Trisha vaguely recognizes the name but until Ed described him, she could remember nothing at all about Malcolm.
"Oh yeah I remember him. Kinda."
She looks back at the house with a puzzled expression, wondering what exactly the man inside had told them.
"I'll do it." Trisha shrugs, not fully aware of all the details, but still happy to help.
"Ain't gonna be no traps. Like Mary says, it were gonna be a trap, woulda been one the first time. So, what am I askin'?"

Near the Truck

"Maybe, nothin' to loose takin' a quick peek." Edward comments.

"I- I'll come too." Nicole volunteers herself shortly after Trisha. "I want to help."

"No, Trisha," Mary says, "The man told us there's a place down the road that...hmm. Actually, he didn't tell us what was down there at all. He just implied it would have something that could help us, probably either a working vehicle or spare parts. That's what Ivy's talking about.

"I agree with Trisha that we can probably ask the man about Malcolm safely. I also, however, agree with Ivy that the road could be a trap. A couple of us should go first, and the rest of us follow in a way that will allow us to help them out of whatever ambush may be waiting."

Aw hell.  I'm no good at children to begin with, even worse at crying ones.  Ashley barely suppressed an annoyed sigh as she mentally scrambled for some way to salvage the situation (and what remained of her sanity).

"Hey, hey."  She laid one hand on Mina's shoulder in a way she hoped would be comforting, trying her best to deliver a calm and reassuring smile.  "What's your dad's favorite song?  I could probably play it for you."  Think of the good times, that'll help.  Hopefully.  Referring to Mina's father in the present tense, rather than past, was a deliberate move to keep the girl from thinking about him as dead.  Manipulation, sure, but it was for a good cause.

Trisha instinctively lets out a quiet snicker at the suggestion, before quickly attempting to stifle the outburst. It's not that she meant to be mean, she just thought it was a dumb idea.

"Fine." She says in a huff, knowing there will be no more said on it. As Mary explains further, Trisha begins to grow perplexed, her nose scrunching up in confusion.
"Let's go do that then." She chirps, happy to follow Mary's orders first, ask questions second. "Why ain't he said what it was? That's weird shit."

"Right??"

Cemetery Stroll

Ashley's plan worked on the little girl. Her eyes looks up to the sky as she thinks.

"He said ain't no songs better than our national anthem." Mina says. "He plays a lot of Streets of Laredo too when I can't sleep. You ever heard of that song?" She asks.


Near The Truck

(?) Nicole will remember that.

Nicole notices Trisha's snicker and quickly retracts from the conversation. It seems Trisha's response snuff out any sort of confidence she briefly had.

"Then let's go talk to this man, and be real friendly-like." Edward walks toward the house along with anyone who choose to follow.

Trisha turns to look at Ivy and cracks a smile at the young girl's response.
"Sounds like when your brothers are like "Go look under the back porch" and when you do it there's a old dead cat or a snake down there. Used to fall for it all the time when I was littler." She muses, as if she hadn't fallen for the same basic trick many times since then.
At his departure, Trisha begins to follow along. She takes only a few steps before looking back to Mary for approval.

"Quite right," Mary says dryly. "That shit is very weird."

She notices Trisha looking back at her, and motions for her to continue. "Yes, let's go talk to him. He might be trying to get us killed, but if he hasn't attacked us yet, he probably won't risk it when more of us show up."

Probably. Mary suppresses the urge to frown, then glances over the members of the group. "Does anyone want to try circling around behind his home, just in case?"

National anthem?  To say that Ashley wasn't exactly the 'America, fuck yeah' type would be an understatement... but then, any guitarist worth their salt has tried to mimic Jimi Hendrix's rendition of it at least once -- even a middling amateur like Ashley.

"Anthem I can do for sure.  Dunno if I've ever heard a Streets of Laredo, though.  Cliffs of Dover, yes, Streets of Laredo, not so much."  She shrugged apologetically, though the sentiment quickly gave way to another boastful grin.  "Think you could hum it?  I could totally play along if you give me something to work with."  Deciding to seize upon this train of thought before the girl could get back to thinking morbid thoughts, Ashley waved Mina along as she turned her leisurely stroll back towards the parked vehicles and the rest of the group.  "C'mon, let's get us a gee-tar."

"I can do it," Ivy volunteered.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:01, Wed 03 June 2020.

Lone House

The group approaches the house again. At the front door, Edward turns to look at the others. "Alright, be nice." He turns his head back to the door and knocks.

After a short pause, they hear the man's voice. "You lot, again? I thought I made myself clear." The man makes no effort to hide his impatience in his words.

"We wanna know if ya know our friend, Malcolm, he's real tall and skinny. He used to be one of y'all." Edward speaks.

"No, I don't know him." The stranger flatly responds.

That was straightforward. Mary looks at Edward and shrugs.

She considers asking about this school that Edward had mentioned before, but decides against it; first, she knows nothing about the school and anything the stranger could tell her would be irrelevant, and second, she doesn't want to let on what they're looking for. Even though the man doesn't seem to be an immediate threat, there's definitely something sketchy about him.

Eyes slipping closed with impatience, Terry lets his mind drift. His mouth hardens into a thin line as it invariably goes to to his stomach and holds for a small painfully sharp moment. He’d done his best not to think of it these last few hours but a man can only do his best when he is spread so blatantly thin.



Clicking his tongue, Terry meets Ivy's gaze and gives a wide, dangerous grin, his small, flat teeth peeking out between chapped lips before gesturing to the side of the house with a subtle jerk of his massive head. Nature smelled thinly of pine, death and urine. By the pressure in his taut bladder, the mountain of man muscle can only resign himself to adding his own blend to the cloying scent eventually. There was only so long decorum and pride could hold out. Or the human body. It had its limitations just like Terry.

Terry makes for side of the house and pauses, giving the child the freedom make a decision to follow him on her own. A quick perimeter check and then he'd piss on the fucker's place for wasting their collective time and be done with it. A smile ghost's over his mouth at the thought of pettiness.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:34, Sat 20 June 2020.

Ivy followed in the massive man's wake, drawing her dinky .22 pistol from her jacket pocket. As much as she struggled to be optimistic, it was clear by now that whoever was in that house was 100% shady. Better safe than sorry.

The girl followed the perimeter of the house around to the back, peeking around the corner to look for the rear entrance.

At the Door

Edward exchanges a look with Mary after the stranger's response.

"Our friend came from this community here in town, from Shaw High School. Are you from that community?" The soldier asks. There's a long pause before the stranger responds.

"If your friend is from there, I would know. Why is he not with you?" The man asks.

"We parted ways." Edward replies.


Around the House

Terry and Ivy spots a lone undead about forty feet away from the house. Its shambling towards their way. They can't determine if the lone ghoul spotted them or not.

They both see a window on the back of the house. if they get up close, they can peek through to see the inside.

Terry put a palm up to acknowledge Ivy silently as his eyes dart from the open window to her figure and back again, as if appraising her height.

He jerks a meaty thumb toward the window, flashing a dangerous grin at Ivy with raised eyebrows. His caricature of an oversized, mischievous cartoon wolf aside his intentions are obvious. Terry gets into a crouch and slides underneath the open window to the side near the rear of the house so that Ivy, if she so chose, could peek from the side closest to relative safety.

Terry regains his composure on the opposite side and continues pressing onward, confident that Ivy will be more interested in her assignment than the proximity of the walking dead. He gauges the distance, shrugs his shoulders and decides to peek through the window before potentially making himself visible to anyone inside. It'd be hard for Terry to do anything and not be in someone's eyesight so he needed to be certain on this.

He wasn't too keen on adding any more grams of iron to this diet.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:30, Thu 25 June 2020.

With Mary's approval, Trisha follows along with the others to the front door of the house to speak to the stranger.
As the man fails to give any useful answers, she is determined to ask him before he is confirmed to be totally unhelpful. At the first break in the conversation, she speaks up.
"I heard that you said before about followin' down some road to get to someplace. What's there?"

Mary's brow furrows as she gives Edward a sidelong look. She knows little about Malcolm and less about this fabled community Edward is talking about, so she can only guess how the man could know the community but not know Malcolm. She looks back towards the house and wracks her brain, trying to remember anything about Malcolm. Who had he been again? Had he come with Elijah and her to the gas station? No, that was some other boy. Joseph or Justin or something. Malcolm must have been in the dining room when Camellia pulled a gun.

"Malcolm passed through Rosedale four, maybe five weeks ago," Mary says to the man inside. "He must have left Shaw before then. How long have you known the people in Shaw High School? It might have been before your time.

"You're sure you don't know him?" she continues. "He was almost skeletally thin. Glasses, too. And...a New England accent! That's right, isn't it?"

She punctuates the last question with a look towards Edward.

Taking Terry's hint, Ivy approached the window and took a peek inside. The lone monster had her a little nervous, but it was just one. They could deal with it if they really had to.

At the Door



"People from the school." The man answers flatly.



"Yeah, yeah that's him." Edward replies.

There comes another long pause before the man behind the door speaks again.

"I..." There's another awkward pause. "Never met him. Look," you can sense irritation slowly building from the tone of his voice, "if you people are looking for the school just do what I say and head-" He cuts himself off in mid sentence. There's another pause before the group hears a exasperated sigh. Then the mans speaks again in a much slow, calm manner. "There's a good number of you people, they won't try anything."

Behind the House

From the window, Ivy and Terry sees a man standing near the door. He is standing a few steps away from the door. In his right hand holds a pistol. In his other hand he's holding a radio. It looks like he is actively listening to it while having a conversation with the rest of the group through the door. At some point of the conversation, the man turns around and hits the grip of his gun at his forehead out of frustration. Terry and Ivy ducks out of sight before the man spots them through the window.

When he turns around to speak to the group again, Terry and Ivy resumes their peeping activity together.

"He's using a radio!" Terry announces unnecessarily. "And he's probably feedin' us bullshit. We could be walkin' right into a trap."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:43, Thu 02 July 2020.

The color drained from Ivy's face as Terry loudly blew their cover. Maybe having him along for a stealth mission wasn't the best idea.

One side of Mary's mouth quirks downward into a frown. She hadn't trusted the man before, and she trusts him less now. She doesn't know exactly what to make of his strange, start-and-stop speech patterns, but she knows that one seldom has to stop and evaluate their exact words when they're telling the truth.

In any case, Malcolm was their one in. If the man doesn't recognize the name - or claims not to - then they have nothing else with which to convince him. Mary makes eye contact with Edward as jerks her head backward slightly, indicating that it's time to leave.

At the Truck

While the others are occupied with the house, Mina leads Ashley to the truck. She grabs onto the side mirrors and climb onto the side of the driver's window. There's a backpack in the seat that belongs to the driver. A guitar is sticking out of it. The little girl points at the backpack. "There, its there." She says.


At the Door

Edward nods in agreement at Mary's suggestion. He gives the door one last look before walking away. On their way back, they see Rufus and Natasha meeting them half way from the truck.

"As fascinating as it is to linger around the resting place of old ghosts, are we moving on soon?" Rufus asks.

"Yeah, we might gotta walk on foot. Ain't fixin' that truck without the parts I need." Edward replies.

"Well that fucking blows." Natasha comments. "Where are we headed?"



The group hears Terry's shout from the other side of the house. No doubt the man inside heard it as well.


Behind the House

At Terry's announcement, the man looks up from his radio. In that split second, his eyes meet the two of you. Terry and Ivy have but a brief second to act before the man responds in kind.

The lone ghoul at a distance growls at the source of the voice. It shambles eagerly towards the duo at an accelerated pace. It is about twenty feet away from the duo.
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:09, Fri 03 July 2020.