Survivalist Plot: All That Scarcity Promotes is Desperate Men and Tyrants

[meat_mooks]

Day 3 and 4

The remaining hours of the night are tense and ugly, marred by the smell of blood and the complete distrust sewn by Bridge's death. When the sun finally rises, it feels as if the night's been far too long and yet their chance to rest was cruelly short.

The sun peeks over the horizon and onto the parched desert. In the bright sky, if one squints, it's possible to make out that lights are still flashing on the radio tower. The rest of the town is dead, as usual.

Comments

Re: DIANA AND KARIS

[keep_surviving]

Diana returns the grin with a bemused smirk. “It’s been absolutely fabulous.”

Karis has a point, Diana doesn’t want to be the one that gets the greeting party of monsters. Just as she’s about to answer, her eyes widen as if she’s suddenly remembered something.

Diana dashes to the other side of the room and crouches to pull something out of the floorboards, working with urgency, knowing the door’s about to give any second. By the time she returns to the window she’s carrying two satchel-like bags, one resting on each hip.

“You first.” She gestures their exit, just as the door collapses into a pile of kindling and a wave of intense heat blasts through the room, flames leaping in to start crawling across the carpet.

[teethofneedles]

"Just what I wanna hear," Karis shoots back. She pauses with a frown - what's the girl going back for? And then she swings over the edge and starts scrambling down the rope. She moves fast for a corpse.

After a few seconds she's on the ground, weapon out as she checks their immediate surroundings.

[keep_surviving]

Diana drops down not soon after, half climbing, half falling down the rope. She makes a conscious effort to keep behind Karis, whatever was down here, she wanted it to spot living corpse first.

[teethofneedles]

Karis takes a few steps forward, head jerking from one side to another.

"Think it's clear for now. Let's find Howie and whatshisface..."

[keep_surviving]

Diana nodded. "Let's go around and check if the truck's still there. It's the first thing Howard would go for if he got out."

Plus, she and Howard had hidden some of the supplies inside it.

[teethofneedles]

"Right on," Karis took one more quick look and then headed for the corner of the house. She trusted Diana to follow. Mostly because Karis was the one with the weapons.

[meat_mooks]

The car is still there. Howard and Cedric didn't take it. That's because its tires have been slashes and entirely deflated.

wah wah

[teethofneedles]

"Well. That's just great," Karis ground out, "They're smart enough to slash tires."

Speaking of which. There weren't any around here. Right?

[meat_mooks]

LOLNOPE

Two of them are hanging around downwind, catching Diana and Karis' scents. Karis doesn't seem so interesting to them, although she may still be edible. Diana's fresh.

The hang around the periphery like two lions waiting for gazelles to bolt.

[keep_surviving]

Diana curses under her breath, fingers tightly coiled around the flare gun in her hand. Slashing tires? Really? What were these rivalling street gangs?

She spots the monsters and subconsciously moves herself behind Kairs. “Any plans?”

[teethofneedles]

"We kill them before they kill us," Karis replies, a wide, macabre grin spreading across her face as she hefts her axe.

And with that, she goes right after the nearest one, moving surprisingly fast for someone that's supposed to be dead. She covers the last few yards in a leap, whipping the blade down, her hand out, claws extended.

[meat_mooks]

Karis' axe lands true, cleaving the skull of one of them open. The other dodges away from Karis with little regard, barreling instead for Diana, that fresh living meet on skinny legs and carrying things that will weigh her down.

[keep_surviving]

Diana lets out a yell and turns heel, making a mad dash in whatever direction she can, desperate to keep that thing as far away as possible. Great, she manages to escape from the fire with the fighter and they still attack her, looks like her luck was finally running out.

[teethofneedles]

Karis tugs her axe free from the dead one's skull and turns to give chase, a macabre grin on her face and something nasty and dark burning in those little yellow lights she has for eyes. It's hatred and some sort of twisted joy; this is when she feels the closest to being alive again. When she gets to kill something and she gets that little rush. Maybe it's programmed into her by the one who brought her back. Maybe it's some last little piece of her adrenaline.

Whatever it is, she likes it. So she comes loping after Diana and the other creature, ready to lay the hurt on something.

[meat_mooks]

The creature's not too stupid to notice the axe-wielding zombie chasing after it. It whirls around and stands its ground, ready to duck under Karis' arm and tear out some zombie throat.

Congratulations, Karis, you've saved Diana's life.

[keep_surviving]

Diana doesn't stop or slow, she just keeps running, barely glancing over her shoulder to see Karis taking on the beast.

She should thank her for that later, if they're both still alive. Until then, though, Diana's not going to take chances with monster abandoning the fight to chase after her, so she puts all her energy into running as far as possible.