Town's End (open, maybe; see first post)

Caroline Carter clenched her hands into fists, trying to contain their trembling. The Town's End bar and grill was on the cool side, but Carol doubted that it was the temperature that was the issue. She’d been told she would be safe in here. Yet the fear still ravaged her. Some of the things she’d seen in the past two weeks or more…

Carol looked upwards to find cathedral ceilings over the customer area. Above a wall that featured, among other things, a cork bulletin board filled with messages from survivors to their missing family and friends was a bank of windows that looked down upon the lower floor. The glass looked like that one way mirror stuff they used in police departments for interrogations and line ups. But that second floor room's lights were on, meaning Carol could see the woman standing at the glass, looking downward.

Emily Townsend, Carol thought. Carol didn’t know Emily, but she knew of Emily. Everyone in or around the D.D.Q. knew of Emily Townsend. You couldn't help but hear of Emily because she seemed to have her hands into everything in the D.D.Q. Three months ago, the 22 year old Caroline had moved into the Greenleaf housing development, located just on the other side of the highway from the D.D.Q. She'd been living with her elderly Granmama during the sweet but ailing old lady's hospice care. Carol had used the pedestrian walkway over the highway a couple of times to visit the D.D.Q.; she'd even come into the Town's End once for a beer, but after four different guys tried to hit on her, Carol had decided it was time to buy a six pack and go drink at home.

Carol had been sad to see her Granmama pass away. But three days later when the zombie apocalypse reached Portland, Carol was relieved that the old lady hadn't had to see this.

Carol had hoped she would be safe in Granmama's house, barricading the doors and windows and sitting silently in the darkness. But on the 2nd day, the crazies running around the neighborhood forced their way inside. Carol had fled to the attic with a go bag of food, water, and what-nots. For eight days, she'd listened to the cannibals downstairs scurrying all about. They'd known she was in the attic, but they hadn't seem to know how to get to her. Three separate times she'd heard some of them running back and forth across the roof of the house and had been sure they were going to start ripping a hole through it.

The place had slowly gone silent as the cannibals were distracted elsewhere. Then the looters arrived. When Carol finally came down, just yesterday, she found the place pillaged. She scrounged enough food to fill her belly for another day, but she knew she couldn't stay there. Venturing out, she was found by a neighbor, Harold Cooper. He'd heard about Town's End and the two of them made it here, taking almost two hours to cover the less than half a mile between Greenleaf and the bar.

They made it here, only to then learn that if they didn't have anything with which to barter, they couldn't stay after sunrise. Carol found herself herded into a corner of the bar behind a chain link fence, like some sort of border-hopping immigrant caught by ICE. Harold and his shotgun had been taken away, and only now as Carol stared up at the presumed-Emily did he reappear, notably on the other side of the chain link fence.

"Got me a job, a bunk, and three squares," he said smiling. He turned to show Carol the back of the vest he was now wearing, something akin to what you'd see at the local outdoor concerts. The word Security was obvious in bright yellow. Above that word, though, was the residue of stick'em letters that had been removed. Carol could see that the vest had once included the word Volunteer. Turning back to Carol, Harold asked, "Are they going to let you in?"

"Don't know," she responded, shrugging. "I didn't have anything to offer. I told the lady, I think her name was Sarah, that I had a lot of experience in a lot of areas, but, well, I don't think she was too impressed. Too many potential workers, not enough work, I guess."

Carol glanced around as if looking for people listening in, then pressed her face up to the chain link and whispered, "She literally asked me if I was up to working in the brothel. Did you know they had a brothel upstairs?"

Harold only shrugged. He'd been a regular here for years, probably part of the reason he'd so easily been taken in, well, that and his military history and the fact that he'd given up his shotgun to be used by one of the armed security guys. Harold hadn't just known about the rooms that could be rented by the hour, he'd rented one, twice actually. Once had been with a hooker who'd given him his first deep throat blowjob. The other time had been a drunk college girl visiting from Ireland who'd wanted to get laid by an American -- specifically an African-American American -- before she went back to Ireland for Spring Term.

After a moment, Harold leaned in and asked with all seriousness, "What did you tell her, Sarah?"

"Oh my fucking god, Harold!" Carol practically spat back at him. She couldn't believe he would ask that of her. "I told her no, of course! I'm not a fucking whore!"

Harold's expression showed his regret for his question. He contemplated a moment, then suggested, "Maybe they'll let you in if I say you're my girlfriend, or fiancée--"

"I'm not going to be your whore, either, Harold," Carol again shot back. After Harold insisted that hadn't been what he'd meant, Carol apologized and told him, "I'll figure something out. Don't worry about me."

"But they'll kick you out come sunrise."

"No they won't," Carol insisted confidently. "I'll figure something out. There's got to be something they need that I can furnish, or do."

They chatted a moment longer, during which Harold slipped Carol a breakfast bar he'd been given as a work shift snack. He went off to stand his first watch, leaving Carol to glance up to the windows again. The presumed-Emily was still standing there as a second woman paced back and forth behind her, seemingly reading from a book or ledger or clipboard. Carol finally moved to the back of the pen, crouched on the floor against the wall with a furnished blanket around her shoulders, and wondered to herself...

Could I really let strange men put their dick in me, just for a bunk and three squares?
 
Image
Bradley Taylor
35 years old
5'10", a solid and strong 220 pounds
Former military, now Chief of Security


Bradley Taylor made his way slowly over to the drunk patron whose fingers were clutching the heavy gauge wire of the chain link fence. The man -- a mechanic tasked with, among other things, keeping the emergency power generator running, when he was sober, anyway -- was ogling a pretty redhead sitting in the back, making lewd suggestions about what she could do to his lonely cock with her pretty pink lips. The man caught sight of Bradley now standing next to him, smiled broader, and asked with laughter, "Do you think the carpeting matches the drapes, if she even has carpeting?"

Bradley had planned on politely asking the man to walk away. Instead, he suddenly punched him in the temple, hard enough to drop him to the floor unconscious.

"Take him to his rack," he told a pair of Security Guards who'd been slowly trailing behind their boss. "Cuff him to it … just to make him think about what he did tonight. And you better put a plastic sheet on the mattress … in case he pisses himself."

Bradley looked down, saw the man's crotch darkening, and said, "Oops, too late."

The men laughed and did as Bradley instructed. The Security Chief looked to the redhead, smiled politely, and ordered, "Come with me, please."

She questioned where she was going and why, but Bradley only smiled and politely requested that come to and through the gate and accompany him. He took her up the stairs to the 3rd floor, unlocked a door, and gestured her inside. It was obvious on her face that she didn't like not knowing what was happening. The sound of a man and woman in the next room over having loud, energetic sex likely didn't calm her any.

"You'll stay here the night," Bradley said as he entered. He gestured to the bed, desk, light switch, backup flashlight -- "We lose power sometimes, other times kill the power on purpose" -- and other furnishings with which she might have a need. I'll send up some food and drink. What do you like. Actually, I can't promise we'll have what you like, so, if there's anything you don't like, or are allergic to, just tell me and I'll pass it on."

They chatted a moment more, with Bradley chuckling embarrassingly at the sound of the neighboring woman's obviously fake orgasm. As he opened a drawer and removed a couple of little baggies of foam ear plugs, a second couple could be heard fucking in another direction.

"I wish I could tell you that at a certain hour of the night, that would stop," he said, offering out the ear plugs. "But … well, it's sort of an around the clock sort of service, so … I can't."

Turning for the door, he told the woman, "My name is Bradley Taylor. I'm the Chief of Security for Town's End. If you need anything … anything at all … there's always a Guard in the hallway. Just have him send word for me."
 
For the longest time, Carol just stood there in the middle of the little room, silent and still, contemplating her situation. How the hell did she end up here? And, of course, how the hell was she supposed to sleep here, what with the grunts and cries coming from the room on her left and the banging of a headboard against the wall to the right?

A knock on the door startled her. "Come in."

A beautiful woman who looked younger than her true age entered, carrying a bottle of wine in one hand and a picnic basket in the other. "Hi, I'm Emily Townsend, proprietor of the Town's End."

Carol was surprised, almost shocked. She'd never been told Emily's age, and to realize that the woman was only in her late 20s or early 30s -- Emily was actually 34, but Carol didn't know that -- was quite the shock, considering all the stories of Emily's involvement in the community. The owner of the bar and grill (and brothel and the building as a whole, and possibly even more than Carol had imagined) lifted the lid of the basket and listed its contents, then went silent, just staring at her guest.

Emily had presumed correctly that Carol had questions, one specific one. Carol asked pointedly, "Are you wanting me all clean and nice smelling and all dolled up, painted, because that's what your brothel customers are looking for in a whore?"

Carol hesitated a moment for a reaction from the other woman. And then when Emily opened her mouth to speak, Carol cut her off quickly with, "I'm not a whore. And I'm not going to work in your whore house. You might as well just toss me right out the door now and let those … those things out there eat--!"

Carol wasn't able to finish and went silent as she fought not to let her eyes, already glistening, leak tears down her dirty face.
 
After delivering the pretty redhead from the cage to a room in the brothel, Bradley jumped into his other late night duties. He had a full night ahead of him seeing how he was only just now beginning his shift. Bradley had worked in the dark for most of his adult life, so being up and around and just starting his day at midnight was nothing new.

At just 17 years of age, Bradley had begun his first job of slinging veneer at a plywood plant, swing shift, 1630 to 0100, Sunday to Thursday night. He was just a junior in high school. Bradley's father had abandoned his wife and five kids the year before, and -- too young to join the Army -- mill work was the best thing he could do for the family at that point.

Three days after turning 18 he was in boot camp. He excelled, as expected. Did so in special forces training as well. Went overseas, made a hero of himself; as expected. Got shot. Not a delight, of course, but not unexpected. More often than not, he'd been working in the dark, as he did now.

It wasn't until he unwillingly earned his third Purple Heart that it was time to come home. The last bullet had done damage to Bradley's spine, and the VA doctors had forced him to accept an Honorable Discharge. He was still able to do most of what he had in the military, just not well enough to be part of a special forces team.

After the Army, he'd done a bit of Contractor work, but the shadiness and unaccountability to the rule of law had been unacceptable. He'd done a stint as night time security, then personal bodyguard work for a musician, again, mostly night work. And finally, looking for something that would keep him in one place, he'd accepted a job as bouncer for the Town's End.

He'd been here working for Emily Townsend for three years before the virus swept the world, turning everyone around him into either zombies or zombie dinner. The apocalypse reminded him of his tour in Syria a bit. His team had become trapped in a suburb of Damascus after a failed kidnapping attempt of Bashar al-Assad, and they found themselves shooting at and being shot at by seemingly anyone and everyone with a gun. It got to the point where if it moved about them, Bradley and his team killed it, or it tried to kill them.

That was how it was today in and about the DDQ it seemed. If it wasn't a zombie trying to kill and eat you, it was a regular human type trying to kill and rob you. In the past 15 days, Bradley had killed maybe a hundred or more of the undead creatures, far more men than he'd killed during all 8 years of his overseas service in the Army.

But what was even more disturbing than that was the fact that as time past, Bradley had found himself once again killing regular human types. Three times, armed men had tried to invade or simply infiltrate the Town's End. The current security, including the Cage, had been updated to deal with humans as well as with cannibals. The apartment building next door which Emily had had her security take control of had been invaded once as well. Eight residents were killed and a fire had done serious but repairable damaged to most of two floors before Bradley and his guys regained control.

He'd hoped never to have to shoot another human being in his life. But, shit happens. He made his way to the roof of the building and then to the south corner of the building. From here, the building looked out over the park and to the Willamette River beyond it. To the left and right both, Harold could see the ends of the walls that had once kept out the sound of the railroad (no longer running) and the industrial area (also now devoid of operations), as well as the shipping containers that reach from those walls out across the park and greenway to the river's bank.

The South Roof Watch was a brand new guy, hired by Bradley just hours earlier, named Harold something or another. Bradley confirmed his last name, then asked, "How's the coast?"

"The coast is clear," Harold responded with a smile. The new man thanked Bradley again for this opportunity. They talked about the zone below them a moment, then Harold asked with a bit of hesitance, "I was wondering, I have a friend downstairs, being held in the new arrivals, and I was wondering, is there anyway to get her inside?"

Harold asked for the woman's name and description, realizing immediately that the woman was the redhead, Caroline. "She's inside, Harold. Don't worry, she's safe."

The new Security Guard looked like he wanted to say more but didn't. For his part, Bradley wanted to know more, like, was this Caroline Harold's lover, or did Caroline like other women, as Bradley knew his boss Emily did when the mood hit her.

But, like Harold, Bradley didn't ask, mostly because at that moment another Security Team member was hurrying across the graveled roof top from the west corner to report, "Movement down below, sir. Direction, two-ten or so, maybe 50 yards out."

As the Guard had been talking, he'd handed Bradley a scoped rifle that had a long sound and flash suppressor over the end of the barrel. The man then raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes to search the area he'd just described. When he found the person of interest, he said, "On the walkway, 'bout 15 years east of the fountain, no, moving onto the grass, direction, eastward, walking speed."

"Got him," Bradley responded, finding the man in the night vision scope. After a moment of study, Bradley reported what the Guard had suspected, "Zeek."

"Confirmed," the Guard responded. "Target is a zombie, sir."

Bradley raised his head from behind the scope to look at Harold, whose face was lit by a nearly full moon. He offered out the rifle, asking, "You up for a little Zeek hunting?"
 
The owner of the Town's End told Carol, "I'm not sending you back outside."

Carol was relieved beyond description as Emily went on to explain that maybe they could find her a job that didn't involve a stranger's cock finding pleasure in her mouth or pussy. When Emily finished, Carol gave her a soft and simple, "Thank you."

Emily explained about the bathroom down the hall, the reason behind the cold temperature, and then asked if there was anything more she needed.

"I heard some people talking downstairs," Carol asked quickly, fearing she might not get a chance later. "I wasn't eavesdropping on your people or anything. But, I heard someone say you're running on a gas generator, and that you're running low on fuel, and that you have solar panels on the roof but you can't get them to work."

Carol hesitated to see whether or not Emily would confirm any of this, then continued, "I have some experience with solar panels. My Granmama -- my grandmother -- she had panels on her roof. Some sort of energy assistance to the elderly, before she got sick. Anyway, I read a lot about them. I might be able to help, maybe earn my keep. You know, with my clothes on."
 
Harold's new supervisor offered out the rifle and asked, "You up for a little Zeek hunting?"

The newest member of the Town's End Security Team looked to the rifle for a moment, then back up to Bradley's face. The man was seriously asking Harold if he wanted to shoot, to kill, a man down below, execute him from on high with a high powered rifle.

No, not a man, Harold reminded himself. A zombie. A killer of real men.

Harold took the rifle, finding it heavier than he'd expected. It wasn't like the basic version of the M4 he'd carried in Afghanistan, which had weighed less than 7 pounds, even fully loaded. Oh sure, all the extra gear that a special forces kind of soldier like Bradley would have used could push the weight to as much as or more than 10 pounds. But Harold had been your normal, simple, foot soldier, guarded doors and gates and check points. Hell, he'd only ever shot his rifle at another human being once, and honestly he had only been trying to scare the wanna-be invaders away while a bigger gun was spun around to wipe them all out. Harold doubted very much that any of his rounds had hit anything other than sand and brick.

This gun, though, was a Winchester Model 70 .30-06, with a full hard wood stock, an oversized night vision scope, convertible bi/tripod, and massive sound/flash suppressor, a zombie killing tool that weighed out at 12 to 14 pounds for certain.

Harold was torn by the offer as he looked down to the greenway, barely able to see the dark figure walking about the park. A day or two, possibly a week or two earlier, that creature down there had been a man, maybe even someone Harold knew. And now, Harold's boss was asking him to put a bullet through him and end his life, maybe for the first time, maybe for the second.

"Head shot," the other guard said with an emotionless, matter of fact tone. "Gotta be through the head."

Harold examined the rifle a moment more, then looked to Bradley's face again. He tried to read the other man, wanting to know whether this was a test or simply Bradley delegating the little, simple tasks.

"Sure," he found himself murmuring. As he pulled the tripod's feet down into place and positioned the powerful weapon, he added with a bit more feigned confidence, "They're just zombies, right?"

It took Harold a long moment to find and steady his aim on the Zeek. He looked to its face, to see if in fact he might know the guy. He didn't recognize the man, though, that didn't really mean much with zombies. The humans who became infected and turned changed a great deal in appearance in a very short amount of time. Harold had watched this transformation in one of his neighbors, who had fallen into an otherwise empty trash dumpster near the next door construction sight and had been unable to get out. The man/zombie's face and body changed so radically in just a few hours that Harold was sure he wouldn't have known who the man had been if he hadn't already known beforehand.

Looking lower, though, Harold quickly realized that he recognized the man's clothes. The zombie wore a UPS uniform, shy the brown cap. Harold imagined that this Zeek might be the very driver who had delivered hospice drugs and other needs to the house where he had been a nurse and caregiver until just two weeks ago.

"If you don't want to--"

"I got this," Harold cut in quickly. He knew he needed to prove himself, to show Bradley that the Security chief hadn't made a mistake hiring him. "I was just, looking. Wanted to make sure..."

He didn't finish what he was implying: I'm not killing another regular ol' human being, wandering about the park. He lifted the scope's crosshairs back to the zombie's head, took a moment to steady himself -- his heart was pounding so hard he could hear the blood pulsing through his ears -- and then, gently, squeezed his finger on the--

The rifle leapt in his hands, causing him to lose the target in the scope. Lifting his head up over the scope, Harold looked to the park but found nothing. "Did I--"

But he was interrupted...

(OOC: I didn't want to claim a hit or miss. You two decide whether he hit. ;) Also, if TiredFingers wants to write Harold sometimes or all the time, I'm fine with that.)
 
At the invitation to have lunch with her, Carol gave Emily a wide, pleased smile. "I'd like that. And, you won't be sorry about giving me an opportunity. I may not be able to explain all I have to offer, but, I do. I do have a lot to offer."

They said goodnight, and after Emily was gone, Carol again just stood there in the middle of the little room for the longest time. She studied the layout a bit, noting the old and new construction. It was obvious that they rooms had once been bigger, perhaps twice their current size. Carol heard a toilet flush next door, noting that she herself didn't have one. Probably divided one studio apartment into two, she thought. Lucky me to have to go down the hall to pee.

She poked through the picnic basket, selected what she needed, found the linen Emily had had delivered, and was preparing to go clean up with a girl showed up with more offerings: more blankets, more ear plugs, more food and drink, and simply more.

"Why is she being so nice to me?" Carol asked the teenage girl. When the 14 or 15 year old only shrugged, she clarified, "I haven't done anything worthy of getting all this."

"Maybe you will," the girl said with a hopeful tone and smile. "I did. And do."

"What did you do?" Carol asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. The sounds of sex were still present, though only from one direction now, and Carol asked as she nodded toward the wall, "You don't … do you?"

The girl giggled. "Oh no, not hardly. Emily wouldn't allow it. I'm not of age."

As the girl departed, Carol noted that she never explained what she did for Emily. Carol considered the possibilities, and the one that jumped out at her was informant. Carol didn't know a great deal about the situation here in the Town's End, but she suspected that Emily had to be living in a rather precarious and sometimes dangerous situation.

Carol figured out the 5 button security lock on the door, creating her own code, then headed for the community bathroom. There were a trio of women in there, all obviously whores from their clothes, makeup, and more. They gave her the evil eye, probably thinking she was new competition for limited brothel income. She told them with a meek tone, "Hi, I'm Caroline. Carol. I'm new. And temporary! Gonna work on the solar panels. Not, not up here. Though, I'm sure that working here, you know, on this floor--"

"Relax," a fourth voice cut in from behind Carol. The newest Town's End resident turned to find a stunning woman emerging from a large stall that was part shower, part changing room. She was short, barely 5'4", but she had a delicious hour glass figure with wide hips and phenomenal, seemingly natural breasts. She introduced herself as Pixie, saying, "We know you're not a whore, so, we're not gonna mess up that pretty face of yours to reduce the competition. And we know you're important to Miss Emily, so, unless we want our own faces messed up--"

She gave the other three a hard glare, which made Carol believe that this Pixie was likely the Alpha female around here, despite her relatively smaller size to the other women. She finished her thought, "--we'll make sure you are comfortable and happy."

"Thank you, Pixie," Carol said offering out her hand and smiling when the other woman took and shook it. "I, um, was just wondering. The, um, sex sounds. Do those ever end? I mean, how do you sleep?"

Pixie answered by telling one of the other girls, Beverly, to give up her own room to Carol. An argument ensued, and Carol seriously thought the two were going to come to blows. The top dog whore explained to Carol, "The room at the end of the hall is the quietest. Bev's going to help you move your things down there. Aren't you, Bev?"

The other whore growled under her breath, then -- urged by Pixie -- said with obvious sarcasm, "Yes! I'd be tickled to."

They returned to their rooms and swapped their gear before Carol returned to the shower room to clean up. On her way back, she stopped outside Bev's new room and knocked. When the sneering whore opened the door, Carol offered her some of the bath and hygiene products she wouldn't use or didn't really need. It seemed to lessen the anger between the two, though Carol doubted that they were suddenly going to be BFFs.

She went to her own room, and a bit later Pixie stopped in, asking, "I heard you had a bottle of wine?"

They popped the cork and dropped onto Carol's bed to talk about life in the Town's End. Carol was surprised at just how much of a community Emily had built here. They talked for a couple of hours, finishing off the bottle; Carol was feeling very tipsy and was having a great time talking to the very friendly Pixie.

"Maybe I should stay here with you tonight," the stunning brunette said when it was obvious Carol's eyes were feeling the passing of the evening. The new girl was already in pajamas Emily had provided, and after locking the door and killing the light, Pixie easily urged Carol under the covers and across to the far side of the mattress. She slipped in beside Carol, rolling her away to spoon her, and pulled the blankets up to keep them warm. She kissed Carol on the shoulder, wrapped an arm over her side, and whispered, "Go to sleep."

Things were happening so fast that Carol didn't really know what to do or say. She just did as Pixie said, finding herself in a warm bed spooning with a beautiful woman who smelled wonderful. She clasped Pixie's hand and pulled it into her bosom. Carol wasn't a stranger to other women in that sense, though the vast majority of her lovers had sported cocks. And she'd only just met Pixie a couple of hours earlier. But she felt so comfortable and safe right now -- and just tipsy enough -- that she hoped the other woman would turn her around and press her own lips to hers.

And yet...

...the next thing Carol knew, she was waking up to the light of a new morning spilling in through a small window in the wall, and she was all alone.
 
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On the roof:

After taking the shot at the zombie, his first ever shot at a targeted individual with the intent to kill rather than at a general location with the intent of scaring off people who were trying to kill him as well, Harold looked up from behind the Winchester's scope to ask, "Did I--"

"Harold, clean up on aisle three," the other Watchman said with a tone mimicking a grocery worker on a store intercom. He looked up from behind his night vision binoculars to see Harold's face lit in the moonlight and smiled. "Someone get a mop, 'cause that Zeek's brains--"

"Anyway...!" Bradley cut in, obviously not appreciative of the other man's black humor. Sure, Harold had killed a zombie, a creature, an animal, that likely already had or would soon enough have killed living people if it itself hadn't been put down. But still, that Zombie had once been a person, likely a DDQ neighbor, possibly even a friend or family member of someone Bradley himself had known. He sent the other Guard back to his West Roof position, then took the rifle from Harold and ejected the spent shell, pocketing it for future reloading. He asked the newest killer on the Security Team, "You okay? What you just did ... it can be hard on people sometimes, even people with past military service like yourself. You were overseas weren't you, Harold?"

"Yes, sir," the former soldier said, nodding simultaneously. "Do I call you sir? Or … do you have a rank? What's the protocol--"

"Yes ... sir is appropriate," Bradley answered. "We aren't the US military or even the Portland Police, but we operate with the same sense of Command Structure and discipline. Some of the Security Team is made up of guys who are just good with guns, but most of them are former military. The Team's still a bit new to be entirely organized when it comes to ranks and such, but … for now, anyway, Emily's asked me to consider myself a Captain, but, don't call me that. Sir is fine. The others -- you, too -- will be assigned ranks and official positions within the command structure eventually. For now, just … do as your told by the guys already part of the team, and you'll be fine."

Bradley told Harold about the Night Cook and how she always made a basket of food for the Roof Watch, then sent him downstairs to retrieve it and a few refilled bottles of water. He watched Harold depart, then turned to look down upon the greenway below him. He scoped Harold's kill, finding the Zombie slumped over the edge of the fountain; even from here, the damage to his skull was obvious.

Damn fine shooting, he thought. May have to give this guy an assignment and some stripes.

Bradley looked out upon the Willamette River, marveling at how beautiful it looked with the moonlight reflecting off it. You would never have known that the world around them was in turmoil … well, so long as you ignored the multitude of fires burning in almost every direction, the result of God knows what kind of actions or reactions.

Movement below him caught Bradley's attention. He expected to find more Zeeks itching to have their skulls opened by a .30-06 bullet. Instead, he found a pair of suspicious men near where the sound barrier wall met the shipping containers that reached out to the water's edge. He signaled the West Roof with the flash of a pen sized laser light, then alerted the Ground Team on the radio. They watched the pair for sometime, wondering whether or not they were making a move on the Town's End.

They finally determined the pair's target: a woman who was sneaking not-quite-stealthy-enough through the greenway for the back door of the bar. The men rushed out of the dark toward the woman, taking her down to the ground. Bradley was watching the scene unfold through the rifle's scope, hoping it was just a simple robbery. Then he saw one of the men punch the woman silly and rip at her blouse.

A gentle squeeze of the trigger sent a bullet downward into the man's neck, nearly severing his head from his shoulders. He fell over, twitching in the throes of death. His friend in the meantime had stood and began firing a small caliber pistol in just about every direction but Bradley's. A moment later, three quick shots from the Ground Team put the man down.

Bradley watched the quick reaction men gather up the woman and the package she'd been carrying -- and infant boy, Bradley would later learn -- and hurried her into the side entrance of the Town's End … and in the nick of time, as three zombies suddenly came rushing into the scene. Bradley put the Zeeks down, one two three, then handed the rifle to the West Roof watch and told him to watch over Harold when the man returned.

He descended to his apartment on the 4th floor and went over the personnel rosters … occasionally recalling the beautiful redhead a floor below her.
 
Padding barefoot to the bathroom to relieve her bladder of last night's half bottle of wine, Carol found the 3rd floor so very much different than she'd seen -- or heard -- it the night before. There were no sounds of sex; the music that had penetrating the 3rd floor from the bar on the 1st was absent; and there was no Guard at the end of the hall. It was as if Carol was the only person in the entire building, with only a light vibration buzzing the floor, probably from the emergency generator in the building's basement.

In the bathroom, Carol found a battery operated clock on the wall. It claimed the time to be 10am, though her body and mind was sure it was just barely past sunrise. Carol thought she remembered the night ending on a high note, with her in the warm, embracing arms of a caring, sexual being. A woman, she recalled, a beautiful, sensuous woman. Carol didn't recall the name, though; too much wine.

Aside from that forgotten ending, though, Carol could have easily and honesty done without the day in its entirety. Finding her home pillaged of all its food, drink, and transportable valuables; fleeing out into the neighborhood not knowing whether or not some cannibal would be ripping her flesh off with claws and teeth and eating her alive; then spending half a dozen hours locked in a cage awaiting her impending fate.

My fate, she thought. Carol still didn't know what was to become of her. If she didn't impress the Town's End's tech' guy and, thus, its owner, she could end up back out there on the street … or worse, still here, whoring herself for room and board. Would that be worse? she wondered. Dead or a whore? Which is worse?

She finished peeing, washed up, and donned a button up blouse and some loose fitting jeans that the girl from the night before had delivered, courtesy of Emily Townsend. Slipping into her dirty Converse All Stars, she made her was down the stairs to the second floor landing where she checked the door, finding it locked. She jiggled the handle again, and a man's face appeared in the little window of the fire safety door. He only shook his head, then disappeared again.

Carol continued downward, arriving at the first floor to find the first real hints of a continuing community here in the Town's End. There were at least 30 people on the bar's main floor; men, women, and children were engaged in any number of activities, from eating to chatting to trading to just sleeping in chairs or on mats on the floor.

"Hungry?" a voice called from across the room.

Carol looked to find the girl from the day before waving her over to the bar's actual bar. She ventured across the room and sat on a stool before the teen. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name yesterday. I'm--"

"Carol Carter," the teen filled in. She offered her hand out over the bar with an enthusiastic grin. "Penny. Just Penny. Like one of those famous singers or supermodels."

"Nice to meet you, Penny," Carol said, shaking her hand.

As the girl poured her a mug of coffee, took her breakfast order -- "Sorry, out of milk as you can imagine" -- and send the order back to a line cook beyond a narrow doorway, Carol asked some basic questions about the Town's End, Emily Townsend, and the others living here.

"I don't really know how much I can tell you," Penny said hesitantly. She glanced about as if looking for eavesdroppers, then said with a quieter tone, "No offense, but, you're kinda new here, and … well, I'm not sure what you're supposed to know and what you're not supposed to know."

If nothing else came of the conversation, Carol would just enjoy her breakfast and the company of the girl, who it turned out had been the daughter of a Town's End employee and, thus, known to Emily Townsend prior to the apocalypse.

(OOC: HornyGirl, I'm sending you a sample list of the questions Carol would have loved to ask. You can feel free to incorporate them into your post if that's something of interest to you.)
 
Sunrise (aka a few hours before the post above):

Bradley left the meeting with Emily feeling anxious. After the loss of two of his Security Team members and three Collection Team members so recently, he was hesitant to send more people out so soon. But, they had jobs to do, and even though this wasn't the Army and he was no longer a Special Forces sergeant, he served Emily Townsend with the same respect and loyalty as he did any one of the officers he'd been assigned to while in the American uniform.

He got together a team of 8, 6 men and 2 women who had all been given the night off guard duty to get a needed night of sleep. They ran through the mission, checked and double checked their weapons, and tested the gear. One of the more senior men asked Bradley if perhaps he shouldn't stay behind.

"You haven't slept in God know how long, sir," the man reminded him. "I could lead the mission--"

"No, I'm leading this," Bradley told the man firmly. He looked to the others and barked, "Let's do this!"

They made their way to the west wall with stealth, used a door they'd created in one of the shipping containers to access the rail yard, then made their way toward an abandoned rail car repair facility. They covered the 3/4 mile distance without anyone -- or anything -- spotting them.

The building had been midway through demolishment when the apocalypse struck. The steel skeleton of the structure remained, as did the majority of the flooring of the second level. But other than that, most of the rest of the building had been recycled already. The team spent nearly an hour setting traps before climbing up to the second floor to wait.

They waited. And they waited. Bradley's right hand man -- a guy they called Corporal Klinger because the man with effeminate features had once snuck into a Berlin discothèque popular with violent, right wing radicals -- demanded that Bradley strap himself to a vertical beam and take a nap. "Catch some Z's, and I don't mean Zeeks. We got this."

Three hours later, Klinger gently touched the still sleeping Bradley, waking him. Bradley surveyed his surroundings and finding nothing of concern asked in whisper, "Status?"

"Two dozen or so Zeeks have passed through or near," the Corporal reported. "The ones who came through, they were in one big group, seven I think, so we just let them go through."

Then Klinger nodded hid head to his left. Bradley followed the gesture and found three Zeeks moving slowly into the building. He studied them, then looked for other zombies who might be attracted to the scuffle. Seeing none, he nodded and whispered, "We're go."

Hand signals alerted the others to the plan's imminent springing, and a long moment later as the pair passed under the special forces heroes, a dozen traps -- redundancy was a good thing for such missions -- were set off. In a flash, the three zombies were all trussed up, and as the Security Team members dropped to the main floor, the binding were only repeated to ensure the Zeeks didn't get loose and bite anyone.

"Let's get these home to the Doc," Bradley said with an anxious tone. "We get these back without incident, your first fifteen up on the 3rd floor is on me."
 
Carol was a bit torn about her conversations with Penny and then with Emily. She was hoping that the Town's End was going to be her new home, at least for the time being. She was obviously safer her from the zombies than out there in the dangerous wide open world. And yet, there was a lot she didn't know about this place and about the woman who ran it. And while she did speak a bit on the bar, the people, and the operations, Emily didn't -- and likely wouldn't if asked -- give up a lot of what Carol wanted to know.

As politely directed, Carol finished her breakfast -- the best meal she'd had in 17 days -- and followed the teen to the second floor. She and the Penny were arriving just in time to trade polite smiles with Emily, who was closing the gate on the open face freight elevator and ascending, presumably to her own living quarters.

Penny knocked on a door that still had a tattoo and piercing artist's name and logo on the translucent, glazed window. It opened, and another woman -- who would introduce herself as Florence -- invited the two of them inside, asking, "You must be Caroline. We heard you were coming."

"Carol … please," the new team member requested. Introductions were made between Carol and the 5 people currently present. She was given the names of the missing members, not that she thought she would remember. Eager to see why she was here, Carol asked politely, "So, what can I do to help you?"

A man named Peter took charge of the explanation. He'd been a community college professor, so he was no dummy; but -- like the others -- he'd had no experience in solar power systems, and all he could do was read the Owner's Manual and try to make things work.

"Bad regulator," Carol finally deduced after spending a couple of hours working with Peter, Florence, and another woman named Cami, or Camille. She explained what she meant, showing how current wasn't flowing as it should. When they asked what the fix was, she told them with a matter of fact tone, "We just have to use another regulator. Where is it?"

The pair just stared at her for a moment before Peter finally answered, "We don't have one."

"Is there another fix?" Florence asked.

Carol contemplated a moment, then answered bluntly, "No. You can't jerry-rig these things. I mean, you could, if you knew all the specs. But, the manual doesn't give us that. There's really only one solution. Well, two actually. First, give it up. But, I guess that's not an option. Second..."

She hesitated, not wanting to even think the thought, let alone speak it. But as the others stared at her with knowing expressions, Carol finally said what the others were thinking, "We have to go out and find another regulator."
 
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