Fans of the Living Dead

[shadowrunner54]

“I know a girl’s ass when I see one.”

Sam stared at Matt in complete silence, her mind torn between whether to sock him one right in the nose or to blush ridiculously. Only one other time had anyone ever been so straight forward to her about the obvious appearances that came with her gender. It had been just over a year ago. She still didn’t know how she had been talked into it, but she had gone to one of the last dances for her high school for that year, and she had worn a dress. One of the members of the football team, a guy who had never once given her so much as a second glance, had been all over her that night. It had ended with him grabbing her ass, and her breaking two of his fingers in return.

But that memory, much like everything else that had been her life before everything changed, was pointless. What she needed to focus on was the now.

“Oh.” she said, looking down at the floor. Was she embarased by his bluntness, yes. Was she mad that he had looked at her backside, sure. But hitting him over it wasn’t going to accomplish anything except heighten the immense tension that was lingering in the small compound. The next thing Sam knew, Matt was handing her a blanket, with assurances that she didn’t have to sleep up on the roof if she was concerned about anything. Sam thought about the offer, she really did. But in the end, she decided that she still didn’t know any of these people. She was about to make her way up to the roof when Matt’s friend Joey came to. Matt was by his side in a moment. Sam was up one rung of the ladder when she heard Joey’s lamenting of his dead mother.

Mother. That one word stopped Sam in her tracks. The more she listened to how broken up Joey was about losing his mom, the more Sam thought of her own mother, and how very much she missed her. But above all else, how guilty she felt that she had killed her. Sam bit her lip hard as she felt a few tears began to well up in her eyes. She quickly wiped her face to erase any trace of her sudden weakness. Then she heard Joey telling Matt to take care of his sister if anything happened to him. Sam glanced at the door that the other women had gone through. Obviously the woman wasn’t Joey’s sister, which only left the younger one. Sam very much doubted that that kid was even half as tough as she was, and she had almost turned her hunting rifle around on herself right after she had kicked her mother’s severed head away from the body. Fighting really hard to not think back on it, and bring with it those damn tears that made her look so weak, Sam dropped the blanket and walked over to the two boys.

“Joey.” she said, kneeling so that he could look her in the face. Joey was, to say the least, baffled that she was even speaking to him, much less that she knew his name.

“It’s…” Sam choked out the first word, fighting harder than she ever had to hold back her tears. “…hard, loosing her. I know. But you can’t die. Not now. Don’t leave your sister all alone. She’s hurting right now just like you, and she needs you now more than ever. Don’t leave her.”

Sam turned away before Joey had a chance to speak. She didn’t know why she had said that to him, when he had almost damn near blown her head off less than an hour ago. She didn’t know what kind of relationship this guy had with his sister, so for all she knew everything she had just told him was complete bullshit. But she just…couldn’t bear the thought of that younger girl, being all alone like she had been.

“If not for yourself.” Sam told him with her back still to him. “Then for her, keep living.”

[Wyldwraith]

Matthew stayed quiet as the newcomer reminded Joey of reasons to keep going. Since he hadn't been able to come up with anything to salve his friend's pain, the young man simply sat close to his friend and looked back and forth between Joey and the young woman every so often. Part of him was grateful that she'd tried to help, but mainly he was simply exhausted on every level. The prolonged siege had made him edgy, and now that it seemed to be over for the time being his body was sternly demanding that he rest. The only problem with that was his unwillingness to leave Joey's side, at least until he was reasonably certain his friend wouldn't do something rash.

Once Sam had withdrawn the entire building became almost eerily still. If it weren't for the faint sounds made by Terri as she moved around in the other room the silence would've been deafening. As determined as Matthew was to remain awake, there came a point when he could no longer prevent the inevitable crash after so long a period of running on nothing but adrenaline and willpower. His eyes slowly slid shut, and after a few briefly abortive attempts to jerk awake, the young man's head slumped forward against his drawn-up knees and he slept. A couple of minutes later the former paramedic looked in on the two of them, and quietly took a seat opposite Joey as if she intended to sit in vigil over both of them. Her posture didn't invite conversation, but neither did it discourage it. The experienced first responder knew that it wasn't likely that Joey would want to talk yet, but like Matthew she felt it was best that someone be close by for the time being. Stacey had long since fallen asleep after crying herself out, which only increased the looming quiet.

If it weren't for the almost inaudible sound of the reanimated bodies moving about outside the fence one might have thought the scene no more compelling than the passing of a loved on ever was.

(OOC: Sorry for the brief nature, but I just wanted to give the story a nudge while I had a couple of minutes.)

[JessieWolf]

Joey was sitting quietly, Stacey's head was on his lap and he couldn't sleep. It wasn't for lack of being tired. He simply could not sleep. It didn't help that his head still hurt either, or that he could hear the moans of the undead outside. He watched the new girl walk off, his best friend attempt to stay awake, and the paramedic came in and sat down. Seemed Matt and the medic were worried he might do something to himself.

It didn't matter much what they thought he would do. He would keep living, but only because of Stacey. He would do anything to keep her safe. He would keep the others safe too. They were all he had now. That was it. Matt, Terri, Stacey, and now this new girl. He didn't know Teri or Sam well, if at all. but...

Joey eased Stacey's head off his lap and onto a bunched up blanket and climbed to his feet. Joey could see the question in Terri's gaze and just shook his head "Don't worry, I'm not going to eat my gun." He stepped out of the office and quietly closed the door behind him, going over to their little collection of weapons and picked up one of the hand guns. Couldn't just leave those zombies to wander around outside. The sound was going to drive him bonkers..

Joey slipped out the front door, the same front door his mother had been standing in when the biker had shot her in the chest and glanced around at the fence that surrounded the scrap yard. Already a few of the undead had taken notice of his presence outside and were moaning and reaching between the iron bars of the fence. Joey flipped the safety off his handgun and walked toward the fence bringing the barrel of the gun level with the head of one of the zombies and started to squeeze back on the trigger, his gaze locked on the milky blank gaze of the zombie.

He was intending to kill every last zombie that came near the fence. Stare them right in the eye and pull the trigger, blowing their brains out. He squeezed the trigger back more.....but he couldn't shoot...He couldn't look this thing in the eye and shoot it in the head. Joey lowered the gun and there was a click as the safety was replaced. "You sons of bitches....Why can't I just shoot you...why can't it be easy...You're already dead! WHY CAN'T I SHOOT YOU!?" He had been hoping that it would just get easier, it wasn't...........yet.

Joey turned his back on the fence and started back toward the main building and plopped down on a pile of tires near the door, fiddling with his gun. Maybe next time, it would be easier.

[Wyldwraith]

The next several days seemed to blur together for Matthew, buried as he was in the grim routines that had been established and constantly on edge due to the emotional pall of grief, unresolved anger, frustration and raw pain created by the death of Mrs. Rosco. In one of his less decent and more frustrated moods; the thought that even in death the woman was still behaving like an anchor-weight trying to drag them all down. Almost immediately the guilt hit for thinking of his friend's dead mother like that when he knew Joey and his sister Stacey were still completely devastated by her loss. Which only further fueled the normally goal-oriented teen's sense of helpless frustration at being unable to make anything better for them. It didn't make sense, but somehow Matthew's conscience had seemed to decide for him that the responsibility for the physical and emotional welfare of the members of their little band was his to bear. Which, had he the benefit of a few more years experience would have struck him as just as preposterous a notion as it actually was. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, which brought Matthew full-circle for the five-hundredth time in the last five days.

Predictably, the troubled young man's thoughts turned to the relevant conversation he'd had with the EMT Terri about this. As someone who had witnessed a significant amount of death both personally and professionally, what the woman said about all this pain and tension being part of an inevitable process as old as the species made perfect sense to Matthew, who she'd advised time and time again to let go of any self-obstructing thoughts such as being responsible for either what had happened or was still happening to Joey and Stacey, but again his age played him false due to the warped impression of time common to every child and teen. Terri could rationally look ahead to a time when the survivors' emotions would settle into a much healthier state once they'd let go and tacitly given time permission to begin wearing away the jagged edges and sharp corners of the memories hurting them both so badly right now. At eighteen, hearing that "in a few months" his best friend will have stopped waking up in the middle of the night screaming "MOM!" and would be well along the path leading back to the living as a wiser and slightly more world-weary version of himself was of absolutely no consolation.

Which of course turned Matthew's thoughts first to their newest arrival and how she seemed to have had quite a bit of experience with the emotions plaguing Joey, and then to the very last place he wanted his mind to go, yet where it always ended up whenever Matthew became still and the thoughts began coming at him in a rush.

To his own mother, and the burning-cold pain of NOT KNOWING what had happened to her for sure. He knew from the EBS (Emergency Broadcast Station) that the FCC had grounded all air travel the very next day after the military in conjunction with Homeland Security had established the 8pm-8am curfew and the ban on Highway/Interstate travel, so the dark voice in the back of his mind had plenty of fodder to conjure possibilities whose terrors were only exceeded by their horrors.

Flash. His mother making what she believed to be a wise decision by choosing to remain in the airport being guarded by police and military units so as to avoid the dangers posed by the infected, looters and rioters. At first hoping against hope that the FCC would rescind the air travel ban, but then seeing all hope lost as the commanders of those military units she had placed her safety in the hands of ordering them to permanently disable all aircraft to prevent any of the civilian pilots from conspiring with desperate would-be passengers to get a plane in the air. He knew his mother never missed a trick, which was where he'd gotten his methodical eye for detail, so Matthew knew that long before the end physically came his Mom would've known she was trapped with no hope of rescue or escape, and she would have noticed the survivors of attacks by the infected packed in with the rest of the civilians, where they quickly sickened and died, only to quickly rise and attack those around them. He knew she would have been keeping a tally on the number of the sick and dying inside the airport, the number of soldiers and police officers, and of any information concerning their supply of ammunition she could come by. Which meant Matthew knew without doubt that if his Mom had chosen to stay in the airport, that by today, the tenth day of the Zombie Apocalypse she was either dead, undead, or knew without doubt she was doomed to one of those two awful fates, and that what very little time she had left was nearly gone.

Flash. His mother had been unbelievably, incredibly fast in her realization of exactly what was happening, and persuasive enough to convince some of those ordered to defend the airport of the hopelessness of their situation and why they needed to get out before they were trapped, or to convince those who were leaving because they'd already come to similar conclusions to let her come with them. Matthew didn't want to even THINK about just how far his mother, the only real family he'd ever had, would have had to go to persuade men willing to abandon a couple thousand civilians to unspeakable deaths without even a warning to take her with them. Sick as it was, there was a part of him that took pride in the fact his mother wouldn't fall apart, wouldn't die because she'd clung to "morality." No, Matthew knew that under those circumstances, come hell or high water, his mother would keep herself alive, for him if for no other reason, if she had any choice at all. Even if it meant being unthinkably degraded. Pride, but also shame, guilt and fear hung like a cloud of choking smog over those thoughts.

Flash. His mother being forced to risk the streets alone, either immediately after the air travel ban or days later when she situation inside the airport became untenable. So many different possibilities, few of them good, had plagued the young man's mind that sometimes the only way to pry the terrible images out of his mind's eye was to walk the fenceline, looking for the zombies he found most morally objectionable to destroy. For the last three days he'd been forcing images of the obliterated skulls of undead children and teens he'd shot with his rifle at near-point-blank range into his mind in a steady stream in order to drown out the dark voice that tormented him with his mother's unknown fate. Though he'd had to stop when Stacey had come out to the delivery truck for something and run screaming back into the warehouse when she saw him methodically executing undead six-and-ten-year-olds. Terri had since adopted an increasingly worried expression whenever Matthew noticed her looking his way, but the young man was simply too emotionally wrung out to much care what she thought of his actions. He knew she was worried he was losing it, but the truth was quite the opposite. His rage at the Undead had played out far faster than he ever would have imagined. With the rage had gone the very last shred of capacity to relate to the hungry dead as former human beings.

Now they were simply dangerous obstacles to be either avoided or terminated as the situation dictated. After all, it was the outlook even the dark voice had been grudgingly forced to agree had become necessary, if one intended to survive this plague long-term.

Matthew intended to survive. Oh yes, he was going to survive, because he now had a goal. It had come to him behind a wave of weariness that had crept up on him with the realization that no matter how many zombies he eliminated before sundown, an equal number would be clawing at the fence in the morning.

It was simple really. So simple it had made him both laugh and cry. The teenager wasn't crazy enough to believe he could stop what was happening. No, not that.

He could, however, find out what had truly caused this to happen, and, if it turned out the zombie epidemic had been caused by other people, he could hunt them down and destroy them by centimeters until they begged to be allowed to die and rise, because even THAT would be a relief next to what he was doing and would continue doing as long as they were alive.

Just thinking about it made him smile. While his next thought caused the first genuine laugh he'd had since all this began.

"It's always good to have a goal."

[JessieWolf]

It had been over five days, since Joey had shot his own mother after sh had been killed and turned into one of the undead. he still saw the image in his head when he closed his eyes, what he had done to her as she had come at him preparing to take a bite out of him. That vivid image wasn't going to leave him alone for a long time, and he knew it. for the first two days he permitted himself to wallow in his own misery. It took a great deal of effort on his part, but on day three Joey had done his best to pull himself together, and act normally. On the fourth and fifth days he at least thought he was doing a decent job of seeming "together" and started becoming obsessive compulsive about checking on their supplies, calculating just how long they would last and set up the humvee with a carefully calculated and packed kit in case they needed to flee.

It got to the point where he had gone through all of their supplies and parceled them in such a way so that they would have their daily rations set out for them in the morning by the time they woke up. All of it laid out on a table in neat rows, the table divided into sections using a black permanent marker with their names written. he had found a calculator in the office and that had only fueled his obsession, one day he spent the entire day in the back of the tractor trailor counting every single can of food, every toilet paper roll, every liter of water. Once every single supply had been counted catalogued and accounted for he moved onto the weapons, going so far as to manually count every bullet to make sure the cans of a thousand actually had a thousand in them, and then he averaged out the ammo usage per day and calculated how long their ammo would last at the rate they were going.

After all that had been done, he made the effort not to start the process all over again. He was partially successful in that, he continued the daily routine with Matt, howver the daily removal of bodies from around the fence had started to get more dangerous. He just kept telling himself, it was something that had to be done, or the putrid corpses would pile up or the rot would end up making someone sick, even if they weren't in direct contact with it.

Joey was also very aware of the fact his sister hadn't spoken much since the incident. he made a point of spending a certain amount of time with her each day, just sitting and cuddling with her. He wasn't sure what to say exactly, but he hoped that a tight hug and a rub on the back would do more then words could. It was during one of these sessions that he found himself wondering why they still had power, they hadn't needed to start up the generator yet, so that must mean that there was someone taking care of the power plant still.

Quietly Joey sat on the roof of the main building and watched his best friend put a slug in the head of what had once been a young girl about Stacey's age. He had been scared out of his mind the day Stace had run in screaming after she had seen Matt do something similar, but as Joey watched the act from his perch atop the building, the fact his best friend had just so coldly capped a dead kid wasn't what bothered him. The fact that Joey had watched it and his first thought was, "I better get used to it, I may have to do that to Stace one day." had sent a chill down his spine. Why was it that people had to become monsters to survive? Exactly why did they have to kill a part of their humanity to be able to live?

Joey had mostly avoided the medic woman and the other girl. There had been a few times when Terry had tried to say "We need to talk." but he had always shrugged her off stating he was busy with inventory and they would talk later. Later still hadn't come yet, and he rather hoped it wouldn't. Joey straightened and called down to his friend who was at the fence "Hey, Matt! We are going to have to figure out where our next destination will be. We need to get north as soon as possible." For some reason he couldn't help think to himself "Maybe Canadian zombies aren't as nasty." as stupid as it sounded, for some reason he snorted slightly to himself at the notion.

[shadowrunner54]

The cries of the dead just beyond the fence line not far away would have been very disturbing just a week ago. But now, it was little more than a nuisance. When she had time to think about it, mostly during the nights that she spent alone on the roof, Sam found herself becoming a little bit disturbed by how easily she had adapted to watching dead people walking. But then again, being able to kill one’s mother made that easier to deal with, and least that’s what she guessed. Before finding this place and the people in it, her only focus had been to be as quiet as possible as she moved through the forest and spend the nights on the ground in a half sleep for fear of a walker stumbling upon her while she lay there helpless. But now, being relatively safe and secure, she had a new enemy to combat, complacency. Sam was sure the way she dressed probably gave off the impression that she was a simple country girl, but she wasn’t. She knew from the first day that the group had accepted her into their compound that sooner or later they were going to have to leave. The facts were that they had absolutely no way of sustaining themselves indefinitely, and although Sam tried her best to not dwell on that understanding, it always managed to creep its way back into her thoughts when she had plenty of time to think.

For the most part though, she managed to keep it hidden under her tough and rugged exterior, just like a lot of things. It hadn’t managed to keep everyone off of her back like she had hoped. On the second night of her arrival, the medic woman, Terry, she thought her name was, had come up to the roof to have a word with her.

“Samantha.” she had whispered in the dark as she had approached.

“Sam, just Sam.” she had corrected.

Terry had sat next to her as the two stared out at would have been an otherwise peaceful night sky if the cries of the dead below hadn’t shattered the stillness. “Look, Matt told me, about your mother…”

Sam’s hands instantly clenched into tight fists when she heard that. She regretted letting that unsavory part of her past life be known to anyone, it had just slipped out in the heat of the moment when she had asserted her exact position among this band of survivors. “There’s nothing to talk about. She was suffering, dying slowly. And she didn’t want me to suffer along with her, so I put her out of her misery. And she’s not…one of them. It’s as simple as that.”

“It’s never that simple.” Terry had said. “Look, I know that we don’t really know each other. But you can’t keep your feelings bottled up, trying to hid them the way you are. It’ll…”

“Look, I don’t want your goddamn fortune cookie advice. Ok? I’m dealing with it just fine.”

“But…”

“Just back the fuck off of me!” Sam snapped, slamming a fist into an empty can on the roof’s ledge, which sent it hurtling out of sight.

Terry had immediately backed away, apologizing to her and saying that it hadn’t been the right time. Sam had watched her with anger filled eyes as she disappeared below. Even after she was gone, Sam had spent the better part of the night burning up with rage while pacing back and forth along the roof before calming down enough to get some sleep.
Since that ill fated attempt to pry into her mind, Terry had gone out of her way to avoid Sam unless it was completely impossible. For the most part, so had everyone else. She assisted with the daily ‘cleaning house’ removal of the dead outside. Sometimes she helped to drag them away, sometimes she took them out with her machete or her bow. Sam pushed herself harder than what was probably warranted, but maybe that was because she was still trying to prove to the two males that she was just as tough as they were, probably even just a little tougher. And at the end of every day, she would douse her pre-selected arrows in a bucket of bleach. Although she had no intention of using the arrows to kill game that they would eat, she still didn’t want to accidentally nick herself on a contaminated tip and doom herself. Going out because of a stupid mundane mistake just didn’t sit right with Sam.

When she wasn’t worried about her hard ass image, she took the time to observe the others and learn how they were coping with the end of the world. Matt had unleashed his rage out on the dead. Joey had turned to taking inventory of their supplies to the point where it had consumed most of his time. Terry, unless Sam was mistaken, tried to make sure that the fragile cohesion among them remained stable. Stacey, however, was a different story altogether.

She interacted with Joey when she had the chance to, more so since the day she had stumbled onto Matt disposing a walker that had once been a girl about her age. Terrie had also given her some first aid lessons during the night hours. But other than that, she seemed to just exist among them. Maybe it was seeing her like that, or any number of other reasons, but Sam found herself drawn to the younger girl. The first time she had talked to her had been downright awkward, but Sam had persisted through it.

Now, five days since she had come to the small compound, she now found herself lying on top of a large stack of crates next Stacey. Sam had built the firing platform more out of bordem than any other reason, but it was practical. Stacey shifted nervously about as she tried to keep a hold on Sam’s rifle.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” she said with a ton of doubt in her voice.

“It’s a lot easier than you think.” Sam assured her. She sat up and inspected the way her…’pupil’…was lying. “Spread your legs out, don’t keep them tucked together, it cuts down on your ability to stay stable. Use your elbows as platforms to hold the rifle up.”

“But…

Sam pointed at the hand towel that was padding the rifle’s butt against the girl’s shoulder. “Stacey, the kick back won’t hurt you. Just hold it tight to your shoulder, and you’ll be fine.”

“Ok.” She whispered hesitantly. At Sam’s direction, she peered through the rifle’s telescopic lens as Sam searched the area in front of them with her binoculars. She ignored all the walkers around the fence and focused on any that might be slowly lurching their way towards the compound. She smiled faintly when she spotted one.

It was a perfect target. It looked like it had been an older man, and most of its face was mutilated beyond recognition. The lack of human appearance would make it easier. “Got one.” Sam informed Stacey. “About two hundred yards out and slightly to the left. You see it? The one in the tattered business suit?”

“I…see him.” Stacey said.

“It.” Sam corrected. “That thing isn’t a man anymore.”

She heard Stacey gulp. Sam glanced at her from the corner of her eye and saw the younger girl was trembling. “Steady, just breathe, then fire. Aim for the spot just above its eyes.”

“I…I…”

Sam placed a hand on the girl’s shaking shoulder. “You can do this, Stacey. Follow my lead, take three deep breathes, and squeeze the trigger as you exhale the third time.”

Stacey mumbled something, but Sam couldn’t understand it. “Just follow me.”

Sam took a deep breath. “One.”

She repeated it. “Two.”

Stacey’s shakes were getting to the point of near seasure levels.

“Three.”

BOOM! The rifle fired, and Stacey nearly dropped it as she yelped. Sam instantly brought her binoculars up at the target. Nothing. No head shot, not even a hit. She turned back to Stacey.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She apologized over and over. Sam shook her head. “It’s ok, no one ever gets it right the first time. That’s why I gave you three shots. Now work the bolt the way I showed you and let’s try again.”

“Sam, I don’t know…”

Sam squeezed the younger girl’s shoulder slightly. “Stacey, I’m just trying to help you. I know your brother loves you more than anything in the world. But there may come a day when he can’t be there to protect you, and you need to be able to take care of yourself. And I’m sure he’ll sleep a lot better knowing that he doesn’t have to keep his eye on you every second of every day.”

“Ok.” Stacey said weakly, working the bolt to chamber another round. Sam flashed her an encouraging smile and went back to sighting the target. He hadn’t moved that much closer, just as Sam had expected. Under her guidance, they repeated the process. The second shot was more steady, and actually hit. It was a torso shot, but at least they were making progress. For the third round, Sam informed Stacey to keep her posture rigid and to not do anything except squeeze the trigger. For several tense seconds, the two waited as Stacey prepared herself for her last chance.

When the rifle boomed its third and final time, Sam watched with a mixture of savage glee and pride as the walker’s head snapped back slightly and it crumpled to the ground in a boneless heap. Sam whooped, throwing her hunting cap high into the air.

“You did it!” she exclaimed as a gust of wind blew across them, causing her fiery red hair to dance about. She patted the younger girl on the back even as she lay there staring out across the open ground in silence. “See, I said you could do it.” Sam said as she forced Stacey to sit up and gave her a light hug.

Everyone in the compound was finding ways to cope with the whole end of the world. Matt had found an outlet for his rage and a goal to keep him alive. Joey had become their supply manager. Terry had become their peacemaker. And Sam, she had taken a pupil under her wing. One she intended to teach everything that she knew to.