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It didn't take long to get out of New Jersey, only about an hour or so. She knew the drive would have been much less if they had taken a toll road over, but that made her nervous. Roads were probably clogged with people trying to escape and more then once, on a back road, she had seen several cars crashed and the same kind of diseased people tearing at flesh, just like they did to Charlie. The worst part was, she knew they would have to take a bridge and she had no idea if any bridges were still in any kind of condition to be driving on.
Once the crossover happened, she knew they would have to find a group to figure this world out. Being underground during this entire time gave them a grave handicap and she wasn't quite sure how Zeb was going to handle all this. At least with a group, they could possibly stay alive. On their own, she wasn't sure she could do this.
Along the ride, they have been silence other than the panicked screams at the beginning of the trip. Zeb had tried to close his eyes and take a nap, but every time his eye lids shut, he pictured the blood from his former group members splatting across his face. The images the two have seen that day were brutal. They had been trapped away from the danger for so long. Now they are literally venturing out into the great unknown that they once called planet Earth.
Nothing about anything seems familiar. The rubble left over from outbreak day clog the roads and fields as every turn is a new scene of total destruction. At one point they passed by a broken down car with the flesh eating mutants tearing away at a survivor. A sight that has been imprinted into his skull, widening his eyes keeping the car ride very silent, no small talk, just time to think. His whole life he prepared for this not realizing that it could never be permanent. Keeping those people safe. That was his objective and he failed. Now Emmett is his objective but he feels too broken to protect her at this point. In his eyes, he's a hollowed out shell with no man inside.
"You need to figure out what you're going to do now Zeb." She was annoyed and he would hear that in her voice. She had originally wanted to be the one to go above ground and see what happened, but instead, Charles was sacrificed. He was ill-prepared for what was going on above ground and so were his parents. They all were and now they were thrown into this shit world beyond the safety of their bunker. All that time they had spent prepping and it led to this. Minute by minute she was starting to think it was all a big joke...being underground didn't keep you safe. It just extended your life a little longer. It kept them ignorant.
She drove across the turnpike and to I-95 bringing them into Manhattan, although she wasn't too sure where they were. The city was a grid and before all this, she had only been there a few times. She was probably the rare breed that didn't want to spend her youth going in and out of the city all the time. She enjoyed the peace and calm of the Jersey wilderness and reading books.
But up ahead, on the highway, she could see a barricade of crumpled cars and a horde of biters that looked like a sea of rotting flesh in front of them.
"Shit." She had to divert quickly off the highway, even though the biters saw the moving vehicle. She wasn't sure how thick it was all about to get, but she had a strong feeling things were not going to go as smoothly as she had hoped for.
"We may need to ditch the car and head out on foot." It seemed every where they went, there were walkers trapped on this island. She stopped the car north of Yankee Stadium where she could see signs pointing to it. The car was on E for Empty and they probably only had a good hundred yards left before the car completely died. At a playground, she grabbed her supplies and looked at Zeb.
"Looks like I'm saving your ass again. Come on. We cross the playground and hop that wall and head for the apartments. The wall should block them off."
And to think, these roads weren't in good shape before everything was overrun with walkers, Daniel thought as he led a two-vehicle Tundra convoy along the Major Deegan Expressway, or, as everyone who'd ever driven that highway thought of it over the years as, 'the Major Pothole Expressway'. Daniel and his convoy were heading to a supply cache that the Hive had found & marked months before on a supply run but hadn't had a chance to go through yet; as they passed under a former El bridge he keyed his radio and spoke. "Tegan, how you holding up back there?" he said.
"Fine, boss," came her voice over the radio; looking back in the rear-view, he could see the second Tundra flash its' beams on-and-off. "How much further?"
"Shouldn't be too long," Daniel replied as they veered off the Deegan and made their way onto the narrowing surface roads of that particular part of the Bronx. Making their way around rusted-out and abandoned vehicles, they got onto the Grant Highway and headed south. "Shouldn't be too much further," Daniel said over the radio, pausing to look at his map of the area. "Let's continue down this way; the supply cache will be on the western corner of Grant and Jerome. Keep a sharp eye out for growlers, bandits and anything else out of the ordinary. Out."
As they approached the corner in question, Daniel began making sure his weapons - a Mini-14 and his sidearm - were ready to go. "Get ready to move in as soon as we get there," he said to the driver, running through in his mind what needed to be done. Make sure the cache is intact, load the trucks with everything they can hold, get to the rendezvous point, transfer it onto boats, then head across back to Rikers....shouldn't be too difficult a job, he mused, focusing on the task at hand.
As her words echoed through his skull, all he could think about was the image of the mutants tearing the flesh off of his face, gripping their teeth on his neck and tearing him limb from limb. A great amount of fear in the form of a white shade creeps over his face as he grows pale and leans back in his seat with Emmett trying to hurry him to get out. "Wha...why can't we just turn around??" He asked obviously trying to avoid a situation like this. The underground bunker was an idea that he had prided himself on. Something he built to protect. But without that, he's just a helpless man in an unknown world. Full of mutated creatures out to kill.
This leaves Zeb in a bind. He knows that Emmett puts the blame on him. It's all his fault to begin with. But this feeling he has, this fear he has building up is melting his spine causing him to cower at reality. This is reality now. A world full of the dead trying to come back and destroy the living. He was never cut out for this. He doesn't think so that is. Any confidence he had before, was long gone when he sent out a helpless boy into this mess only to die.
Emmett looked over at Zeb who looked positively terrified. She was also, but she tried not to let all that cloud her thinking. Survival was the only goal now and if they couldn't do that, all the time they spent in the bunker was wasted. This was a new adventure and he had to think of it that way.
"We can't turn around. There's no more gas in the tank."
Sitting there for a long moment, she gathered up the guns and made sure her knife was ready to be used if need be.
"Think of this as a challenge, Zeb. You worked all that time to prep for the end, and for what? Now we have to live in those end times. The next chapter is you and me getting over that wall and getting to those apartments, got it?"
And she knew where sacrifices had to be made. If she had to leave him behind to save her own ass, then so be it. His choices were poor and they both knew it. Suddenly, she felt like the strong one here, when for a long time, all she did was count supplies.
"Now, open that door and run." She opened the driver's side door, leaving the keys in the car, considering rolling up to a gas station and filling back up was out of the picture. The car was useless, but their legs were not. She started to run towards the wall, doing her best to climb up and using a tree that hadn't been pruned in years to help get herself up. All those years climbing trees helped. She saw the horde coming and she saw Zeb running to where she was.
Post by Tamara "Steel Wolf" Lyell on Jan 20, 2016 1:12:50 GMT -5
"Shouldn't be too much further," Daniel said over the radio, pausing to look at his map of the area. "Let's continue down this way; the supply cache will be on the western corner of Grant and Jerome. Keep a sharp eye out for growlers, bandits and anything else out of the ordinary. Out."
"Copy that," Tegan replied, switching off her radio. Looking ahead, she made sure her HK416 was at the ready, going over it quickly as they approached the intersection in question. "There it is, up ahead," she said in a clipped, calm voice. "Alright, everyone, get ready to roll out when we stop," she added just as Daniel's truck came to a stop.
"Alright, here we go," she said to the driver, "pull up past Daniel's truck and then back up to the gate as soon as the rest of us climb out. Once you get in front of it, pop the back gate and get ready to start loading.....and, go! Go!" Quickly her and two other Scavengers climbed out of the Tundra's cabin; with a squeal of burnt rubber, the driver moved up to what had been a Jerome Avenue storefront but what was now a Hive supply cache. Quickly Tegan barked out orders to the others, then she took up a position in front of the truck with two Scouts from Daniel's truck and began their watch of the area. Hopefully, this will be like every other run we've made, she thought as she knelt down and looked around, rifle at the ready.
And like that after the small pep talk with a sure tone of annoyance in her voice, Emmett is gone, running towards the wall she had talked about. That's enough to get him moving. He grabbed the axe he had before with the bag on his back and he opened up the door and began to run despite being very out of shape. He turns to see the mutants surround the car now, following him slow but sure. With his sights on his rear, he forgets that he's running across a play ground and runs right into the swing set, dropping the axe and flipping over on his back, with the sharp blade of the axe barely mixing his face. His eyes are widened as the rotters get closer. He quickly gets up, picks up the axe and begins to run. Seeing Emmett at the wall, he wonders how the hell he's gonna climb it. It's not too tall but you need a bit of strength to pull yourself up which is what he lacks.
"Oh shit" He reaches the wall and throws his axe and bag over it and grabs the top, pulling himself up halfway. Showing signs of struggle he finally is able to get one leg up as the other hangs with the mutants getting very close. "Shit! Emmett!" His leg dangles at the hands of the mutants as they tries their hardest to get a bite of the living meat.
Moving into position and climbing out of his Tundra, Daniel stood at the gate as the second vehicle moved in front of the store and backed up to the gate. "Cut the lock," he said to the Scavenger standing next to him; without a moment's hesitation, the man cut the locks with a bolt-cutter and they raised the gate up. "Alright, you two climb over, set it up on the counter there," Daniel said, pointing at two of his people and barking out orders with precision. "You two, once they place it on the counter, throw it into the back of Tegan's Tundra. There's canned supplies, some assorted hardware tools, some ammo..a mish-mash of supplies. We'll load as much as we can--"
"Daniel, I got something!" Tegan called out. Dashing over, he knelt down next to her and sighted down in the direction she was pointing at. "Walkers?"
"Don't think so," she replied. "Looks like a couple of people hopping over a wall down there," pointing down Jerome Avenue. "You want us to go take a look?" she asked.
"Negats on that," Daniel said. "If its' not walkers, keep an eye on it but don't do anything else." Watching the others beginning to load the first of their Tundras' with supplies for the Hive, he quickly thought of a plan. "Keep an eye on it, Tegan; once we get these vehicles loaded out, we'll head up Jerome a few blocks, turn onto these side streets and see if we can get a handle on whoever you saw. What we don't do is deviate from the plan; we got a job to do and we're going to do, understood?"
"Crystal," she replied, turning her focus back towards the street as Daniel took up a position nearby to watch the area around them. "Let me know when you guys get done loading the first Tundra; we'll switch out vehicles," he called out.
Emmett scrambled up the wall and admittedly, it was a harder climb then she had expected. Probably because she couldn't even remember the last time she did a wall climb at a gym to keep her body nimble. She was lighter though, mostly from the lack of fatty foods that came from the drive throughs of old. Ironically, she looked across the street as she got to the top of the wall and saw the Golden Arches that were weather worn.
"Come on Zeb, you got this!" She was trying to be more encouraging then distracting. When he got to the wall, his fingers latched on, but suddenly he was dangling like a heavy sack of laundry hanging by a thread.
"Get your toes into the cracks! Pull yourself up!" She was yelling at him to move as the echo of her voice didn't matter. The biters were already on them and she, at this point, had no idea what attracted them and what didn't. Movement seemed to be the key, but she was unaware of sound. Hell, she didn't even know if they could hear but they could certainly see. They were clawing at his ankles and she was barely balanced as she grabbed his forearms, trying to help him up on the wall.
"You're too heavy! I can't pull you up by myself Zeb. You have to try!"
Emmett assists him, trying her hardest to pull him up by his forearms, but her strength wasn't enough. His leg dangling over the hungry mouths of the mutant crowd. His fingers slipping away beneath the sweat. His body is close to becoming a meal until just then he finds a hidden strength, grabbing a hold of the ledge with a strong tight grip with one arm, he pulls himself up halfway with his other arm being pulled up by Emmett until finally rolling over on the top of the wall, laying straight on his back, freeing himself from the situation.
"Oh....my....god" he speaks within deep breaths as the mutants below claw at the wall that the two sit upon. Hopping down to his feet on the sidewalk, Zeb picks up his bag and axe as Emmett joins him. Seeing the street, filled with trash and wreckage, Zeb could tell just then, that his image he had in his dream long ago may of not been exact, but it was real. This is life now. A hard pill to swallow at that. "Those apartments might be a safe place to stay for the night." As he spoke he could see out of the corner of his eyes, two mutant beings come from behind an ambulance, one in handcuffs, cuffed from the front, and the other missing an eye. A truly terrifying scene for Zeb as they ease closer. "Emmett....we gotta go now....Emmett?"
"Done!" came the yell from one Scavenger as the first of the Tundras' was now full of gear and supplies.
"Switch 'em out! On the bounce, everyone!" Daniel called out to everyone, moving so that the trucks could swap places - the first one loaded with supplies and equipment for the Hive, the second one now ready to be loaded. Walking over to where Tegan was at, he knelt down and asked, "How ya' holding up?"
"Good, good," she replied. "I got no movement from that area I was looking at before, but I think it was about a block, block and a half down," pointing down Jerome Avenue. "Otherwise, just the usual walker-inhabited sounds. How much longer?"
"Shouldn't be too much longer," Daniel replied, getting back up and sighting down towards the area with his Mini-14. "I figure, twenty, maybe thirty minutes and we'll be good to go. We'll leave here," briefly looking at his map, "and head up Jerome; your truck will take the lead." After a moment, he knelt back down and added, "We need to talk when we get to Rikers, Tegan," adding sotto voce, "it appears we're both in for a promotion of sorts; I'll fill you in once we get back."
Post by Tamara "Steel Wolf" Lyell on Jan 24, 2016 1:22:20 GMT -5
"Keep an eye on it, Tegan; once we get these vehicles loaded out, we'll head up Jerome a few blocks, turn onto these side streets and see if we can get a handle on whoever you saw. What we don't do is deviate from the plan; we got a job to do and we're going to do, understood?"
"Crystal," she replied, turning her focus back towards the street as Daniel took up a position nearby to watch the area around them...
Crystal, my ass! Tegan thought to herself as they switched out Tundras. We're Scout/Scavengers, dammit! If we're not out on supply runs, we're supposed to be out looking for survivors..., she kept thinking as she continued to watch the street, her rifle at the ready. Glancing around at the other shooters, she kept wondering what Daniel had said to her a moment before...
"...it appears we're both in for a promotion of sorts; I'll fill you in once we get back."
Promotion? Tegan mused. Wonder what--- "Done!" yelled a Scavenger.
"That's it! Let's load up, people!" Daniel yelled out, climbing into one of the Tundras'. Tegan and a couple other Scavengers loaded up into the other Tundra; both of them were loaded with a sundry amount of supplies for the Hive. Keying her radio, she asked, "Daniel, I'm gonna' go one block down to the east, then cut up the next cross-street, see if we can't figure out where those people are I saw earlier. How copy?"
"Solid copy on that," Daniel replied as they backed away from the now-empty storefront supply cache. "I'll head back up Jerome, cut right onto the next cross-street north; we'll switch directions every block, see if we can't flush them out. Have your shooters fire single-shots into windows, see if anything moves. I'll do likewise on this side; watch your crossfire and angles."
"Roger that," Tegan said, cutting her mic off. Signaling to the driver, she said, "You heard the man; let's roll out." Leaning back, she popped open the back-window and slid it over. "Guys, when we get in position, start popping single shots into every window, bush and empty space you can find. I know I saw something, it wasn't a walker...I want to find them! Let's see if we can't flush them out, alright?"
Emmett jumped down from the wall as the clouds started to roll in. It would be snowing in a few hours and before she knew it, they would probably be in a freezing apartment for the night. Maybe they could find one that was stocked up on blankets. Even better, maybe they could find one with a fireplace and food.
"There's a lot of apartments over there. We need to be careful. For all we know, every one of them is occupied by someone who wants to eat us alive."
But then a couple came out from behind an ambulance, ambling towards them. She heard the sound of a revving motor in the close distance though. Someone else was here, or nearby and she wondered if they were seen. If they were, maybe whoever it was that was revving the engines could help them. She was still unaware of factions that had come when society had been fractured. To her, it was still the living versus the diseased.
"Yea, let's go.." She hoped that maybe they could get to some upper floors and get a good view of who was driving on the other side of the wall, but there was no time for that. She started to run with Zeb towards the building, across the debris and towards the shattered glass of the front doors. Some windows were already broken or blown out, others were sealed up tightly.
Heading up Jerome Avenue, Daniel kept his eyes on a swivel as behind him, two Scavengers aimed and began firing single shots with their Mini-14's into nearby buildings, aiming for the windows. The purpose of doing this was three-fold in Daniel's mind: one, it gave them the chance to test-fire their weapons outside the confines of Rikers' Island...two, given that they'd seen someone - or a group of someones, he thought - it offered them the chance to do a reconnaissance-by-fire, hoping to provoke whoever they'd seen into moving, thus making it easier to find them....and three, the noise they made firing would attract walkers, which if they could channel them in certain directions would help with reason number two.
Steady, boys, steady, Daniel whispered as they slowly drove up Jerome. "Driver," he said, looking at his map, "when we get to the next cross-street, turn right onto West 169th and head towards Grand Concourse. When we hit Concourse, we'll head north to West 170th and turn left there, understood?" As his driver nodded and continued on, Daniel keyed his radio. "Tegan, head down 167th until you hit Grand Concourse, then head north. We'll link up at 169th and Concourse, then I want you to head back down 169th to Jerome and then head north to 170th; we'll link up again at 170th and Jerome, copy?"
"Copy that," came the reply; from the staccato sounds in the background, he could tell they were doing the same thing he was. Looking around, he folded the map back up and once more kept his eyes on the street in front of him, thinking, Okay, whoever you were out here....where in the hell are you?
Emmett seemed distracted at something as the two run across the street. Zeb however is more focused on getting away from the mutants, running through the busted window way, entering into the lobby of an apartment building. All in sight was a pile of burnt magazines, empty cans of various food, and shattered glass taking up the floor pattern, filling in the cracks. Across from the counter is a blood written message on the wall, dried up of course, saying "No way to live".
Zeb and Emmett take a second to check it out, Zeb swallowing hard, nearly causing a hurricane of thoughts running through his mind, causing him to fear this world even more than what he already does. Holding his axe sturdy in arms he looks to the staircase and looks back at Emmett, "What if.....what if those things are up there? I say we block the staircase off as well as the window and sleep here for the night. Right here." Just then he realized something. As well as heard something. As he hears gunshots in the distance he also realizes those two mutants on their trail haven't made it to them. As if the gunfire drawn them away. "What was that?? Rebels? Resistance? And where the hell did those mutants go? They're flanking us!" Zeb jumping all over the place freaks out and quickly runs up the stairs, nearly forgetting about his cowardly plan to avoid the stairs in the first place.
Emmett thought Zeb's plan actually made some sense. What if there were those...things...upstairs. What would they do to stay safe? Maybe they just take a minute in the lobby and think of a plan.
"You're right. We have no idea what's up there. If we stay down here, we can probably find an office or something to hole up in. I think that wall will keep us safe for now."
However, that thought was soon short lived as the bullets started shattering the glass in the apartments above. She jumped and ducked a bit as the bullets sprayed into the walls and windows. Zeb panicked and started to run up the stairs, which was the wrong way to go.
"I don't know! Zeb, get back here!" He kept going and turned a corner, leaving her on the bottom floor. No way was she going up there. "Zeb!"
She went to the door and noticed they were aiming upwards. When the gunfire stopped, she took notice that it didn't look like they were aiming for them. What were they doing? She took her time crossing the courtyard towards the wall, finding a fence that she could see through. Her fingers wrapped around the cold metal as a light snowfall started to rain down, seeing the large almost military looking vehicle. Waving her hands through the bars, she wanted to catch their attention.
Post by Tamara "Steel Wolf" Lyell on Jan 27, 2016 0:22:03 GMT -5
"Tegan, head down 167th until you hit Grand Concourse, then head north. We'll link up at 169th and Concourse, then I want you to head back down 169th to Jerome and then head north to 170th; we'll link up again at 170th and Jerome, copy?" "Copy that," came the reply...
Don't tell me what I need to do, boss, Tegan thought to herself, I already know that, shutting off her radio as her team headed up Grand Concourse. Noticing that the clouds were beginning to open up with what looked like a faint dusting of snow, she muttered, Just what we fucking need; who told God to open the damn skies up, huh? Right then, one of her shooters yelled, "I got movement! Ground floor....looks like one person, maybe two."
As the Tundra came to a stop, Tegan climbed out of the truck and keyed her radio. "Daniel, I got contact, Grand Concourse, just past 168th!" Stopping to investigate!" Keeping her radio on, she got behind the truck's engine block, rifle at the ready. "Tell me what you see, Skids!" she yelled, keeping one eye focused on the building, a second on the area around them.
"I saw one person, maybe two....looks like at least one, Tegan!" the man nicknamed Skids cried out, using his hand to point towards the apartment building in question. Following his point, Tegan could see a low-slung brownstone apartment, common in these parts of the South Bronx. "What do you want us to do?" Skids asked.
Tegan thought for some time about what they should do, keeping in mind the fact that what looked like a light snowfall coming down could easily turn into a heavy snowfall, stranding both her and Daniel's people off the Island for several days, a prospect she didn't want to have befall them. Making her mind up, she yelled out directions to her crew. "Who's got the bloop gun?" she yelled; once she found out, she continued. "Fire a CS tear gas grenade into the second floor window, then fire a willy pete into the same window. The incendiary phosphorous'll light up the tear gas, hopefully starting a fire. It'll either flush whoever's in out or it'll roast them, but it'll end things rather quickly," keeping to herself the ominous fact that, given the lack of maintenance most buildings had, starting a fire might cause more problems than whatever solutions came from it. No matter, she thought, as one of her crew fired both grenades into a second-floor window, the sooner we find these survivors, the sooner all of us can get back to Rikers.
As the Tundra came to a stop, Tegan climbed out of the truck and keyed her radio. "Daniel, I got contact, Grand Concourse, just past 168th!" Stopping to investigate!"
"Step on it," Daniel said; as the Tundra began accelerating up Jerome towards 169th, he ran through his mind all the different things that could be going on - anything from Tegan and her crew being overrun by bandits, encountering walkers, picking up survivors - anything imaginable. Hang on, kid, he whispered as they rounded the corner and headed down the cross street, hang on, kid...
Zeb lies under the bed of the second floor as the gunshots continue hitting every window in sight. Just then, a grenade of some sorts comes through the window followed by a willy pete catching the room on fire. Flames bursting at every corner. Zeb panics and crawls out from under the bed. "They're trying to kill me!" He looks around for an exit and looks at the balcony, free of flames. He makes a dash towards the balcony door before remembering his bag. He goes to grab his bag before turning around to see that the flames have spread to the door. "Shit!"
With sweat dripping down into his eyes, his blurry sight of the room leaves no way to escape until he gets an idea and grabs the blanket off the bed, throwing it in front of the balcony door he quickly runs through the busted glass door and makes it out on the balcony where he can see a truck and some people across the street. With the flames knocking on his back, he quickly makes his way down the ladder where he meets up with Emmett on the street. "WHAT IS HAPPENING!" He said screaming, obviously annoyed at the 10000 times his life has been in danger today.
Shauna Kelly: That helped, thank you
Oct 4, 2021 14:40:44 GMT -5
Ayita Hunt: dang, January was my last post.. Jeez it's been a hot minute. o7 guys, sorry for the complete disappearance, life got.. a little interesting this year.
Oct 18, 2021 22:34:19 GMT -5