The Stand: After the Fall of Flagg

[Xenobia]

Ruby lay on her stomach on top of her father’s appliance store and watched the sun rise. All round the town were endless fields of corn, which she knew wasn’t right, but since she was dreaming it didn’t matter. Down below the town was just starting to wake up. Mrs. Henderson was going into the bakery to turn on the ovens while her husband swept in front of the store and put out the café type tables and chairs because it looked like it was going to be a nice day. Sparrows twittered, flowers opened, and very thing was peaceful and good.

But not really. Out in the corn beyond a tower of smoke rose with the sound of thunder after rolling across the corn in a wave. The tower topped in a mushroom and hovered there before breaking up into thousands of crows which flew towards Lacey. Ruby wanted to scream a warning, but her throat froze as the red eyed wave crashed into the towns southern end. Screams of children awoken in their beds joined the vicious cawing. Although she couldn’t see it she knew people where being attacked and killed.

She jumped up and ran for the ladder that lead into the store and went to unlock the front doors. If she could save just one person…Maybe the Hendersons! But as she pulled the door open she saw it was too late. Everyone she knew lay on the road, their faces turned black, claw marks on their distended throats as they tried to breath a few last breaths of air. So many, so many.

From the corn came a rustleing, and as she looked up she saw glittering evil eyes hiding in the shadows of the corn.

“They’re waiting for nightfall, child.” Said an ancient voice behind her. Whriling around she saw the old black woman she’d seen in her dreams before, but refused to listen to. “Their ship has sunk, you might say, and like the rats they are they’re runnin’. They’re running right towards you.”

“This is my home!” Ruby wailed, scrubbing at the tears that ran down her cheeks.

“Honey child, I know, but if you stay…” She shook her head in a sad, sad way. “There are worse things than dyin‘, child. Go East first, over the mountains, and then head South. You’ll find the signs to take you to your new home. Just be very wary.” The old woman turned and walked into the corn, looking impossibly frail, but not really using her cane at all. Looking over her shoulder Ruby saw that the number of shapes in the shadows had more than doubled.

Ruby rolled out of bed and padded through her house to go to the back yard. Four graves lay where the garden had once been.
She knelt and smoothed the white quartz gravel she'd laid over her family.

"I'm sorry, so sorry." She said. "But I have to go. I wish...I wish I could have gone with you." She cried long and hard before going back into the farm house and packing a set of saddle bags and a backpack. She wired the basket from her brothers bicycle to her dirt bike and put two gas cans into it along with some bolt cutters for any fences she might come across.

Going to the gun safe she apologized to her father in her heart as she took a .22 rifle and his 9mm Glock. One for food, one for protection.

It was getting late by the time she had everything together and had charted out a map that avoided all the big towns. She sat on the front porch eating Ravioli out of the can and watching the most amazing sunset ever while the band she'd been helping get on it's feet played "Curbriding".

It was her 18th birthday.

 

[Vixandra]

Veronica "Ice" Intaris

As she stalked through the halls of her nearly subterranian compound, Veronica Intaris', aka Ice's, footsteps were silent on the chill concrete. She pulled the gun from her hip, glaring angrilly at her target.
The paintball took her mark in the chest, violet paint exploding over them. A second paintball hit the other sentry, knocking the breath from the smaller woman.
"How dare you be lapse in your protection of this facility," Ice growled, storming into the guard shack. "The enemy will come from every angle, not just the ones you see straight in front of you."
The two painted guards shivered in fear, knowing that if Ice was in a bad mood it could mean thier disfigurement over failing her. Thier fears were, this eve at least, unfounded.
"You'll both meet with me at tommorow mornings training sessions. I will pound this lesson into you on the training mats."
"Yes, m'lady!" the two echoed together, grateful from the reprieve.
Ice nodded and stalked back down the hall, easily batting away a knife thrown by one of the guards. She sent the blade back at him, lopping off an overly long lock of hair in the process though she didn't look back.
Whistleing a show tune, Ice continued on her morning inspection. She was careful in her training and maintinence of her troops, given to her before Flagg's supposed death. She sighed, wishing she could have spared the world the loss of such a great, terrible leader.
Flagg had sent Ice from Vegas shortly after Thanksgiving, as if he knew what would happen and wanted to spare her. Or he'd just wanted a secure California operative as he'd said. Ice shook her head, wishing she knew which it was yet not sure she wanted to know.

Still, Ice had a job to do and she was going to do it. There were still people who followed that "Freemantle" bitch here in the Inland Valley of southern CA and she was determined to either sway them to the side of The Walking Man or kill them. In all honesty, it didn't make much difference to Ice, long as she didn't loose any of her people in the process. She cared for her people and for her messiah and would die for either of them happily.

 

[poohlive]

It had taken him four hours to get to the coast. It wasn't a four hour drive, not exactly. He did drive for four hours to get here, but from where he lived, it was only an hour drive on the highway to get to the coast. The problem came because it was a highway.
So many highways were cluttered with dead cars and dead people.

Although, the dead people were disappearing. Whatever sickness had taken over the entire earth's population, hadn't touched many animals. Only dogs, and cats... Gavin hadn't seen many of those. Bears, deer, and even a mountail lion or two he had seen. They were so beautiful.

He was going the wrong way.

It took him four hours to go the wrong way.

But... that was how he wanted to do it. Sitting here, in the cold sand, the cold wet Oregon sand. It was gray. Sand wasn't supposed to be gray, ash gray. It was either that healthy yellowish color, or black sometimes... on those volcano islands.

But, Oregon sand was gray, stupid dull gray. It sickened him to look at it, and he chose not too. Instead, he just washed the sea reach the shore, crashing over and over again, as if accomplishing something.

A hundred years from now... even if the whole earth were wiped out, even the little mountain lions and bears, if everything were gone, there'd still be an ocean, there'd still be a shore, and there would still be these waves crashing endlessly.

How romantic. How stupidly romantic.

What to do now? Where to go?

Was there really a choice? Yes... yes there was. Two choices in fact, a good one, and a not soo good one. The choice of life, or the choice of freedom. Neither really kept that promise. Freedom meant you would have to fight for it. And life meant you had to live under the rule of someone else.

And in the end, what kind of life was that? A step above slavery...

Gavin looked back down at the sand, and puked.

"Do the right thing," he said, as waves of pain and pressure rushed to his head. He stared down at yellow and pink vomit, tendrils of saliva hanging down from his mouth. In a way, it felt better, after puking he did feel a little better.

"The right thing."

He sighed, wiping away his mouth, and getting up.

He had anouth four hour drive ahead of him.

 

[Xenobia]

Ruby

Ruby woke up early the next morning. It felt good and bad that she was packed up and ready to go. She was making choices, chooseing a direction instead of standing in limbo like she had these last few months.

Still, as she walked through the house making sure she hadn't forgotten anything, her heart broke. Here were the benchmarks of her and her brothers growth, carved into the door frame. Here was where she'd had her first kiss. This was the chair her father fell asleep every night, and the rest of them were so used to his soft snores they didn't notice them anymore. This is the stool her mother often sat, chatting on the phone and doing crossword puzzles.

Around her neck she wore her parents wedding rings, Peters and Doug's school rings, and David's clunky silver ring he'd won at the carnival. They'd always be with her, in her heart, to guide her.

She stood in the doorway of the house she'd been born in. "Time to go." She whispered. She put on her helmet and got on her bike. Taking back trails she could be across four counties by dusk and looking at the bridge that led to the pass. Then she'd see what was what. If no one was there she'd ditch the bike after the pass. It was too noisy to take on main roads or near towns if there were unfriendlys around.

"One person out of a hundred live, and watch the worst motherfucker be in my way." she muttered as she started the bike and headed towards Edwards Feild.

 

[Vixandra]

Ice

She awoke early the next morning and went through her routine- training (soundly whooping on the two guards she'd caught slacking the night before) followed by breakfast.
Then she took reports from her local officers followed by teleconferance reports from feild operatives and those at other bases.
The only notable thing in the rash of reports was that there were still more people pouring into Colorodo and that a package was on its way to Ice from the Vegas ruins.

She was deeply puzzled over this, the sending of something marked for her. It could bode ill or well for her and her people and more importantly, the Cause... she would just have to wait the two days for it to get to her.

 

[poohlive]

The cliffs of the world. He stood above them all, like a man. A real man, a man who had taken on the obstacles before him and defeated them. He had crushed everything, and everyone he could ever conquer.

The only thing left was himself. The only life left was his own.

He had traveled well into Oregon now. Passed the coast, passed the mountains, and into lush green valley that blanketed a good portion of the state. He stood on the highway that ran north and south. I-5.

North and south.

He didn't want to go North. North was Washington, Canada... and icy cold death. THere was nothing north.

South had California and Mexico. Lay in front of the sun and fry your ass off. What about that? Ha, no, he didn't think so. He didn't want that either. This wasn't a vacation. As much as things had changed, this wasn't a vacation.

What was it? Where did his obligation lie?

"Do the right thing," he repeated again, as if he had to remind himself. Yes, the right thing. More or less. For him, or someone else.

He'd have to find others. That was a first.

So, Gavin went South for awhile, wondering how to find the others...

 

[Xenobia]

Ruby

At dusk Ruby pulled her bike into a stand of trees and set up her pup tent. A small coal fire with a heat reflector cooked a can of stew.

In the morning, instead of taking the bike, she slung the .22 over her shoulder and hiked down a nearly dry river bed til she got parraell with the ridge that held Snohomish Pass Bridge. Crawling up the bank she lay down and used the sight on the rifle to check the area.

Someone had moved the junkers to either end of the bridge to block it off in both directions. Biteing her lip she looked for signs of life.

There. The Winnabago on the Northern side of the roadblock, on the outside. A fire pit and some chairs. Sure as shit nobody did that during the last days. As if responding her mental question, the door of the Winney opened and a big bald man came out, shirtless, and scratched himself. He had a gun strapped to his hip and a habit of pissing in the firepit. A light came on in the camper. So at least two of them.

Useing the scope she figured they came in the jeep that was parked just beyond the Winney. It looked cared for while the other cars on the bridge looked abandoned.

So....what to do, what to do. She slide down the bank and headed for her campsite, plans tumbling in her mind and being rejected.

 

[Violent C]

Strider

He sat with his back against the wind. He could see the last few trickles of sunlight just past the horizon as they were pulled back to make space for the opressive night sky. He had drug his fatboy Harley to the side of the endless desert highway to make camp for the night. After digging a pit and starting a sickly fire with some dry bushes and his trusty Zippo, he lit a cigarette and hunkered down so the scathing winds would have less to hit. He listened to some classic Zepplin while he mulled over options.

The last few months had been hard, no doubt, but no harder than his life had been since leaving home. There were advantages to trusting no-one and relying only on himself; when the world went to hell and everyone else was either breaking down or shoving their collective heads up thier asses it was business as usual for him. A little more time on the sticks and a lot less time on the highway (he'd learned THAT little lesson after he was forced to ditch his newly "aquired" GMC pickup on north '59 through Texas), that was about it. When he ran out of gas he either looted a service station or hoofed it for a while. All he owned was on his back; backpack full of clothes and food, a little fold-away tent, and his walkman.

The drifting life was getting old, though. He missed having a place to call home, a need he didn't realize he had until all homes were destroyed. He missed people, he missed arguments, he missed having a need be someone else's problem, and he missed a warm body next to him in bed. He had hooked up with a few highwaymen a while back, but once they started raping women in the back of their flatbed he left. Took a couple motherfuckers out with him, too.

So he needed a new scene. he figured he'd keep heading north until he found someone he could stomache, then take it from there.

He took out his map and puzzled over it a while. He figured he was just north of New Mexico. He crawled back to his tent and layed down. North a few more days, then he'd check the map again.

He rolled over and went to sleep, hoping his dreams would be of a two-story suburban home with a white picket fence and a pretty girl to hold his arm.

 

[poohlive]

It was the kind of store any american superhero would go to, caught in a post apocalyptic world such as this one. A story that oozed testosterone out of every corner, one that had camera's just for show, the real protection was under the counter, fully loaded, and about as illegal as most of the shit they sold in the back.

And in these kinds of places, there was always a back, a back where the best deals were made. The good shit, the Grade A surpeme, guaranteed to tear the heads of any aliens, zombies, or anything else that happened to get in your way.

This was the store that exhumed, "Kill them all, let God sort them out."

But Gavin wasn't here for a pistol, or a shotgun, or an automatic, or anything behind the counter or any of the pure shit in the back, he was looking for something simpler. Something more helpful.

A cb radio. One with tons of channels, and a super huge antenna that guaranteed him he could chat with anyone in the western part of the united states. He had heard at night, with really good reception, people could chat over ocean's with this good stuff.

As he took it out to his car, setting it up, he realized he was stealing hundreds of dollars worth of equipment out of a store where they would probably castrate you for taking a pencil sharpner.

Ahhh, but that was the old days. The days of before. The before world. The world of yesterplague. Now things had changed, shifted, and evryone was dead, which left all their stuff unaccountable.

Which meant it had become his stuff.

He shrugged at this, as if a shrug were an answer, and then began to look at the miles and miles of instructions.

Now, if anything deserved a shrug, it would be instructions.

 

[lucifer106]

Feu de Feur

Drake lay in the scrub some hundred yards from the bridge, his once pristine uniform oilstained and torn. On arriving in the states eighteen months ago on an exchange tour he had witnessed the destruction of a civilisation in glorious technicolour, fought side by side with men who had lost their minds well before they lost there lives. Untill finally alone he realised that death wasn't the worst thing that happened to a man it was the loss of hope.

perhapse it was hope that had kept him going or even the training he had recieved in the Brittish forces, maybe he was just to dumb to accept that he had lost. Either way he hadn't finished and until someone or something stopped his heart beaing he would continue to fight.

Crawling forward and using the scope on his L92 rifle he trailed the guard on his visit to the fire and back . Did the guy have a prostate problem? that was the third time he had used the fire as a latrine... might be why his face was permanently screwed into a scowl .

He had already worked out that there were three men guarding the bridge one by the fire a second insidethe mobile home and the third hidden on the slope up to his left.

Wait a minite the third man had moved! The one with the blood red birthmark on the side of his face and the camoflage jacket was now ghosting his way down the side of the hill keeping the dry stone wall between him and the ridgeline.

Scanning the area for the reason for "Redfaces" change of plans, he quickly saw the tell tale shine from a set of uncovered binoculars from between two boulders and behind the binoculars the shapely form of a young woman lying there watching the bridge. She was oblivious to the man working his way stealthily towords her position but "Redfaces" mistake was thinking he was the only predator in the area.
Placing the rifle carefully down he crawled backwards into the dead ground behind him then silently moved to intercept , drawing his K-bar issue knife and the browning 9mm he had braught from England with him.

The rifle would have slowed him down and if possible he wanted to take this man down without alerting the other two guys on the bridge. using the ridgeline to shield his movement he only hoped he could reach the girl in time.

 

[Belle_in_south]

Dale

The motor of the big ATV thrummed against her legs as she bounced down the road. Ice's troops had done a good job clearing the road between Vegas and the California state line. The mass of cars filled with corpses that had blocked all roads following Captain Trix's cross country rampage had been pushed to the shoulder. They had also likely been inventoried, as well.

Anger flowed through Dale Runyon at the thought of the militaries secret weapon, the Super Flu. The disease had raced out Fort Campbell's massive gates and spread through Clarksville, Tennessee, wiping out the large city with the small town feel. Students had wilted in the dormitories on Austin Peay University's scenic campus. Her boy, seven year old Ashton, had wasted to nothing in her arms.

Anger had kept her out of Boulder, even though she had longed to go there. The dreams involving Flagg had made her sick to her stomach, but she hated Abigail Freemantle's talk of God. God wouldn't have allowed Major Bradford Mindol's condem to break. God wouldn't have looked away as her parents had announced that they would have nothing to do with her or her illegitimate child. God wouldn't have take Ash, the only thing in her life that had any worth.

She thought of the package tucked securely beneath the seat of the ATV. She was to hand the package to no one other than Ice herself. Dale was familiar with Ice. She'd seen the beautiful woman from a distance and on the cameras in the security rooms. She also heard the stories about Flagg's woman general. She knew Ice was watching her now. She had her minions posted all along the route to the compound. No one would penetrate Ice's station without Ice first knowing. Dale had no doubt.

Curiosity brewed in Dale. She wondered what she carried that was so important. The box had been heavy in her hands as she secured it in the compartment below the seat. She wanted to stop, open the box, and see what Flagg had wanted to save from the firestorm in Vegas. She felt a tingle on the back of her neck that told her she had passed another of Ice's watch points and thought better of investigating the box.

She'd veered off the main road without being aware of her actions. She'd memorized the map and all the passwords she needed before she had left Sin City. As she bounced toward Ice's compound, she thought that she might never return to Sin City. Her anger had not found peace there. It would not find peace in Boulder. Perhaps she would soar down the coast after she delivered this package. She'd never seen LA. Maybe she would break into Disneyland and take up residence in Sleeping Beauty's castle. It's a small world afterall.

She neared the fence marking the boundaries of the compound and down shifted. She stopped at the gate, removed her glasses, and looked into the security camera she knew was there. "Tower," she said into the air, knowing the guard who controlled the gate would hear her and notify Ice of her presence.

 

[KayserSoze]

Gordon Kosh

His stomach growled for the second time today, once for each skipped meal. The last rationed can of beans had been exauted two days ago. Hunger was now more less an inconvenience, as he was used to be in his workaholic life, and was more of a life threatening feeling.

If only he hadn't been blessed with the surviving instincts of a duckling in outer space.

He had been roaming aimlessly for weeks now, going from abandoned town to the next. His jipe was turned from his working transportation into his bush knife, cutting through miles and miles of road.

Noone. Not a living soul. "What is the point of any of this, after all we were supposed to ..." -- His thoughts we interrupted from a far roar of an engine. He rushed to his binoculars. A few miles away, in the main road, there was a very hard to miss ATV.

Between his stomach and his brain there was only one possible plan:
He jumped into the jipe and keyed the ignition. "Blasted." His beat down jipe was now more of a roling junkyard and was as habit refusing to start. "Just for once you useless piece of..." The vehicule submited to Gordon's abbuse. He floored it, speeding ater the ATV.

For 20 miles he chased the far away survivor who didn't seem to be aware of nothing else but himself. Then the straigt road ended. He lost it. He desperatly roamed the area for a few hours and then in a stroke of sheer luck he spotted the ATV parked near what seemed to be a security fence.

He rushed to it hoping to meet the occupant but it was empty. His head hang for a moment. He regained enough strength to look arround and was turning when -- a cold mettalic barrel was pressed into his back. "Hold it. Put your hands where I can see'em. NOW!" The voice from behind him said.

Almost three decades of scholar education analized the current situation, estimated his action variables and expressed them verbally: "Crap!"

 

[Belle_in_south]

Dale

"Tower," Dale Runyon spoke the word into the hidden camera but nothing happened. She sat astride the ATV for a long moment, staring into the distance. She knew that once she passed the fence, there was still quite a distance to Ice's subterrean compound. She also knew that Ice was expecting her. The package beneath the seat seemed to thrum, though she knew that thought was ridiculous. There was no way the package she was toting from Vegas had no life of its own.

Dale threw her leg over the seat of the ATV and stepped onto the hard ground. Dust billowed around her tennis shoes. She walked over to the gate and examined it. All the security locks were in place. She looked at the keypad beside the gate and punched in a series of numbers. Nothing happened. She tried again to the same result. Dale knew enough about military security to see the truth. Despite the codes that she knew, she could not override the system from the outside.

She returned to the ATV and unlocked the seat, removing the cover to reveal the shallow strorage bin inside. She pulled out her backpack but paused before replacing the seat. She stared at the box. It was wrapped in plain brown paper. It had no markings on it at all. She reached down and ran her fingers over the box, but quickly pulled back as if burned.

She perched on the edge of the seat and rumaged through her sack searching for something to eat while she waited for Ice to get the system back under control. Her fingers encounter something soft and blue and she pulled out the small square of Ashton's baby blanket.

Her mind drifted back to wrapping the infant in the blanket and holding him against her breast for the first time. She pressed the small piece of material to her nose and inhaled deeply. She knew that Ashton's smell no longer lingered on the fabric, but her mind easily conjured the scent of powder and sweet little boy.

The sound of a loud motor jerked Dale back to the present. She squinted in the bright light, looking toward the ridge that hid the compound from the main road. She cocked her head, trying to decide what type of vehicle the motor belonged to. Judging by the sound and the rattle of the engine, she knew it was an older vehicle. It sounded like it was on its last legs. It wasn't one of Ice's vehicles. Ice would never allow her troops to be in a transport that wasn't reliable and that would give away their position miles away. Dale shouldered her backpack and headed into the nearby brush, working her way to the top of the ridge.

She reached the ridge and laid on her stomach, staring into the wasteland that was once California. She wondered briefly if the state's would keep their names or take new forms as the world re-built society. She saw a cloud of dust coming toward her and focused on it. It was a standard Jeep Wrangler that had definetly had better days. It had once been black. The top was open on the beautiful afternoon as the driver enjoyed the afternoon sunshine.

She kicked herself mentally, wondering how long the man had been following her. Ice would have them both executed for leading a stranger into her lair. He was driving erratically and it might be awhile before he stumbled upon the path that led to the compound. She would have to deal with him before Ice saw him. That was the only way to save her neck.

Staying close to the ground, she moved into a better position and pulled her gun from the docker's clutch around her shoulders. The rumble of the jeep grew louder and she tensed with anticipation. She'd never killed anyone and was uncertain she would have to ability to do it when the time came, but self-preservation was the motto of the world now.

The jeep bounced over the ridge and came to a sudden stop. The driver looked as old and dusty as his mode of transportation. He removed his cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead, staring at the fence and her ATV parked at the gate. She saw a distinct look of disappointment cross his face when he did not see her.

He rolled the jeep forward and stopped close to the ATV. He got out of the vehicle and walked around her ride. She was glad she had thought to rescure the seat before hiding. She moved stealthly through the brush, carefully avoiding any dry branches that would alert him to her presence. He put his hands and his hips and bowed his head. She couldn't see his expression from where she was positioned, but that was to her advantage.

She rushed forward and pressed the revolver to the center of his back. In her most menacing voice, she said, "Hold it! Get your hands where I can see 'em, NOW!" Even to her own ears, her southern accent did not carry much threat.

The man slowly raised his hands. She heard him swallow audibly. She cocked the revolver, the click echoing across the open land. "Crap," her prisoner said.

She was taken aback a moment. A hardened criminal didn't say crap. She took a step back but did not relax her guard. "Turn around slowly so I can get a good look at you before I shoot you." She thought that sounded a little more convincing.

He turned slowly, his hands still over his head. They trembled. A strong wind would knock the skinny man over and she wondered how long it had been since he had eaten a real meal. She kept her face expressionless, hoping that her look would convey a fiercer message than her voice.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she shushed him by raising the revolver a notch. "In this order. Who are you? Where did you come from? How long have you been following me? What do you want?"

He seemed to struggle to form words so she took a menacing step forward. "Now!" she yelled.

 

[KayserSoze]

Gordon Kosh

Gordon's mind went into overdrive after the owner of the fire weapon ordered him to turn around:
'By Sir Newton's apple, three months without a living person and the first one I see has me at gun point. Blasted luck.'

He turned about to oblige his captor, he saw a woman, not young but still younger than him. He looked into her eyes and for a moment he calmed down.

However, the look of the revolver gun terrified him. They were one of the resaons he tried to stay alone during these apocaliptic times. Guns seemed to be in everybodies hands over this last year and their bullets allways had a tendency to be lodged in other bodies. Gordon shook, shivering from his toes, along his spine, to his hands.

He tried to speak out that he meaned no harm but the woman signaled very clearly with her gun she wanted silence. His eyes were fixed on the revolvers barrel.

"In this order. Who are you? Where did you come from? How long have you been following me? What do you want?" She said.

He tried to explain everything at once: 'Hungry ... food... was there ... seen that ... no harm.' But all that came out was an incomprehensible babble.

The woman was not pleased with his attempts she stepped forward and shoulted "Now!"

Gordon's eyes were drawned from the dark hipnotic barrel to the womans gentle features. He calmed for a needed second. He drew a breath and tried to put his conference room oratory skills to good use:

"Kosh. To be more precise, Dr. Gordon Kosh, archeology." He bowed in the most subtle amount. "I have not really had a place in these last troubled times but one could say I was from Salt Lake for all the years I worked there. I'm terribly sorry to have followed you, miss..."

A stern look was given as a reply. He continued:

"... you see, all these villages have been pillaged to their bare bones and I seem to have run out of nurishment, if one can call canned beans nurishment that is. Oh, how I long for the fine cousine of the Tibletake's chef, but alas..." Another motion of the gun told him better not to linger in small conversation.

"... alas, I saw your vehicle a few towns back and tried to catch you in that run-of-the-mill lump of metal you see there. Too far for it's weak horn unfortunatly or I might have caught your eye earlier."

He thought a more pleading face would be adequate to his closing arguments not realizing his torn clothes and skin and bone figure did quite the job.
"I am sorry to have believed you might have more of a -- samaritan spirit?"

 

[ulikeit22]

OOC: Sorry, I was to Gordan Sawer. My wife is in the hospital and they will do a biopsy today on her lung in the same place my Dad
died from lung cancer 4 yrs ago. So today Gordan must go, so sorry, I love the thread idea. Oh, by the way. Say prayers if you got them. Thanks!

 

[Belle_in_south]

Dale Runyon

Samaritan spirit? Dale wanted to laugh at the thought of any samaritans being left in this world. As the super flu had decreased the world's population, people became more and more concerned about number one. Survival became the most important element to any life. She wondered briefly how this academic man had managed to avoid the marauding gangs of thugs.

She edged toward Gordan Kosh with his clipped and cultured accent and threadbare clothing. He backed away as she moved forward until his back was pressed against Ice's fence. She pressed the cold muzzle of the gun to his chin as she patted down his body to make certain he had no hidden weapons. She discovered a dull craftsman's tool and tossed it into the brush. She spun him so that his back was to her and patted again. She could feel his bones pressing against his skin. He smelled of dust and sweat and she wondered how long it had been since he had access to enough clean water to bathe.

She pulled his wallet from his pocket and flipped through the contents. He had a few dollars and a few credit cards that would now be worthless. His driver's lisence confirmed his identity. She dropped the cracked leather bilfold on the ground, tucked her gun into the holster, and took his wrist in her hand, twisting it backwards until he yelped with pain.

"I was a single woman in a military town. Do you believe me when I say I could break you in half?" He nodded quickly and she released him. "Stay put," she ordered.

She left him beside the fence and she walked over to his jeep. She began rummaging through it's contents, inspecting every item she could touch. She pilfered through the golve compartment and dug through the few belongings in his duffle bag. "An archeologist, huh? What were you digging for that was so important in the desert around Salt Lake that you missed the end of the world?"

 

[KayserSoze]

Gordon Kosh

The scholar rubbed his arm back to normal. All he was looking for was some food. All he found was a gun threat to his life.

He saw the woman move away to his jeep. He turned to look inside the fence he had been shoved against.
Strong build, security cameras, keylock and inside if i'm not mistaken an entrance to an underground facillity. He had spent enough years digging into the ground and studying geology to spot it altough a great degree of camouflage had been aplied.

'She has nice clean clothes, probably rare thing these days, a brand new ATV and her own personal bunker,' he thought. 'Probably an atomic bomb shelter freak' He laughed. 'Who would have known she was right.'

His situation was not good, she probably was not going to kill him or she would already had but I have nothing to give her. Two options, stay here and wait for her to do whatever her gun says or make a run for the ATV and hope she left her keys there... and maybe some food.

He started moving discreetly towards the ATV turning his eye to the woman rumaging his jeep. Then at middle way he turned single minded towards the military vehicle.

He reached the window and looked inside: no keys, only a box beneath the seat. A box!? Food!
He flinged the door open and jumped at the box trying furiously to tear it open on his lap sitting on the ground besides the ATV.

The heavy container broke open as a shadow approached.