of late snowfalls and slightly warmer than usual weather, winter had decided that it would not be lenient this year. The snow had come hard and fast, burying the streets and anything on them in a matter of days. Wind whistled around the derelict buildings, kicking up flurries that built higher and higher against fences or dead end corners. Those who lived had moved indoors seeking shelter and warmth. Those who were already dead huddled in groups to keep the snow from piling up too high for their shambling feet to overcome. Were it not for the ruined and desolate nature of the infastructures, the city would have looked almost peaceful. One could almost believe that the boarded up buildings with lights on inside were, in fact, planning for the coming of Christmas. Kin, who had not experienced a Christmas since all of this began, was ironically on her way to deliver a few surprise packages of her own.
The rail thin scientist had only become thinner over the past few months. Since the last onslaught, life at the Cosway had not been the same. Not that she had been around much to notice. She popped in from time to time, but most of her days were spent doing one of two things; trying to rescue her research or trying to locate her missing friends. After two months without sucess on either front and winter moving in fast, she had decided to fall back to the Cosway, reassess the situation, then try again during better conditions.
Giving up was not an option.
Kin shifted her heavy bag of supplies from one shoulder to the other as she trudged through a new layer of freshly fallen snow. Her feet were already numb, as were her legs up to the knees. She hardly noticed though, for the bite of winter had become so familiar by then that the numbness was a welcome change. Her shoulder ached from the heavy burden but she consoled herself with the fact that she hadn't far to go now. One more walkway and she'd be on the Cosway's roof. Then she could hand off this final cache of food items and tools she'd gathered up over the months to Agate, who could hopefully then make use of them. She had to admit that she was getting rather tired of stale crackers and canned beans. It would be nice to have a cooked meal again... Assuming Agate would cook for her again. It would've even been nice to have some of Red's rat jerky by that point.
The brief thought of Red caused the scientist to look around at the other empty rooftops, faintly hopeful for some sign of life. He had been foremost in her thoughts during all that time spent searching. After the running, after the fighting, after the first death in the Needs, she had not been able to find a single trace of him. The pain of loss still burned in her gut, driving her to keep up the search despite all the odds against her. Everytime she thought of him, she felt the guilt swarm through her conscious once more. It was her fault he was missing in the first place.
Her glimpse across the horizon revealed not so much as a rat scurring across the other buildings in the area. Even the streets were silent. By then, she had reached the Cosway and stood just outside the rooftop door. With a heavy sigh, she tore her gaze away from the depressing landscape and looked down at the door handle. Her numb fingers shook as she clumsily wrapped them around it and tugged on the heavy slab of metal to open it.
A bit of effort later, the blonde haired mouse of a woman was stomping off her feet inside the stairwell. Snow piled around her shoes and drifted off in dusty waves from her pants. No sooner was she out of the direct wind than her numbed flesh began to prickle with heat. It was an odd sensation, but it made her feel slightly better. Soon enough she'd warm to room temperature and then she'd be cold again. Kin shifted the bag to her other shoulder again and began the long trek down to the lobbey. If nothing else, she'd at least get a moment to sit now that she was done moving over all of her supplies.
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Post by Sarah the Bullet on Dec 7, 2007 15:09:32 GMT -5
"Ok, Ask, supply check: canned food?" Sarah asked. "Check!" the blacky-blue haired schoolgirl awnsered. "Breadmaker?" "Check!" "Fireams and ammo?" "Yes and no..." "Crap..."
The pair was sitting in the kitchen of the Cosway Hotel, checking what megar supplys the two had scronged since a month ago, when Sandy had wandered into the hotel. Both now had some winter clothing now as well.
"Parts to the zombie defence system?" "Hell yah!" Sarah raised a eyebrow, loosing it in her stocking cap. "I mean yes," Sandy repied, blushing over the scarf.
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Simplish
Free Runner
Zombies ate my neighbors!
Posts: 192
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Post by Simplish on Dec 7, 2007 16:28:16 GMT -5
Simplish was desperatley blowing on his hands to try and get some warmth back into them. His best friend, Hypno The Ninja, whom's true name was still a mystery, had dragged him up here for something. "Alright Hypno, what in the name of all I find to be good did you drag me up here for?" Sam asked, now desperatley dancing around to get some warmth. "Ok, you know how it always seems like zombies are always catching us off guard and it tends to mass murder all of us?" Hypno said, making more of a statement then a question. "Yeah, then we spend about four weeks waiting for someone to maybe revive us with no recollection of the past week before we died." Simp said. He was honestly beggining to wonder why he bothered coming up here. "I present to you, my designs for a security perimiter!" Hypno chattered happily, as he pulled a rag of a curtain off of a strange structure. "...Hypno, that's the remains of a billboard." Sam wearily stated. "Ah, but to a professional it's more than that! It's a huge heap of scrap metal I can use to make something that might just be crazy enough to work! Think about it! Zombies finally break the barricades, everyone is asleep. But, that last bit of barricade then promptly trips a wire leading through the building floors directly to the rooftop, flipping on the lights and tripping the air raid sirens I have set up at this point! Everyone's awake, running, and not being dead! It's brilliant! BRILLIANT I SAY!" Hypno shouted to the heavens, before proceeding to laugh manically. "I think you've had too little to do recently." Sam said, shaking his head. "But damned if it isn't a good plan." "A good plan? It's friggin' brilliant! We just need to convince some of the others to help!" Hypno squealed, clapping his hands together like an excited child. "I haven't had this much fun since before we came to this d*mn city!" And with that, the duo went inside, talking away and arguing about the plan.
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Post by theokor on Dec 8, 2007 18:48:51 GMT -5
Theokor closed his eyes as he laid on the Cosways rooftop, enjoying the feeling of snow on his back for what seemed like the thousandth time that week. Yawning he pushed up onto his elbows to watch kin travel across the rooftops towards the Cosway. Despite the cold Theo didn’t feel it, whether that was because he had spent to long by a fire before all this started and burnt the feeling off, whether he had died to many times and lost the feeling, or something else he didn’t care anymore.
Laying back and closing his eyes again he thought about the past month or so, did time really matter here anymore? If it wasn’t for the setting and rising of the sun time would seem to stand still to Theo, since the past month or so since people had started disappearing. Thinking back it seems like all that had happened was they hid, they died, they got revived, hid, died, revived, and so on until it got to now. Although some had managed to escape death and had returned fine which he was very thankful about.
Opening his eyes and looking around again he thought kin must have gone downstairs without seeing him, partly why he liked this rooftop, it always been easy for him to hide on. Releasing a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding Theo watched it condense in front of his eyes and decided it had gotten quite cold enough now. Standing up and patting the snow off his leather pants and jackets he headed through the door and down the stairway, following Kins melting snow prints down towards the lobby.
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Post by kinrrataiyath on Dec 10, 2007 6:32:54 GMT -5
"Hello?" the scientist called as she clomped into the lobby. Most of the snow left on her pants and boots had melted by that point, soaking her up to the knees. She hunched her shoulders and shivered despite her resolve not to acknowledge the cold. It wasn't about to go away any time soon after all.
When her call was met with no reply, Kin let out a short sigh. Everyone was out or busy... again, as usual. Though her eyes darted briefly towards the far side of the room, she knew that the door she sought would still be closed and unused. She quickly looked away and tried to brush off the short pain that fluttered through her chest. Their time together had been so short. Wonderful, but tragically short.
She set her mind to the task at hand to keep it off such depressing matters. One by one she pulled items out of her bag and began to arrange them on the floor according to age, usefulness and edibility.
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Post by Red Dawson on Dec 10, 2007 12:21:27 GMT -5
Blam!
The survivor's body grew stiff and fell back on the rotted floorboards of the police station, hitting the ground like a plank before his arms and legs loosened from the killing shot. It was the third one in twenty-four hours and it seemed to set the mood. Many accusations were flying around as of late: backstabber, traitor, murderer. It was ironic that, at some point in time, everyone present in the city of Malton could be labeled as such. All it took was for death to visit the residents of this broken city and it wouldn't take long for their bodies to reanimate and become a monster set out to end the lives of those that they had once called friends and family. No. It wasn't ironic. It was hypocritical.
His eyes followed the entire action, even when they unceremoniously dumped the body out the window to land in some blood-stained snow drift far below. No one questioned the 'giver of justice' as he took his leave with as less fanfare than his arrival. Of course, they checked the still warm body before they threw it out like another sack of garbage. Even though it was a police station, ammunition and supplies were thin at best. He found it odd that people would complain that people were barricading too heavily - that the inexperience would wind up dead on the streets with no way inside - yet they'd leave a man defenseless for the sake of the many. It was like a scene from a movie he couldn't remember - a man gets shot, the bar music and conversations pause, and then they start up once more as if nothing had happened.
Tis the season...
It had been a machine-like existence since he felt the blood once again flow through his veins, his heart pumping once more with the pace of the living. He had trouble recalling much of anything, other than having fallen twice over a short length of time. He knew it was rough getting back on ones feet after spending time among the ranks of the undead; he was sure that not having the time to recover from the first was why everything seemed so dull and meaningless. He didn't know how long he had been under, only remembering that there was no snow on the ground then, only the bleak and bitter bite of winter being heralded on the wind. So, with lack of anything to do besides remembering what had been forgotten, he just went through the paces of your typical survivor.
As one of the residents dusted his hands off after delivering the body to the cold below, he caught the man - sitting in the corner as he had been those few days, motionless and quietly observing the entire time - watching his actions, a somewhat faded feral expression on his face. "'eh now. Wot chu lookin' at red? Git yoosta it o' I'll carve a tunnel through yer fo'head!" With a pat of his shotgun the man turned and walked away, finding more disgust in the observer than anything else that happened that cold day.
The quiet recluse glanced down to his boots. He wasn't felled by the intimidating tone in the heavy-handed bloke's voice. It was what he had called him. Red. It was like getting a bucket of cold water thrown in the face after a week long bout of binge drinking and a three day hangover. It was a missing puzzle piece that had fallen to the floor out of view and, once found, started to make sense of the jumbled up images around it. It wasn't a colorful reference to his auburn hair. It was his name. Red. Red Dawson. And he was in a building with others. The Collins. The Cosway. The split building. And there were the faces that popped in and out of view. They all were there, even though he had trouble placing names to them.
Red got up and instantly the large man turned, bringing his shotgun up to bear, but all he did was follow his movement as he went towards the stairs leading to the roof. The recovering amnesiac could faintly hear the 'good riddance' muttered by a few of the residents as the door closed behind him. He was in total agreement. It was about time he got out of this place and headed home. Home? Well, he didn't grow up there and heading to Wykes seemed to be the opposite direction from where he used to live, before all of this. So, with little feeling either way, he left the station in South Blythville and set a course southeast. He was unsure exactly how he might be welcomed. For all he knew, he could have last seen those faces in the states of undeath, backstabbing, betraying, and murdering those that had any faith in him.
It was just the risk he was going to have to take. He needed to gather up all the pieces. He needed to mentally pull himself back together. Red had heard enough of those that have had their brains rotted by crossing over too many times and he needed to be able to pull back those memories to let him know that he had not degraded that far. There were things in this city that he held dear although, by the look of it all, he couldn't imagine what that might be. If he felt that he had slipped too far from humanity, that it would be one more death and he'd be as feral as some of the zombies he had come across, then he'd have to do what was best for what he felt was the only important things he had left in Malton: he'd just have to march off to the wall and let the military take care of him for good.
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Post by Sarah the Bullet on Dec 10, 2007 13:14:08 GMT -5
There was shifting in the lobby shortly after the two had finished the supply list, deciding that they still needed nails and some more food. Each grabbed her weapon, Sarah's magnum held in front of her and Sandy holding a fencing rapier, and headed into the lobby.
"Kin?!?" Sarah called in surprise, lowering the firearm imediately.
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Post by Kat on Dec 10, 2007 14:08:21 GMT -5
Kay was in her room.
No change there, then. She was in the room that she shared with Agate, sometimes Fa, and now their daughter, and it was a cold room right about now. No change there, either. At least the cold kept the smell down, but it reminded her that the chill extended beyond the physical.
She missed her makeshift family. Agate and Fa were foraging further and further every time they went out, in order to keep the remnants of the Cosway crew alive; they were gone for longer and longer and every time she descended a little further into helpless dullness. Maybe they were already on the other side, shambling and killing mindlessly -- or in Agate's case, probably freezing and rotting and shattering away for good this time. And she didn't even know where Eddie had gone, just that he hadn't come back.
Her movements changing Casey's cloth diaper were automatic. The smell. It was funny how perspective changed things, because the smell of dirty diaper was -- not pleasant, but a candle to the blazing inferno of the stench of rot and sick that hovered over the city even in winter. She scraped the contents of the old diaper into the chamber pot and rolled it neatly, to be washed next naptime.
Casey kicked her legs, made a whining noise, the kind that precluded a good cry. Kayta's hands tightened on the clean diaper she'd retrieved. She took a deep breath.
You had better not, she thought. We just got upstairs. You had better not make us go back downstairs. I hate that basement.
There was no doubt that Kay loved her daughter, but the thing she never told anyone was that sometimes she resented her, too. Fiercely and angrily and shamefully and privately; Casey kept her chained here and she couldn't run away or the child would die. She couldn't run to find Agate and Fa, or Eddie or any of the rest of her scattered family and bring them home before they died real deaths and it was because she was the only one whose body could feed Casey. It'll get better when Fa and Agate get home, she reminded herself. It always did.
"Alright, Casey," she whispered to the infant, going through the familiar movements, replacing her daughter's diaper. "I'll make you a deal, love." She pinned the diaper in place and started wrapping her up again. "You let me stay out of that pit for twenty minutes today, and I'll take you upstairs on the next sunny day, okay?" She hoisted the child into her arms, changed and clean, and she liked to fancy that Casey understood her because the little girl stopped her whimpering. Kay slipped Casey into her sling, adding an extra layer of warmth between her daughter and the everpresent chill, and headed out of the room. The stairs down to the lobby were wide and dim but familiar, and she thought she'd heard something. Maybe there'd be someone else out and about today.
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Post by theokor on Dec 10, 2007 17:26:46 GMT -5
Walking down the stairs and corridors Theo found him self lost in his thoughts again, thinking about relics of the past, about before all hell was unleashed. Like every other time recently he struggled to remember the fragments of his past as they slipped away with each new death only for them to be gathered together again, broken and scrambled ready to be sorted into coherent memories when he was revived.
The sounds of doors closing and footsteps snapped Theo out of his thoughts. Looking around he realised he had managed to somehow wonder down to near the stairs leading to the lobby, up ahead the familiar figure of a redhead stood with her back to him. Smiling a little he jogged towards her, tapping her on the shoulder and slowing to a standstill as he reached her. Smiling first at Kay then down at Casey. "Hay Kay, how are you cooping?" looking down at Casey again he gave her a mischievous wink "and how’s the little munch kin doing today?"
((Short x.x to short, but I couldn't think of anything else))
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Post by kinrrataiyath on Dec 10, 2007 18:47:56 GMT -5
Kin looked up from her unpacking duties and fixed the young girl with a smile. It had been a while since she'd seen Sarah and she didn't doubt that some people would still be surprised by her return. After all the times they'd had to hunt her down and revive her, they had probably given her up for dead.
"Hey Sarah," she greeted her warmly. "I brought back some supplies. Want to help me unpack?"
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In another part of the city, Cassandra Saratores, the infamous walking gunshow, sat with her back to a half demolished rooftop vent. The tall, aluminum pipe had been knocked sideways long ago and its pointed cone top torn off. It was just the right height to support her shoulders while she rested her tired legs. Trekking across the city from one suburb to another was hard work, even for a trained soldier.
A cold wind swept across the rooftop and tickled her neck beneath the inadaquate cover of a raised coat collar. She shivered, pulling her arms in closer to her body. It was a futile effort to keep warm given the fact that her butt had gone numb long ago. Sitting in the snow tended to do that to a person. Still, a cold rest was still better than no rest at all. With a heart felt sigh, the small woman pulled out a half eaten piece of jerky from her pocket and began to munch on it. In a few moments she'd have to get up again and keep trekking towards the Cosway. She should've known better than to extend her patrol for so long or so far, especially with winter coming on fast. She hated winter. It was too d*mn cold. She hadn't even accomplished anything spectacular on this patrol other than to freeze her butt off.
The soldier grumbled to herself, mulling over these thoughts and a few others as she finished up the meager meal. As the last of the jerky disappeared, she brought her hands up to her mouth and blew on them to warm the stiffness from her digits. Cold butt, numb legs, stiff fingers; at this rate she may as well give herself to the zombies as a frozen snack. That, however, would be giving up, and Cass would see herself in a pink dress before she ever gave up the fight. Her resolve made, she began the auderous task of picking herself up again and forcing her body into some semblance of activity.
((Red, if you want to have your boy meet up with Cass then feel free. Otherwise I'm going to move her to the Cosway with the next post.))
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Simplish
Free Runner
Zombies ate my neighbors!
Posts: 192
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Post by Simplish on Dec 10, 2007 19:40:09 GMT -5
Simplish wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead. It wasn't exactly easy work completley repairing a building by one's self. Especially not after an ammo and food run. And all this was made all the more difficult by zombie slaying. Sam honestly didn't know why he continued to do this. The next day, he would awake only to see the building once more destroyed. It was an endless loop. The entirety of existence was for those trapped in the city. Sighing, Simplish exhaustedly slung his backpack over his shoulder and prepared to go back to the Cosway. Out of the corner of his eye, Simplish looked out over the city. A picteresque place, with little signs of pollution. Absolutley perfect. Perfect, that is, until you noticed overly large piles of snow, people dressed in nothing and yet still moving, albeit slowly, and heard the distant thundering of guns. Picteresque. That word had become a grim parody of itself in this city. _____________________________________________________
There was a man standing on top of a building. His face had a horrid smile, a horrid look in the eyes of slate gray, and the stench... That is much better undescribed. He saw his target, alone, and unawares in a building. A museum. The kid whom had eluded his grasp for more than two years. And he was as good as dead. Now all the man needed to do was thaw. Thaw and be revived.
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Post by Sarah the Bullet on Dec 10, 2007 20:01:36 GMT -5
"Glad to!" Sarah began taking things out of the bag. "Kin, I want you to meet Sandy. She wandered in here, and I guess she sort of grew on me." "Hi," Sandy waved.
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Post by Red Dawson on Dec 12, 2007 11:18:35 GMT -5
Having spent the beginning moments of winter among the dead, Red's thoughts had not been towards gathering up clothes for the cold. His trademark flannel was long since lost, as was his rucksack and any provisions he had there. Somehow he had managed to keep on his person his revolver, still in the makeshift holster tied down to his now ventilated jeans. His t-shirt had also seen better days, seemingly held together by the glue of dry caked blood. Despite all this, the cold wasn't really on his mind - he seemed used to the numbness and only occasionally stopped in a building to sleep and gather up some warmth for the next day's travel only when he started shivering uncontrollably or fatigue set in. It was getting near that point once more when he crossed the frost flecked plank to the nearby building. He was getting closer - the area was more familiar to that which he had passed through recently - and he made it a point not to stop despite his feet dragging along as if he still did not have a pulse. He glanced briefly to the motion he caught in the corner of his eye by a fallen exhaust pipe, but made no change in his course. Probably just another killer, loaded down with guns and waiting for the right moment to go down below and blow some other "murderer's" brains out on the wall. He didn't much care if he was her target, having left his revolver in its place - he just didn't have the energy for a fight now. So as the woman pushed herself up, Red continued to force his legs forward towards the next plankway. He thought he could see the Cosway from here and it wouldn't be much longer. Perhaps then he could go inside and try to steal back some of the feeling that the winter wind had robbed of him. He'd had smiled if he could at just how he'd be received, half-frozen and walking like the corpse he once was. No matter what he thought he expected it to be with a shotgun shell, either by mistaken identity or in retaliation for what hand he may have played in ruining their lives. There was so much that was unclear, so much he couldn't place a finger on, but even if it came to that, at least he'd have an idea of what part he played the last time he was there. ((I chose the Cass route, have fun ))
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Post by Kat on Dec 12, 2007 13:34:57 GMT -5
"Oh, hey Theo." Kay had heard footsteps approaching, ears automatically attuned to the sound after nervous years keeping a lookout. She smiled at the other Cosway resident, glad for a familiar face to take her mind off things. Casey seemed glad, too, squealing a happy noise and then babbling nonsense syllables.
Bouncing the child a little and re-settling her in her sling, Kay took in Theo's outdoor clothes still showing signs of snow, and his boots still damp on the carpet, and asked, "Just out on a patrol, eh? What's the neighborhood looking like today?"
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Post by kinrrataiyath on Dec 12, 2007 14:04:39 GMT -5
"Nice to meet you," Kin greeted the new woman with a smile. No surprise that some unfamiliar faces had moved in during her away time. Sarah's track record for judging people had never been all that good, but there was no sense in damning a person before they did anything wrong. Besides, this Sandy person seemed friendly enough.
Once the bag was fully unpacked, Kin neatly folded it up and put it to the side. Soon it'd be refilled with her medical supplies and a few emeregency items for her next attempt on the Needs. Though she hadn't had a single success yet, the routine of trying, failing, returning to recover then trying again had become second nature to her. Everything in her life was now arranged around those forays out into the cruel, increasingly cold world. This stop at the Cosway was just another rest station along the way.
"I'm not sure where Agate's keeping his food stuffs these days," she said to Sarah as she began to organize the piles. One hand casually swept an errant lock of her long, blonde hair behind her ear. "Do you think you could find out and add these cans to the lot? I've got a few more upstairs too."
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For the millionth time that day, Cass damned the cold. It was slowing her down, making her miss certain cues that would've come easily if her brain hadn't been occupied with dreaming of a warm(er) bed and a little rest. She fumbled for her revolver, numb fingers refusing to curl properly around the trigger.
The shambling mass had come out of no where, startling the small soldier woman out of her grumpy reveries. Her immediate assumption had been zombie, but no sooner was the thought in her head than her brain was screeching protests. Why was a zombie on the roof? How'd it get up here? And for that matter, why was it shambling right on past her without so much as a second glance? Now she knew she was hardly a meaty meal, but that had never stopped the brain dead bastards in the past.
And then she noticed the hair.
Curious, Cass lowered her gun to point at the ground and advanced slowly on the tattered and torn figure. It wasn't too hard to overtake him given that her body was still in better condition than his. Despite her complaints to the contrary. She tilted her head to the side as if a new angle would give her the defining clue as to his identity. He was missing some key features, such as flannel, but the lanky red hair and thin frame were undeniably familiar. Still, the ever present fear of zombies would not let her drop her guard altogether yet. She kept a firm grip on her gun as she stepped within speaking distance of him.
"Red?" she called tentatively. All she needed was a look at his face. Just one to tell her whether this sorry excuse for a being was friend or foe.
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