Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2016 21:02:45 GMT -5
(OOC Notes: This story is a writing exercise as much as it is for character development and placement. Like all other characters of mine, this is a work in progress. Any and all feed back is appreciated while I attempt to bring this character, and all of my characters to the level where I want them to be. Cheers and enjoy the read!)
The Big fuckin' Apple.
Curran could see his breath against the cold air. He laughed to himself. He often joked that it would be a cold day in hell before he ever visited New York. Well, hell has come, it was cold and here he stood.
Before him was the North Hempstead Country Club and it looked to be in relatively good shape. The journey through this shitty state was starting to pay off. He walked towards the large doors laid before him and opened the doors...
-----------------------
(Several Weeks Earlier)
Curran had managed to find a small motorized boat, as crazy as that was while in Old Lyme, Connecticut near the White Sands beach. The motor still had life and a little gas, though the hull looked less than desirable. He wanted to take the risk though. It was time to avoid the major roadways leading into New York and this seemed to be an opportunity to avoid walking on foot for a while.
The boat managed, if just barely, to land Curran in Orient, NY. It took several days of travel and some lucky scavenging finds to keep him going until he hit the 495 Long Island Expressway. It took him almost two weeks to follow the 495 towards Dix Hills with the dead milling about, bad weather and low food supplies. The expressway was his primary method of travel as he headed deeper into New York. He took an exit to find more supplies or a place to sleep when he needed to but while he traveled , it was the expressway.
There were cars backed up here and there. Some bumper to bumper, others were wrecked. Some areas were almost passable by vehicle, others simply were not. Occasionally the dead littered or roamed about on the expressway but he kept moving over or around them. Once in a while he'd stop to dispatch any that he couldn't avoid, but he wasn't taking any major risks. He had escaped the madness of Boston during the panic, during the fall, and stayed well after most of the city turned. He wasn't about to let this particular shit hole city do him in.
That was when he heard voices. There had been several not far off. Curran ducked low and brought up his Mini 14 rifle and began a crouched walk along the sides of the long abandoned cars that littered the road. As he got closer, the voices remained in one location. Two males and one female. Cautiously he approached until he could hear them speak just on the other side of the car he was using as cover right now.
Curran took several quick deep breaths, psyching himself up before he popped up with his weapon drawn. "Hey! Nobody fuckin' move!" he shouted in a thick Boston accent. "I ain't lookin' for trouble, alright? But keep your hands out where I can see em, ya follow?"
The three looked stunned but not a single one of them moved. All of them were sitting in a circle, likely taking a break to eat as they each had some food in their hands. One was a black male, maybe in his mid-thirties, the other was a white male with a scruffy beard. Curran figured he was young but couldn't pin an age on him. The woman was maybe late twenties or early thirties. All of them were bundled up, all of them had a firearm. The black man had an AK-47, while his counter part had some type of AR. Maybe it was an AR-15, but Curran didn't know the model. The woman had a small sawed-off pump action shotgun.
Knowing he had the situation under control for now, he then opted to down play it a bit. He slowly lowered his weapon. "I told ya, I wanted no trouble. Just was wondering if yall had somethin' to trade. I'm hungry."
The black man slowly stood up. He was tall. Very tall. Curran guessed maybe 6'7'' maybe even a little taller.
Fuck me, this guy is huge.
"Drop the gun then, man," he said in a very calm tone. "You say you want no trouble, put your weapon down."
The other two in his group began to stand as well and that only seemed to affirm that they wanted Curran to drop his gun too.
Curran nodded, set down his Mini 14 on the hood of a car he had used as cover. "Look, I got a pistol in my coat too. I'm gonna take it out slow, index and thumb, alright?" The trio before him began to slowly separate and their weapons started to rise.
"Real slow there, mister. You fuck up, we shoot." The black man said as Curran did exactly what he said he would.
With his hands raised now, Curran allowed his right hand to slide into his coat, slowly. "I got my hand on it, I'm removing the weapon, don't fuckin' shoot." He looked nervous because in truth, he was taking a risk. He knew it, but hopefully it bought him some trust since he could have shot them first too. With his hand now removed from his jacket with said pistol, a HK 45, he set it down on the hood as well. "I'll take my pack off too, okay? I got a knife. I'll set that down on the hood and you can go through it. Like I said, I'm lookin' to trade. Where ya'll comin' from?"
"Search him," the black man said and quickly the one with the beard approached Curran and began to remove the pack for him instead.
The man with a beard threw the pack on the hood as soon as it was cleared from Curran's arms. "You from Boston?" the man asked in a heavy Southie accent.
Curran laughed a little. "Does a bear poop in popes hat?" He glanced over his shoulder at the guy who found his knife and threw that on the hood as well. What was missed was still inside his coat. Same side as the HK 45.
"West 3rd Street," came his reply.
Curran laughed a little harder. "East 5th Street. Heh, the fuck ya doin' here?"
The woman and the black man began going through Curran's things, but now his attention was to the man with the beard. The man laughed. "Yeah, I know, right? Fuckin' New York. There's supposedly a settlement here. Got the place on lock down. Riker's Island. We're tryin' to go there and post up."
Curran laughed and slowly lowered his arms, which his fellow Bostonian seemed alright with. He slowly turned to face the man. "Ain't that a fuckin' prison? Figures that the criminals of New York would fuckin' make it, right? Just like a couple of guys from South Boston."
"You ain't got shit to trade. A little food, some dirty clothes, but you got ammo for a .38 in here..." the black man said with his eyes focused on Curran.
Curran glanced over at the man and furrowed his brow. "Yeah, I do. I use it for trade. Sometimes you take shit you don't need but it don't mean that someone else won't need it."
The woman and the black man looked hard at Curran before he glanced over at his fellow Bostonian. He shared a look similar to his compatriots.
There was a silence that only compounded the tension. "Look, my shit is on that hood. You got me three to one, what the fuck am I supposed to-" Curran cut himself off as he pushed his right shoulder into the man with a beard while his left hand crossed over Curran's body to grab the mans shoulder to help control the push he was making. Curran's right hand reached right for his .38 that was inside of his coats interior breast pocket, got his finger around the trigger and cast a quick look at the black man.
Curran took a split second to size up a shot and pulled the trigger as the man rose his AK level with him. The shot was a good one. The bullet hit the man just below the nose snapping his head back. It happened fast from that point forward for Curran. He kept driving against the fellow Bostonian until they slammed into a car. When they hit, using his left hand, he pulled the man down to the ground while he himself dropped.
"Daren!" the woman screamed out, with her weapon at the ready but she didn't fire. The spread might hit her friend and that was what Curran had counted on.
The two men rolled with each other which ended with Curran on his back on the road and Daren on top of him, trying to wrestle control of the pistol free. Much to Curran's surprise, Daren was pretty strong. Curran did his best to half sit up and with his left arm, wrapped around the back of Daren's neck. Daren on the other hand kept one hand in control of Curran's pistol while the other began jabbing at Curran's side.
Curran squeezed his left arm as tightly as he could so that the two men were as close to one another as they were going to get and sank his teeth into Daren's face cause him to howl. This allowed him just a moment to bring the .38 under the jaw of Daren and he pulled the trigger.
The woman screamed as Curran fell back to the pavement with the body of Daren on top of him and using the body as a shield of sorts, took a shot at the woman and missed. This caused her to duck behind the car. Without missing a beat, Curran rolled Daren off and scrambled up to his feet and fired one more shot near where the woman had been to keep her head down as he slammed himself into the car on the front passenger side where his other weapons were.
Goddamn, what a rush.
It was true. Curran was feeling a slight euphoric high from the surge of adrenaline. "You coulda shot, ya know. This is your fault you're in this situation." A smile crept across his face as his heart pounded in his chest.
The answer was a shotgun blast that landed above his head. He laughed a little and slowly made his way around the front of the vehicle near where the black man had fallen and kept his head low.
"YOU did this, you asshole! YOU!" she screamed and pulled the trigger again but the shot this time tore up the asphalt near the front of the car. She had followed his voice and was more than likely trying to move with him in a circle around the car.
Curran dropped so he was on the asphalt laying flat. He saw her booted feet quickly but quietly moving towards the rear of the car. He took aim and pulled the trigger hitting the top of her left foot. She let out a scream of pain and surprise and fired another shot as she fell. As she hit the pavement, Curran saw her pump the shotgun and aim at him.
Fuuuuuck me!
The shot was bad one. It was poorly aimed and most of it hit the undercarriage of the car, but some of it sprayed pieces of asphalt that peppered the left side of Curran's face.
Quick to stand, Curran got up and looked over hood of the car with his .38 pointed at her head. The look of terror on her face was enough. He smiled a little as he walked around the front of the car.
"Shotgun, throw it," he said as he felt something hot run down the side of his face. "Good reaction, bad aim though. Shotgun. Now."
The woman did what she was told with some reluctance. "Why?" That was the only thing she could muster.
"Of all the questions you could ask, you ask the 'why' question? Look, you wanna know why? What difference does it make? But I'll tell ya what, I'll humor ya." Curran moved towards the shotgun and kicked it behind him with his foot. He knelt down on his left knee while he supported himself on his right thigh some feet from her so she couldn't lunge at him and let the pistol hang loosely in his hand.
"I did this to illustrate the point that you were already fuckin' dead. You killed yourself." He smiled when he saw the obvious look of confusion on her face. Her trembling chin, her quivering lips only made him shake his head. "You're clinging to a world that doesn't fuckin' exist anymore. Grasping for the idea of 'community' and 'order' and 'justice' when that world fuckin' died the day the dead came back. You want to find this place they got setup in Riker's cause you ain't got the fuckin' stones to live in the new world. It's dog eat dog out here. Survival of the fittest. I gave you a chance, but you didn't take it. You coulda shot me, but what, you hesitated cause I was wrapped up in your friend Daren?"
Curran paused a moment and she nodded as she attempted to sit herself up, with two tears rolling down her cheeks. "Your friend was dead, you weren't. You coulda saved yourself."
She tried to keep her composure but it was becoming clear she was going to lose that soon. "You don't kill your friends! The people you care about!" she managed to get out before she began to silently weep.
With a hearty sigh, Curran looked at her as his left hand touched his hairline above his ear and pulled back to reveal the blood. "I've killed friends. I've watched em die too. Hell, I watched half of my crew die in the first couple of days of this shit. The rules have changed. Survival is dictated by the ones who have the will that is strongest. Those that can kill their friends, kill their families, kill anyone that threatens their survival are the ones that are alive. A group can make you stronger, but you are as strong as that weakest link. And if that link is weak, believe me, it can bring an entire group to their knees. And you, you I can see are weak."
She snapped at Curran through tear filled eyes. "Then do it! Just kill me already!"
Curran sighed heavily. "No, because you're already dead. Why would I waste my time. But I can see you're suffering pretty fuckin' bad. I'll help ya along." He took aim at the woman and pulled the trigger.
She cried out as the round tore into her right knee. Her shock was strangely satisfying as was her response. "Just fucking KILL me! Please!"
Without another word, Curran stood up and began collecting some of the food they had been eating before, loaded up his pack. He rummaged through the body of the black man quickly and began collecting ammo from his body. He might find some use for it with his Mini 14. Once a few of the magazines from the AK were loaded into his pack he could hear the woman sob almost uncontrollably.
"PLEASE!"
With a heavy sigh, Curran slipped his pack on and looked to her as she began to crawl towards her shotgun. He crossed over towards the shotgun, picked up the weapon and threw it well out of her reach. "The fuck ya screamin' about?"
"Just do it!" came her reply.
With a scoff, Curran shook his head. "I told ya, I already have," he said as he pointed behind her. She propped herself up and turned to see several of the dead shambling her way. "They heard the gunshots. I gotta go. I gotta go cause I'm not like you. I'm not dead. I hear Riker's is nice though. I'll see what they got to offer," he said with a small smile before he stood up and began a quickened walk from the scene. He heard her panicked sobs and cries for help as she tried to drag herself after him. Curran didn't even look back as she began a guttural wail as the dead no doubt reached her. There was no point looking back because only the dead were behind him.
Eventually the screams pattered out but by the time, he already created more than enough distance. He still had a hell of a trip to make and it was going to take him time to get there. As long as he kept moving forward though, he was still alive.
(Hope it was enjoyable and if anyone here has any feed back or anything, I would appreciate it. Thanks so much)
The Big fuckin' Apple.
Curran could see his breath against the cold air. He laughed to himself. He often joked that it would be a cold day in hell before he ever visited New York. Well, hell has come, it was cold and here he stood.
Before him was the North Hempstead Country Club and it looked to be in relatively good shape. The journey through this shitty state was starting to pay off. He walked towards the large doors laid before him and opened the doors...
-----------------------
(Several Weeks Earlier)
Curran had managed to find a small motorized boat, as crazy as that was while in Old Lyme, Connecticut near the White Sands beach. The motor still had life and a little gas, though the hull looked less than desirable. He wanted to take the risk though. It was time to avoid the major roadways leading into New York and this seemed to be an opportunity to avoid walking on foot for a while.
The boat managed, if just barely, to land Curran in Orient, NY. It took several days of travel and some lucky scavenging finds to keep him going until he hit the 495 Long Island Expressway. It took him almost two weeks to follow the 495 towards Dix Hills with the dead milling about, bad weather and low food supplies. The expressway was his primary method of travel as he headed deeper into New York. He took an exit to find more supplies or a place to sleep when he needed to but while he traveled , it was the expressway.
There were cars backed up here and there. Some bumper to bumper, others were wrecked. Some areas were almost passable by vehicle, others simply were not. Occasionally the dead littered or roamed about on the expressway but he kept moving over or around them. Once in a while he'd stop to dispatch any that he couldn't avoid, but he wasn't taking any major risks. He had escaped the madness of Boston during the panic, during the fall, and stayed well after most of the city turned. He wasn't about to let this particular shit hole city do him in.
That was when he heard voices. There had been several not far off. Curran ducked low and brought up his Mini 14 rifle and began a crouched walk along the sides of the long abandoned cars that littered the road. As he got closer, the voices remained in one location. Two males and one female. Cautiously he approached until he could hear them speak just on the other side of the car he was using as cover right now.
Curran took several quick deep breaths, psyching himself up before he popped up with his weapon drawn. "Hey! Nobody fuckin' move!" he shouted in a thick Boston accent. "I ain't lookin' for trouble, alright? But keep your hands out where I can see em, ya follow?"
The three looked stunned but not a single one of them moved. All of them were sitting in a circle, likely taking a break to eat as they each had some food in their hands. One was a black male, maybe in his mid-thirties, the other was a white male with a scruffy beard. Curran figured he was young but couldn't pin an age on him. The woman was maybe late twenties or early thirties. All of them were bundled up, all of them had a firearm. The black man had an AK-47, while his counter part had some type of AR. Maybe it was an AR-15, but Curran didn't know the model. The woman had a small sawed-off pump action shotgun.
Knowing he had the situation under control for now, he then opted to down play it a bit. He slowly lowered his weapon. "I told ya, I wanted no trouble. Just was wondering if yall had somethin' to trade. I'm hungry."
The black man slowly stood up. He was tall. Very tall. Curran guessed maybe 6'7'' maybe even a little taller.
Fuck me, this guy is huge.
"Drop the gun then, man," he said in a very calm tone. "You say you want no trouble, put your weapon down."
The other two in his group began to stand as well and that only seemed to affirm that they wanted Curran to drop his gun too.
Curran nodded, set down his Mini 14 on the hood of a car he had used as cover. "Look, I got a pistol in my coat too. I'm gonna take it out slow, index and thumb, alright?" The trio before him began to slowly separate and their weapons started to rise.
"Real slow there, mister. You fuck up, we shoot." The black man said as Curran did exactly what he said he would.
With his hands raised now, Curran allowed his right hand to slide into his coat, slowly. "I got my hand on it, I'm removing the weapon, don't fuckin' shoot." He looked nervous because in truth, he was taking a risk. He knew it, but hopefully it bought him some trust since he could have shot them first too. With his hand now removed from his jacket with said pistol, a HK 45, he set it down on the hood as well. "I'll take my pack off too, okay? I got a knife. I'll set that down on the hood and you can go through it. Like I said, I'm lookin' to trade. Where ya'll comin' from?"
"Search him," the black man said and quickly the one with the beard approached Curran and began to remove the pack for him instead.
The man with a beard threw the pack on the hood as soon as it was cleared from Curran's arms. "You from Boston?" the man asked in a heavy Southie accent.
Curran laughed a little. "Does a bear poop in popes hat?" He glanced over his shoulder at the guy who found his knife and threw that on the hood as well. What was missed was still inside his coat. Same side as the HK 45.
"West 3rd Street," came his reply.
Curran laughed a little harder. "East 5th Street. Heh, the fuck ya doin' here?"
The woman and the black man began going through Curran's things, but now his attention was to the man with the beard. The man laughed. "Yeah, I know, right? Fuckin' New York. There's supposedly a settlement here. Got the place on lock down. Riker's Island. We're tryin' to go there and post up."
Curran laughed and slowly lowered his arms, which his fellow Bostonian seemed alright with. He slowly turned to face the man. "Ain't that a fuckin' prison? Figures that the criminals of New York would fuckin' make it, right? Just like a couple of guys from South Boston."
"You ain't got shit to trade. A little food, some dirty clothes, but you got ammo for a .38 in here..." the black man said with his eyes focused on Curran.
Curran glanced over at the man and furrowed his brow. "Yeah, I do. I use it for trade. Sometimes you take shit you don't need but it don't mean that someone else won't need it."
The woman and the black man looked hard at Curran before he glanced over at his fellow Bostonian. He shared a look similar to his compatriots.
There was a silence that only compounded the tension. "Look, my shit is on that hood. You got me three to one, what the fuck am I supposed to-" Curran cut himself off as he pushed his right shoulder into the man with a beard while his left hand crossed over Curran's body to grab the mans shoulder to help control the push he was making. Curran's right hand reached right for his .38 that was inside of his coats interior breast pocket, got his finger around the trigger and cast a quick look at the black man.
Curran took a split second to size up a shot and pulled the trigger as the man rose his AK level with him. The shot was a good one. The bullet hit the man just below the nose snapping his head back. It happened fast from that point forward for Curran. He kept driving against the fellow Bostonian until they slammed into a car. When they hit, using his left hand, he pulled the man down to the ground while he himself dropped.
"Daren!" the woman screamed out, with her weapon at the ready but she didn't fire. The spread might hit her friend and that was what Curran had counted on.
The two men rolled with each other which ended with Curran on his back on the road and Daren on top of him, trying to wrestle control of the pistol free. Much to Curran's surprise, Daren was pretty strong. Curran did his best to half sit up and with his left arm, wrapped around the back of Daren's neck. Daren on the other hand kept one hand in control of Curran's pistol while the other began jabbing at Curran's side.
Curran squeezed his left arm as tightly as he could so that the two men were as close to one another as they were going to get and sank his teeth into Daren's face cause him to howl. This allowed him just a moment to bring the .38 under the jaw of Daren and he pulled the trigger.
The woman screamed as Curran fell back to the pavement with the body of Daren on top of him and using the body as a shield of sorts, took a shot at the woman and missed. This caused her to duck behind the car. Without missing a beat, Curran rolled Daren off and scrambled up to his feet and fired one more shot near where the woman had been to keep her head down as he slammed himself into the car on the front passenger side where his other weapons were.
Goddamn, what a rush.
It was true. Curran was feeling a slight euphoric high from the surge of adrenaline. "You coulda shot, ya know. This is your fault you're in this situation." A smile crept across his face as his heart pounded in his chest.
The answer was a shotgun blast that landed above his head. He laughed a little and slowly made his way around the front of the vehicle near where the black man had fallen and kept his head low.
"YOU did this, you asshole! YOU!" she screamed and pulled the trigger again but the shot this time tore up the asphalt near the front of the car. She had followed his voice and was more than likely trying to move with him in a circle around the car.
Curran dropped so he was on the asphalt laying flat. He saw her booted feet quickly but quietly moving towards the rear of the car. He took aim and pulled the trigger hitting the top of her left foot. She let out a scream of pain and surprise and fired another shot as she fell. As she hit the pavement, Curran saw her pump the shotgun and aim at him.
Fuuuuuck me!
The shot was bad one. It was poorly aimed and most of it hit the undercarriage of the car, but some of it sprayed pieces of asphalt that peppered the left side of Curran's face.
Quick to stand, Curran got up and looked over hood of the car with his .38 pointed at her head. The look of terror on her face was enough. He smiled a little as he walked around the front of the car.
"Shotgun, throw it," he said as he felt something hot run down the side of his face. "Good reaction, bad aim though. Shotgun. Now."
The woman did what she was told with some reluctance. "Why?" That was the only thing she could muster.
"Of all the questions you could ask, you ask the 'why' question? Look, you wanna know why? What difference does it make? But I'll tell ya what, I'll humor ya." Curran moved towards the shotgun and kicked it behind him with his foot. He knelt down on his left knee while he supported himself on his right thigh some feet from her so she couldn't lunge at him and let the pistol hang loosely in his hand.
"I did this to illustrate the point that you were already fuckin' dead. You killed yourself." He smiled when he saw the obvious look of confusion on her face. Her trembling chin, her quivering lips only made him shake his head. "You're clinging to a world that doesn't fuckin' exist anymore. Grasping for the idea of 'community' and 'order' and 'justice' when that world fuckin' died the day the dead came back. You want to find this place they got setup in Riker's cause you ain't got the fuckin' stones to live in the new world. It's dog eat dog out here. Survival of the fittest. I gave you a chance, but you didn't take it. You coulda shot me, but what, you hesitated cause I was wrapped up in your friend Daren?"
Curran paused a moment and she nodded as she attempted to sit herself up, with two tears rolling down her cheeks. "Your friend was dead, you weren't. You coulda saved yourself."
She tried to keep her composure but it was becoming clear she was going to lose that soon. "You don't kill your friends! The people you care about!" she managed to get out before she began to silently weep.
With a hearty sigh, Curran looked at her as his left hand touched his hairline above his ear and pulled back to reveal the blood. "I've killed friends. I've watched em die too. Hell, I watched half of my crew die in the first couple of days of this shit. The rules have changed. Survival is dictated by the ones who have the will that is strongest. Those that can kill their friends, kill their families, kill anyone that threatens their survival are the ones that are alive. A group can make you stronger, but you are as strong as that weakest link. And if that link is weak, believe me, it can bring an entire group to their knees. And you, you I can see are weak."
She snapped at Curran through tear filled eyes. "Then do it! Just kill me already!"
Curran sighed heavily. "No, because you're already dead. Why would I waste my time. But I can see you're suffering pretty fuckin' bad. I'll help ya along." He took aim at the woman and pulled the trigger.
She cried out as the round tore into her right knee. Her shock was strangely satisfying as was her response. "Just fucking KILL me! Please!"
Without another word, Curran stood up and began collecting some of the food they had been eating before, loaded up his pack. He rummaged through the body of the black man quickly and began collecting ammo from his body. He might find some use for it with his Mini 14. Once a few of the magazines from the AK were loaded into his pack he could hear the woman sob almost uncontrollably.
"PLEASE!"
With a heavy sigh, Curran slipped his pack on and looked to her as she began to crawl towards her shotgun. He crossed over towards the shotgun, picked up the weapon and threw it well out of her reach. "The fuck ya screamin' about?"
"Just do it!" came her reply.
With a scoff, Curran shook his head. "I told ya, I already have," he said as he pointed behind her. She propped herself up and turned to see several of the dead shambling her way. "They heard the gunshots. I gotta go. I gotta go cause I'm not like you. I'm not dead. I hear Riker's is nice though. I'll see what they got to offer," he said with a small smile before he stood up and began a quickened walk from the scene. He heard her panicked sobs and cries for help as she tried to drag herself after him. Curran didn't even look back as she began a guttural wail as the dead no doubt reached her. There was no point looking back because only the dead were behind him.
Eventually the screams pattered out but by the time, he already created more than enough distance. He still had a hell of a trip to make and it was going to take him time to get there. As long as he kept moving forward though, he was still alive.
(Hope it was enjoyable and if anyone here has any feed back or anything, I would appreciate it. Thanks so much)