Threat Level: 1 -> 2 (several walkers nearby but haven't quite noticed you)

Up to you how you make a lot of noise, bringing more walkers close, but not directly to you. :)

This will be the first time any of you have seen more than one at a time. :)

Seeing Jen reaching for the shotgun makes Emma wish she'd phrased her statement a little more carefully.  Does the girl actually want a weapon, or is she simply interested in taking whatever was on offer?  It's hard to blame her for either attitude, in the circumstances, but Nolan's right; though none of them were in the best shape, Jen's certainly in no condition to handle a firearm.  "I'll hang on to it for now, Jen," she says, lightly.

Of course, Emma doesn't feel all that capable in that respect herself.  At least she'll be careful about what she's firing at, but then she worries she might be too slow to shoot if she has to.  How do police officers do it, how do soldiers manage?  She'd wondered about that before, and now it looks like she's going to find out, very soon.

When Keiko spoke up, Emma feels a sudden jolt.  It's partly guilt -- the older woman had seemed to be the calmest of any of them, looking at even this unimaginable situation rationally.  That's what Emma keeps trying to do, she has training that should be helpful, but she's been failing.  But while Keiko might be doing better as far as logic goes, she's also as lost as any of them, and worse has to deal with all this in an unfamiliar land.  "Vaccines do take time to develop and test," she ventures, though she suspects Keiko knows far more about that process than she does.  "If this virus was too different from any existing ones, that might have taken too long."

That doesn't answer everything, not by a long shot, but it might be a piece of this huge, terrible puzzle.

Some instinct leads her to turn towards Nolan just as he begins to move closer.  She stays still, waiting for him -- but he stops, waiting for some signal from her, and she feels... what?  Everything, she thinks, almost smiling at that.  Too many emotions to sort out in a hurry, that much is clear.  Longing, that's the easiest to spot, a desperate wishing -- not only to touch him and hold him close, but also for things to be simple between them.  Simpler, at least.  There are so many uncertainties, ranging from her own messed-up emotions, through Justin, all the way to the probable end of the world.

It's in his eyes, too.  That same wordless longing.  This is no time to be thinking of anything beyond surviving, but in that moment she isn't thinking of anything beyond him.

Uh, Emma, is this ok?

It doesn't make sense at first.  Then she blinks, realizing that his hand is wavering uncertainly over hers.  Her first thought -- one that possibly shows in her face -- is the same from that night, already so long ago: What took you so long?  Again she almost smiles.  They've known each other for a lifetime, or so it seems, but it also feels as though they've just met, and she isn't entirely sure how to proceed.  "Of course, Nolan," she says, quietly.  That part isn't so difficult, but then she's as hesitant as he is.  No one can help how they feel, and he's feeling at least some of the same things she is.  But it's madness to think of doing anything about those feelings.  Isn't it?

She blinks again, shaking off some measure of the spell even though she can't yet manage to look away.  "I... probably should learn the basics before anything happens, right?"  And something could happen at any moment, something terrible.

And, as if on cue, a noise shatters the stillness and she startles, tracing the sound to Rod.  Shit, she thinks, catching strange, lumbering movement out of the corner of her eye.  She remembers lying in bed as a child, afraid to move, barely breathing, because she was sure there were monsters in the closet, monsters that would pounce at the slightest sound.  Now that's coming true.  Now the look she gives Nolan is one of contained panic.

Jen nods as if that's the most sense she's heard all day. "One barrel."

"FUCK!" Dozer cursed under his breath. The sound had caused several of what he had thought were corpses to begin shambling around, almost seeming to search for the cause of the sound. He remembered their earlier encounter with the thing from the ward and knew he couldn't allow them to get close to the group.

With practiced ease he drew the Beretta from its holster and without hesitation squeezed off three shots in rapid succession. He remembered to aim for the head although he knew from experience that he had rushed his shots more than he should. Without waiting to see whether his shots were effective or not, he pointed the others towards the parking garage and bellowed "MOVE!" before he himself began running in the opposite direction.

It quickly became apparent that he intended to draw the infected away from the rest of the group. The others could hear Dozer yelling as he ran. "WOOO! Get some you nasty fuckers!"

22:22, Yesterday: Theodore Moreaux rolled 1 success using 10d6 with the Target Number system with a target of 6.  Firing at walkers using Suppressive fire. 
This message was last edited by the player at 08:28, Wed 31 July.

Emma isn't looking at him like he's offended her, or grown two heads, or like she's frightened of him. That's something. It occurs to him that all his worry has been for nothing. Nolan huffs a laugh and looks away before turning back with enough I'm through being stupid in it for Emma to read.

"This is just... Here—" he begins, a prelude to showing her the parts of the weapon she's holding, a prelude to taking her hand for the first time since far too long, a prelude to whatever comes after.

Then, over her shoulder, he sees what has been attracted by Rod's disturbance. Staggering from the parking lot, stumbling, shaking, almost falling, but somehow not, they come. If he was convinced the nurse was dead, he is no less certain about the figures now weaving drunkenly towards them. Skin like leather, tendons stringy in the jerky of their exposed insides, clothes stained and stiffened dry with the fluids of their broken bodies. One is missing half its jaw, another a hand.

Do not call up that which you cannot put down, he thinks. Tatailles, he thinks. And suddenly his world tilts on its axis.

Dozer's shots shatter the calm, reports banging back from the canyon of buildings they're in, multiplying and returning until what Nolan knows is three rounds becomes six, nine, a dozen. He should have known the marine would be the first to act.

"Dozer," he shouts, but the man has gone, waving and screaming at the tatailles until even the dead can't fail to be awakened. Instinct urges Nolan to go after him, but the rational part of him—the part he's relied upon for the past four years to keep his people safe—knows that would waste the chance Dozer's actions have bought them. "Parking lot!" he adds, shouting so Dozer knows where they're heading.

"Emma, we need your car right now." He bites his lip, watching the marine drawing the dead like the Pied Piper. "Rod, you're our designated driver. Don't let's waste Dozer's distraction. Keiko, Jen, we're moving, stick close."

"Don't worry, we'll get Dozer on the way through." He pulls the Glock from its holster, waves it towards the lot, frowns as he realizes he has no idea where Emma's car might be. "Emma, where are we going?"

---

OOC: There is an extra handgun for someone who didn't roll one on the starting gear. The gun from the bathroom on the ward, if anyone needs it. 

In reply to Narrator (msg # 105):

Rod quickly noticed how many of those...things where around him. He needed to get clear, and still had no weapons to fight with. Fortunately he was better at sneaking around then he was at looking for stuff. Of course, Dozer doing all that shooting is more likely to draw more.

OOC-13:09, Today: Rodrigo Duma rolled 1 success using 8d6 with the Target Number system with a target of 6.  Stealth. – 1 success 1 success, no walkers.

As an interlude, let's talk for a moment about Satan's Own Headache. ("Like I fell from Heaven. Onto my head.")

Jen was, her scare with the tatailles aside, absolutely certain she was alive, because every beat of her heart echoed as a throb in her skull. Pain radiated from where she got hit (between the Atlas vertebra and the back of her skull), in sharp, stabbing earthquakes sending aftershocks to her forehead and temples. At the same time, it felt as if a heavy weight was crushing her head from inside, and a dull, burning sensation sat behind her eyes, making it hard to focus on anything for long- her thoughts were like reminders from someone else entirely. She wasn't sure if that was leftovers of some medication she'd been given, but she knew instinctively that it was a knockout-or-nothing solution, there was no 'relieving' this thing.

Her hair (still in front of her face) took some of the curse off the brighter light coming in from outside, but she still had to squint. And of course, any sudden movement or loud noise could set off waves of dizziness or nausea.

Three gunshots, for example, in rapid succession.

 She'd have screamed, but the noise would only make things worse.
 She struggled to keep up with the group, clutching her forehead as the world lurched, but with absolute determination to keep up with the group- they were how she'd get out of here, get where she needed to be. She was certain of that.


Her legs felt differently about it, as she locked up entirely from the pain...
This message was last edited by the player at 23:59, Wed 31 July.

Keiko's mind raced with Nolan's question: What went wrong? She had so many potential answers but no time to elaborate.
Sick, distorted humans crowded in on them, posing a grave threat.

Fear surged through Keiko, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. Nolan's voice cut through her panic, "Keiko, Jen, we're moving, stick close."

She nodded weakly, forcing her legs to move but struggling to keep up. The nightmarish corpses were so close, and Dozer's shots echoed in her ears, amplifying her fear.

She kept her eyes on Nolan's back, using him as her guide. "Matsu! Wait..."

Whatever brief sense of calm she'd felt at sharing a quiet moment with Nolan -- even if it involved learning how to shoot a gun -- vanished like a puff of smoke on the breeze.  They're right back to not knowing quite what's happening, aware only that they have to move quickly.  She doesn't want to think too much about all the 'or else' ways she could end that thought.

"Dozer, don't!"  It's less a shout than a panicked, hissed plea, but in any case Emma's words are as useless as Nolan's -- Dozer's going to do what Dozer's going to do.  And he's rushing right towards them, one of the larger groups of... tatailles, she supposes.  It's a mouthful, but less of one than anamaqkiu.

Nolan's urging them on, and she can only follow his lead.  Tactical plans aren't likely to ever come naturally to her, but the idea of being inside a nice, sturdy metal box is pretty appealing right now.  With the car, they can get to Dozer fast and get everyone out of here.  To the terminal Dozer mentioned, the marina, anywhere.  Anywhere but here.

"To the left, by the gate!" she shouts in reply to his question about the car, pointing in the right direction.  It is, or at least was, parked up front where the guard could keep an eye on it, the keys hanging on the panel inside the small booth.  There's a pile of rubble between here and there, meaning she can't even tell if the booth is still standing.  Its plexiglass and light metal framing wouldn't exactly have stood up to much, but it didn't seem like someplace where there would have been a pitched battle, either.  It isn't overoptimistic to think it might still be in one piece.

Jen starts to run, stumbles painfully as her legs stop obeying her commands.  "Hang on, Jen, I've got you," Emma says, changing course to get over to the girl and help steady her.  Nurse mode might not be entirely natural to her either, not yet, but it's much closer to instinctive than the kind of organizing Nolan is doing.  Again she forgets for a minute that she doesn't quite believe and thanks god that he's here to do that organizing.  She needs him -- they all do.

"Keiko, stick with Jen and I," she calls out.  The older woman seems to be struggling as well, if less dramatically, and anything that might calm her down is worth trying.  "Come on, we'll all stay together and we'll make it, don't worry."  Emma even sounds like she's in nurse mode, she realizes, falling into that determinedly cheery tone that all nurses seem to end up adopting at some point.  But at least that's normal, too, in a way.  Keeping them from giving up helps her not give up.

[OOC: If there's no mechanical thing to do, then I'd say Emma has no problem (as a trained patient-mover) moving Jen. Certainly no resistance! She wants out of there as much as anyone else.]
This message was last edited by the player at 03:22, Sat 03 Aug.

The Baptist Jena Garage was on Clara Street in the north side of the hospital, and the terminal was to the south if they followed Dozer's plan to take Napoleon Avenue. Dozer hung a hard left as he rushed out onto Clara. He realized that the infected group of people were both slowly shambling, which seemed to make them a bit less dangerous, and they didn't attack each other. They only seemed interested in healthy people. That meant that they had some way of recognizing others that were also infected.

Is it some sort of primal and basic instinct that allowed them to ignore anyone who wasn't healthy and moving, or was there still some sort of basic intelligence still buried deep within their damaged minds? That was something that he would have to figure out later... If he somehow survived.

He filed that thought away in the back of his mind and turned around as he stopped running. Now that he had a put a little distance between himself and the others, he again raised the Beretta and fired. Three more shots, echoing between the hard concrete garage and the brick and glass facade of the main hospital building.

Again only a single shot landed home where he had intended, directly between the eyes of what he assumed had once been a ticket officer with the NOPD. The middle aged black woman was a bit portly and her uniform was unnecessarily tight, however she was missing an eye and had the skin of her cheek peeled away on her left side. What caught Dozer's attention, however, was the fact that at some point the woman had been disemboweled and as she had stumbled in pursuit of the big man, her intestines trailed behind her leaving a slick smudge of ichor on the pavement behind her.

The following two shots had only grazed the neck and pierced the shoulder of another young woman and a tall skinny bicycle courrier respectively. "God DAMN it!" he cursed to himself, vowing to shoot whatever armorer had set the sights on the handgun if he ever met the man. His reflexes and aim were rusty, but he couldn't be THAT rusty, could he?

Before turning to run again, hoping to gain a little more distance between himself and the pursuing infected crowd, he shouted as loudly as he could muster. "SOUTH ON NAPOLEON! HEADED FOR THE TERMINAL!"

Dozer wasn't sure if any of the others could hear him or not at this point, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to let them know his plan. With that, he turned to run... and immediately tripped over a discarded and broken skateboard that he hadn't noticed before. He sprawled onto his hands and knees, scraping his knee and putting a small hole in the leg of his coveralls. The abraded knee stung and he could feel the warm welling of fresh blood beginning to trickle through the grit embedded into the skin from the fall. Luckily though, he had managed to hold onto the pistol and not shoot himself in the eye like Ralphie from A Christmas Story. He thanked the Marine Corps silently for instilling good trigger discipline as he hadn't had his finger on the trigger as he fell.

As he scrambled back to his feet he also assessed that the physical damage from the stumble was very minor and limited to a little bit of lost skin to the pavement during their brief encounter. Sure it was uncomfortable, but not debilitating, so he shrugged it off and again began to move away. And none too soon as the closest infected had shambled its way to within a few feet as he began to hurry away.

22:47, Today: Theodore Moreaux rolled 1 success using 10d6 with the Target Number system with a target of 6 ((5,2,2,2,4,4,6,4,5,1)).

Nolan watches Dozer turn onto Clara, his voice and more gunshots echoing back from the canyon of buildings. Nolan frowns. There's no way to call him back, at least not without drawing the tatailles chasing him, too. "He's a brave bastard, but I'm not sure what good it will do us if he gets himself killed."

South on Napoleon.

He forces himself to focus on the immediate problem. They can still save Dozer if they find Emma's car, anyone's car really, there's no shortage. He stumbles over the rubble, Glock in hand. On the far side he sees a booth, a flimsy plastic box at the side of the parking lot. It has obviously taken a hit at some point, probably when everything else was happening, and it now leans drunkenly against the front wall of the multi-level parking lot, a crack lightning bolted through the plexiglass front. It's empty of life and tatailles—most of which are merrily staggering after Dozer, it seems—but not of keys. The small cabinet at the back has a dozen sets. Hospital pool cars, ambulances, and the occasional valet parking for people with the decent cars, he guesses. Or the people with the nicest smiles.

He holsters the Glock and starts checking the keys. Audi, Audi...

Most of the keys are not Audi, but they are all similar. All Nolan sees is a confusing knot of tags and black key fobs. The adrenaline rush from the insane events unfolding outside isn't helping, making him edgy and tense, unfocused. It sure isn't helping him find the right key. He flicks from one to another, barely seeing each, dropping several to the concrete floor as he fumbles among them.

Come on, come on! He snatches a fob: Chrysler. Maybe an ambulance? It would fir them all, but where would it be parked? No, Emma's Audi is the best bet. He tosses the fob aside.

"Come on, which one?" He shouts, frustrated. "See if you can find the car."

Keiko’s mind, still swirling with thoughts of pathogens and scientific hypotheses, snaps back to the present chaos. The urgency in Emma's voice and the sight of Jen struggling prompt her to act. She adjusts her glasses, taking a deep breath to focus.

“Right, we need to stay together,” she says, nodding to Emma. She quickly moves to Jen's other side, supporting her. "Deep breaths, Jen. Conserve your energy. We’ll get through this."

She feels a wave of confusion and overwhelm wash over her. The whole situation, with its living dead and inexplicable chaos, is terrifying. Her mind races, struggling to piece together a coherent understanding of what’s happening around them.

Her thoughts briefly return to her nice, but she pushes the worry aside, knowing she has to focus on the immediate situation.

Current Threat Level: 2 After what feels like a lifetime ago, even though is has only been a couple of hours since you exited Oschner, you've managed to find someplace only semi-damaged but sturdy enough to hold up in. Your luck hasn't been with you since you woke up, about the luckiest break you've had, and that's more so for the young lady herself, was to come across another former patient named Ashley  who was trying to get out of the area as well. The vehicles you've found up to this point have either been completely useless for transporting you, or you've been forced away from due to the presence of the dead pushing you along. It seems like most have been already raided for whatever they may have contained.

Your shelter seems to have been a local community convenience store with very little broken glass, no overturned shelves and no trash scattered about. If anything, if you close your eyes you can almost hear folks stopping in and buying snack or dinner supplies before rushing down the street to meet the kids after school. You even came across several boxes of goods, cans of food and cases of bottled water. One box you discovered was labeled paper towels but someone had replaces the previous contents with a bunch of prepackaged military MREs. With grumbling stomachs and time to stop, it seems too good to be true. However, once you opened a couple and ate, you know otherwise. Sitting around, talking, getting to know each other has given you an opportunity to feel just a bit better,

At least you were until you heard the ominous sound of a shotgun being pumped.

"Is the dining to your liking? Or should I have a word with the chef?"

Nolan freezes. He lifts his hands away from his sides, and away from the Glock in the belt of his pants. He chews and dry swallows something that tastes a little like chicken, but might actually be chocolate. Or beans. He would dearly love a mouthful of that water, but something about shotguns and liking his organs inside his body stops him from reaching for it.

"Whoa, take it easy, buddy. We had no idea this was anyone's stash. We had no intention of taking anyone's stuff."

Nolan frowns. The last thing he remembers, there was no such thing as stashes, or looting, or pulling shotguns on people just for being in your space. There was a world and rules and even, sometimes, community.

"We've just come from the hospital. We're hungry, thirsty. We have no idea..." He looks at the small group gathered around the rations on the ground and takes a step to put himself between the shooter and Emma, protecting her as best he can. "Look, we've just woken up into this shit. My name's Nolan, and last thing I can remember was being loaded into the back of an ambulance. That would have been back when this place was still a store. None of us have any idea what's happened between then and now."

He licks his lips. That's a very big muzzle. Like a fucking great pit gaping at him. Feels like he could but his fist in it. He realizes what he said may not be true. The new addition to the group, Ashley, has just joined them. He was hoping she might know a little more about what's happened, but so far she hasn't said anything they didn't already know. She's hardly had time.

"You want us gone, we'll go, man. No need for guns. We have sick and injured people here—" he nods at Jen, who really does look the part. "We're no threat to you."

Jen wasn't much companionship, but she answered questions if asked, and listened when others talked.

Then, she was handed an MRE and was suddenly- despite Satan's Own Headache and all- in a reverie.



And so, there Jen was, in the wreckage of a corner-store, holding a #17 MRE, thinking of home and family, neighbors and friends, years ago, far away. The ghost of a smile played across her face. Almost by rote, she set aside the MRE's flameless-heating element (it was God-it's-hot degrees outside, MREs were precooked, and who had time to wait for it to cool down to eat?), and wrapped it in the waterproof packaging the bag came with. Spork at the ready, she opened the bag of... Sloppy Joe.



Goddammit, they'd changed the numbering system.

Then the idea hit her that- out of bruises and everything being so bright and loud, and whatever was going on with her head and- it looked like- tatailles... this was the thing to complain about. It was ridiculous. She started shaking as she stifled giggles. Which hurt. So she stifled in-pain noises.

(From that tiny place where you watch yourself, she reckoned that mood-swings were just part of the package of whatever happened to her.)

Jen was, nonetheless, about to tuck into the first actual food she'd had in days when she heard the c-clack of a shotgun.



Which was exactly the right, wrong thing to say. It just doubled the laughing/stifling/owing process, and now there were tears and it was hard to tell if it was from what would've been laughing so hard, or pain, or the memories. Or lack thereof. The hell happened, anyway?
It took her a second to register that the guy with the gun meant business.

Holding it together but also knowing this was NOT a good time to speak, she just sat there and looked like whatever she looked like. Eyes huge, welling with tears, behind the hair.

She suddenly realized she was being talked-about.



She felt eyes on her. Absurdly, minutely, as if on autopilot, she felt herself jerk her chin just a half-inch upward in a clear " 'sup?" gesture. Idiot.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:31, Mon 05 Aug.

Dozer didn't even flinch or bother to look up. "Speak for yourself, Nolan." he rumbled menacingly. "I most certainly DID mean to eat this horse shit." he said while shoveling another bite of the fake BBQ ribs into his mouth.

"Besides, this guy is an amateur. He racked that shotgun meaning one of three things... One, he has no clue what he is doing and just wasted a shell by ejecting it, but since nothing hit the ground, that leaves two options. Option number two is he has no clue how a shotgun works and doesn't trust himself to keep a round chambered, or option three. That damn thing is empty and he is hoping that he can bluff his way through this."

Dozer shrugged as he continued to eat. "No matter which option is the truth, he's fucked. We Aren't that stupid, and our weapons are loaded and chambered. He may get off a single shot, but even if he can aim, he can only hit one of us. By then. the others will have drawn and killed him."

The nonchalance of his words was cold and matter of fact. "My guess is that he will try to shoot me, since I'm the one that doesn't seem to give a shit about his shotgun. So that leaves the rest of you to take care of this little bitch. And if he doesn't kill me outright, I would suggest looking away since I'm going to make sure that shotgun ends up in a very uncomfortable place for him..."

In reply to Narrator (msg # 118):

Rod managed to sneak away and followed the group after Dozer started shooting. He had no idea what to do if a whole group of those things attacked, given he was still unarmed. He needed to get a weapon pronto, or else all he could do was sneak around and be utterly useless. Now that they had some food and had lost the small horde of those things...maybe...he could get around to searching once more.

That was before the guy with the shotgun showed up of course. While the others distracted him-Rod quickly slipped behind cover. Then he would slowly but carefully move around behind the stranger...

OOC-One success, no walkers.
09:52, Today: Rodrigo Duma rolled 1 success using 8d6 with the Target Number system with a target of 6.  Stealth. – 1 success

Nolan glances at Dozer, grinning slightly. "Yeah, not getting anyone shot is my ambition, Big Guy. Especially not over a bunch of freeze dried mac and cheese that tastes like my socks."

"And my socks—let me remind you—are off a corpse."

Nolan pauses. It wasn't something he's thought about much, but now he does. He takes a disgusted look at his feet. It isn't only the socks that are off a corpse, of course. There're the pants and boots, too. He's glad he skipped the boxers, and that Emma found the t-shirt store, but it's still not his idea of dressed to kill, or die.

"Look," he says to the guy with the gun, trying to keep the man's attention fixed on himself, "we're not wanting to die over this shit, I don't think you want to kill over it."

Although, who knows? Nolan would be the first to admit he knows nothing about the state of this new world. As Dozer points out, though, if their gun-toting friend does kill over it, he'll die over it shortly after. Just that Nolan, or someone, won't be around to appreciate the true value of freeze dried socks in this new world.

To say that the world had gone to Hell would be an understatement. "Hell came to the world" might be more accurate—but it doesn't do anything justice.

One day, you have normal struggles. Bills. School. Cheering for an amped-up college crowd. Girl troubles. The biggest thing on your plate is whether Jenny Grayson will notice if you have carbs on your plate tonight—or if your ex will accept your dinner invitation.

The next day? You wake up to find that the stability in the world has died. Then it got up and started trying to eat you.

Are they really walking corpses? Ash isn't qualified to say, but she knows what it looks like, what it feels like...what they smell like. These people might as well be dead already—there's no coming back from that state. Not from that. Once, during a game, they carted a guy off the field, and he looked pale like that; he was hurt bad, but he still looked better than they do. He still had a chance.

At first, Ash thought she might have been going crazy. Or maybe came down from a toss wrong, they dropped her, this was all some kind of concussion-fueled fever dream.

Or maybe I'm already dead and this is what it's like.

But the hungry quiet gnawed at her thoughts, tearing apart whatever fantasy she had constructed to tell herself that none of this was real. None of it was happening. Bit by stringy bit, they flayed away her delusion, her confusion, rubbery lips red with her ignorance, black teeth dripping with her innocence.

The truth spread like fresh viscera, reeking of death and revelation.

In the end, Ashley was forced to accept the truth: something happened and it brought everything she knew crashing down. People were sick. Dying. Killing other people in their fugue. Her mind grasped for answers. Biological attack. New pandemic. In wilder moments, she wondered about cults and mass murders. But they were sick, one way or the other, and people were dying, and she was on her own.

No one answered the phone calls. Not her friends. Not her school. Not 911. Not...not even Laura. So she hid, and ran, and scrounged what she could until she could claw some semblance of order from the chaos. Running into this other group of survivors was not just luck, it was serendipity. Until she heard them, she wasn't even sure that anyone else was alive. Except Laura. I'm not giving up on you, you crazy bit—

—the thunderous sound of a pumped shotgun draws Ash from her thoughts. Then all of a sudden it's danger again, it's chaos again, but this time, she knows what to do. Ash has seen plenty of raucous crowds. Grabby jocks. Wild cheer squads. She's calmed down classrooms.

Time to do something good. Or die, I guess. One or the other is better than both!

Ash stands up and pats her hands on the back of her jean shorts. Then she holds her hands up slowly, fingers spread, to show she has no means of threatening the man. "I'm sorry," she says in a cool, soothing tone. "We didn't know this was all spoken for. We're just hungry and tired, okay? I'm sure you know what that's like, too." Ashley offers her brightest smile, speaking slowly, clearly, keeping her voice steady. "Honestly, we didn't know what was going on, and we're just as worried as you are. We weren't even sure anyone else was still out there. But we're not trying to hurt anyone, and I don't think you are, right? We're all on the same side here. I promise, okay?"

The guy kept pointing the gun at everyone talking to him. Moving from speaker to speaker, but the one person he should have pointed the gun at suddenly was behind him. Rod grabbed the man around his neck with one arm, while grabbing the shotgun and putting his fingers in the trigger-effectively keeping the other man from firing. He pulls the gun away from the man and throws him to the ground. Then he steps back and readies the shotgun with the famous 'click-click' noise they make in all the movies.

"You know I don't want to shoot you, right? The noise will bring more of those...things." He pointed out, even as he makes sure he is out of the man's reach.

OOC:
10:18, Today: Rodrigo Duma rolled 2 successes using 11d6 with the Target Number system with a target of 6.  Disarm via surprise. – 2 successes

Nolan breathes a sigh of relief. "Took your time, Rod," he says, with a grin. He tosses the remains of the MRE he was eating back into the box and stoops to frisk the old guy. "Anything I need to know about?" he asks.

"You a cop?"

"I'm nothing. Tell me."

"Gun. In my pants."

Nolan kneels on the old guy's shoulder, part rolls him, and comes up with a revolver the old guy had shoved in his waistband. He looks at it, perplexed. "There's no ammo." He opens the revolver, closes it again. "It's empty. Guess he's not doing so well, or he's been busy."

He puts the revolver aside. "You got any friends around here, old timer?"

A pause. Hesitation. "No, it's just me. Ain't seen anybody else—anybody livin' that is—in days." The old guy gives Nolan the stink eye. Nolan's seen it often enough from criminals he wonders how far he can trust anything the old guy says.

"That so?"

The old man swallows uneasily and looks away, swallows so hard Nolan imagines his Adam's apple gouging the floor. The old guy licks his lips. "That was all my food, you bastards."

Nolan shares a look with Rod. "We'll leave you enough." He pushes himself to his feet. "We're not staying." He looks at Emma, then the others. "We're not planning on staying here, right?"

---

OOC: I used the Solo Oracle and the following table to adjudicate rolls:
6: Yes, and...
5: Yes
4: Yes, but...
3: No, but...
2: No
1: No, and...

The questions I asked were (italics indicate the first answer that occurred to me):
Does the old guy have another weapon? Result: 4 (Yes, but... it's empty.)
Does the old guy have any friends around here? Result: 4 (yes, but... he lies about it.)
What lie does the old guy give? Result: (Solo oracle): 1 (Extreme no.)

"No, we're not staying," Emma says, firmly.  Though not as practiced as Nolan, she also isn't sure she trusts the man's answers. Working an ER shift means dealing with people lying about a wide range of things, and you tend to pick up an instinct for when patients are leaving out the more embarrassing details of how they'd managed to sprain both their wrists or gotten those cuts in a very unusual spot.  But suspicious or not, sticking around to sort out the truth sounds like a lot of time and risk that they don't want to take.  "We need to get moving.  But if that's really all the food you have, keep a better eye on it."

Getting Jen out of here is probably also a good idea.  The girl's still reacting oddly, laughing at nothing and seemingly continuing to battle a raging headache... not that any of them are without aches, Emma knows.  Certainly she isn't.  They could all use a thorough workup in a working hospital, even if there was increasingly little chance of that.  Still, things have to be better at the terminal... right?

Ashley had done all right helping to talk the man down, and Emma gives her a grateful nod.  It's also a relief to see the group working well together under pressure.  Dozer's initial speech, alarming as it had been, had taken the man aback enough for the others to organize against him.  From there it had only taken a few moments to get the situation under control.

Again, Nolan is much more used to this sort of thing, but for a moment Emma shivers to think that this might be normal now... that even if they avoid all the monsters shambling around, there's also the constant possibility that they might have to face down some madman with a shotgun.  What if this is just how life's going to be now?

She shakes off the thought, she has to.  All there's time for now is catching Nolan's eye, reassuring herself that he's watching out for all of them.  His badge might not mean much anymore, but he's still a cop, through and through.  Those instincts won't go away so easily, and they need them now.  They need every edge they can get.

"We're leaving now," she says, watching the stranger to make sure he's paying attention.  "And there isn't going to be any trouble about that, right?  No one's going to have a problem with us just leaving.  We've got someplace to be."  There doesn't seem much point in questioning him about the terminal, he isn't likely to give them any answers they feel they can trust.  Even now she's eyeing the shadows as she prepares to leave, gathering the group together instinctively.  The friends he denies having might be lurking in the darkness with shotguns of their own, and there's nothing more for them there anyway.

Choking down the rest of his mystery meat ribs. And pulling out the packet of jalapeno squeeze cheese and "snack bread" from the MRE, Dozer cocked an eyebrow at Nolan. "You sure that's a good idea, man?" he asked nonchalantly. "I'm all for 'live and let live' and all, but this fucker just drew down on us. Not to mention that I don't like the idea of him following us even if he IS alone. Hell, if nothing else, at least make it to where we can get a decent head start. Maybe hog tie his ass and leave a knife on the counter so he can figure shit out on his own."

Standing to his feet slowly he also looked meaningfully at the others present. More specifically, at the women. "Or you guys can head out now, and I'll wrap up here and catch back up with you. Either way, no tail."

Without even looking back over at Emma, and keeping his gaze locked on the old man, he spoke directly to her. Out of everyone here, she was the only person he had somewhat known before all of this.

"I know that you probably think that's monstrous or inhuman of me, but I've seen what even old men are capable of... and that was before all this. Sometimes death is a mercy. Sometimes killing in cold blood is survival."

Nolan frowns. Has it come to that already, he wonders. Shooting people in cold blood? He looks down at the old man. Or worn man, he corrects. He probably isn't much over sixty, but he looks seventy, like he's been ground down by life. Or perhaps just by the most recent weeks of it.

Well, maybe it will come to that. But not yet.

"Stand down, Dozer. We're not killing people without reason." He looks about for something to tie the man's hands. "You're worried, go ahead, hog tie him." He looks at the old guy, but the man is determinedly paying no attention to the debate over his future. "Maybe those people he's sure he hasn't seen in weeks will let him go. But I'm not murdering him, even if he was willing to do it to us."

Not yet, anyway, he adds, wondering what it would take for him to be that far gone. And assuming the old guy was actually willing to kill over his precious box of MREs. It's a pretty low bar.

He finds some packing tape in the mess of the shop's counter, tosses it to Dozer. "Fill your boots."

Nolan crosses to the window, looking out onto Napoleon. "It's a straight run to the terminal."

From the window, he sees shapes, figures moving on a cross street. People. Apart from the old guy on the floor, the first he's seen. Tatailles, too. Distant, nothing close enough for concern, or to be worth alarming anyone. But it's a reminder: Jen's tatailles weren't only at the hospital, and if the old guy is typical of the survivors they'll meet, they might be worse.

"Terminal's gone." The old guy's voice is strained, like lying on his front is pressing on his lungs. "Ain't nothin' there. You bastards really do know nothin' don't you?" He chuckles hoarsely. "Gov'ment did no more good there than they did anywhere else. You'll see."

"Yeah?" Nolan looks at Emma, then at the old man. "Got any more good news?"

"See for yourselves. Ain't nothin' left. Ain't nothin' left anywhere. Just those fuckin' eaters." The old guy sees to realize he may not be helping his cause and shuts up.

"Well, I'm not seeing any better options." Nolan considers the group, shooting a look of appeal to Emma. "I'm heading for the terminal. If some semblance of government remains, it'll be there." He looks at the old guy, chews over his words. "Or maybe there'll at least be information about where safe haven can be found. But, I guess everyone has to make their own choices."

He licks his lips, looking from Rod to Dozer, Ashley to Jen, Keiko to Emma. "Who's coming?"

---

OOC: Do we leave the shop without interference from the old guy's 'friends'? Result:5. (Yes.)
Does the old guy have anything to say? Result:4. (Yes, but... it's not good news.)
Does Nolan see anything out the window? Result:5. (Yes.)
Is it walkers? Result:3. (No, but... there are walkers, too.)