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Dead Men Walking
Topic Started: Nov 28 2014, 02:20 AM (71,081 Views)
DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
This far north of Manhattan, the smell of death had abated somewhat. Elian Alvarez – or “Eli”, as he was more commonly known – was grateful for that.

A sign on the road further back had identified his current location as the outskirts of ‘Mount Kisco.’ Eli had never been here before. Never had reason to come until the world had ended and forced his hand. At the moment, at least, it seemed peaceful enough. It was quiet, and even a little beautiful at this time of year. Trees lined both sides of the street, and autumn had turned their leaves’ pleasant shades of red, brown and orange.

Eli tried to focus on that, tried to find a silver lining – any silver lining – in the dark, brutal cloud that had been the past month of his life. It was difficult to do.

He tightened his grip on the straps to his backpack as his thoughts drifted to the events of New York. The sweaty, cramped bodies huddled together in the quarantine zone. The uniformed guards in the gas masks that kept watch over them, acting harshly, doing more harm than good. The panic and the confusion, and the haunting visions of the dead that weren’t dead. The white-hot fire that rained down on the city, that Eli watched from afar, not a day after he escaped.

Eli couldn’t not remember. He expected to have nightmares for the rest of his life.

However long that will be, he thought to himself cynically.

As he moved, he ran a hand idly through his dark matte hair. It was relatively short, but longer than he’d let it grow in decades. His hairline was receded, and he thought looked better bald. He also thought he looked more intimidating – which was not to be discounted in his line of work. If it made the guy behind the counter just a little more likely to hand over the cash from the register, it was worth it.

Above him, the sun had started its descent. The fading light and the shadows it cast added to what beauty there was in the scenery, but it was also worrisome. Eli was less likely to see the dead coming at night. And even if he did see them, he might not see the branch at his feet as he was running, or the pothole, and an untimely trip and fall could be deadly. All it would take was one mistake to get bit. Then it would be over. He had seen that first-hand back in the city, and it was the opposite of pretty.

Eli made it a bit further down the road into the city, and there was an opening in the line of trees. He saw for the first time a plume of faint smoke rising up in the distance. It was too thick to be a campfire. He considered heading towards it, but only momentarily. He was curious, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Even if it was a lead on supplies, he wasn’t desperate enough that he had to follow up. When he fled the quarantine zone in New York, he stole enough to keep him fed for a while yet.

He kept walking down the middle of the empty street. He made it a game to keep his feet on either side of the yellow dividing line, right up until he arrived in the village proper, and got his first glimpse of the colonial architecture and empty streets. Mount Kisco was free of bodies, surprisingly – both the still kind and the walking kind. No sign of the dead or the victims of the dead. Either they had left before the shit hit the fan, or they had died out of sight.

Eli thought back to the first week after the plague hit. He was in New York, settling some debts, preparing to leave the country for good. Then things went bad, and he was rounded up and shuffled into mandatory detention – “for his own safety,” the soldiers had said. But he had met others there, people who had been out of town, and told to come. While the government still existed, they had attempted to protect the survivors by gathering them in one place. It didn’t work out so well.

He had been walking all day now, and his pack – filled with bottled water and canned goods, and some other tools he ventured might be useful – weighed heavy on his shoulders. He needed a rest. He wasn’t in any hurry, so he picked out the first empty shop he could find.

He entered, and looked around. It was a small wine bar, elegantly designed and fitted out. At the back was a shelf, almost fully stocked with a wide selection. Eli wasn’t a wine drinker, but he was thirsty, and his eyes gravitated to the shelf with the most expensive stuff.

Why not? he figured. He took a moment to drag a chair by one of the legs over to the door, and wedge it underneath. Just in case he was wrong about there being rotters nearby, he didn’t want one stumbling in one accidentally.

A minute later and he was in settled in. He put his pack down atop the table in one of the booths, and poured himself a glass from a bottle with a red label and a French name. He sat on the floor, out of sight from the windows, and took a sip. He considered the taste for a moment.

“Nope, don’t get it,” he said. He put the glass down.

He wondered why he said that out loud, when he was the only one there. Less than a week on the road alone, and I go loco, he thought. I musta been on the verge already.

His thinking was interrupted by a sound from the backroom – someone or something was moving around back there. Eli cursed himself for not clearing the whole place already. That was a habit he’d need to pick up sooner rather than later.

His hand reached behind his pants, and he gripped the handle of his revolver. A Smith & Wesson Model 10, it belonged to him even before the madness started. He had actually stashed it when he got to New York, before being quarantined. He had retrieved it on his way out of the city, and was now glad he did.

He rose to his feet and drew the gun. All six rounds had been fully loaded since he left the city, but he hadn’t had to use one yet. So far, his feet had always been the better option. Better to book it than waste a bullet.

But then the door to the backroom opened, and Eli’s eyes widened. He didn’t think a rotter had the dexterity to use a doorknob. Had he been wrong, or had he been --

Very wrong, he realized, as the door swung open, revealing the haggard-looking man on the other side. Like Eli, the man's beard hadn’t been trimmed for weeks, and his red eyes looked desperate for sleep. More concerning, though, was the gun in his hand, a sleek looking metallic pistol, of a model Eli didn’t recognize.

“PUT IT DOWN!” the man screamed his order immediately, referring obviously to Eli’s revolver. He clearly wasn’t interested in having a conversation, and that worried Eli tremendously.

“Wait!” Eli responded, holding his own gun steady. He was afraid that as soon as he did what he was told, the strange man would –

-- BANG! Eli’s ears started ringing before he even realized the man had pulled the trigger. He couldn’t have been much more than ten feet away, but somehow he had missed. On purpose, maybe?

Eli looked at him -- his eyes were wide and his jaw was open. Somehow, he didn’t think he missed on purpose. For a moment, he looked as confused as Eli did. In the moment after, his arm tightened and he narrowed his brow.

Eli reacted from pure instinct. He ducked and charged forward.

BANG! Eli could swear he felt the bullet whizz by where his head was just half-a-second earlier. He kept charging, and his shoulders quickly collided with the haggard man’s thin frame. He drove the man’s back into the wall by the door. There was a thud, and Eli could hear the metal of the man’s gun hit the hardwood and slide away.

The man reacted by bringing his elbow down onto Eli’s neck. Hard. Eli barely knew what was happening as he buckled, falling forward. There was another burst of pain a moment later, when the man raised his knee into Eli’s stomach, winding him.

Eli fell onto his back, gasping for air. In his periphery vision, he could see the man running for his dropped weapon. Eli barely had the wherewithal to raise his own revolver, and mutter a command.

“Don’t!” he tried to warn him.

The man didn’t listen. Eli could see him bending over, grabbing his own gun again.

No more time to think about it. BANG! Eli fired, and the round buried itself in the man’s skull. His whole body went limp almost instantly.

Eli didn’t get up at first. He just laid there for a while, catching his breath, cringing. He didn’t waste any time in replaying the situation in his mind, and wondering why it escalated so quickly. Was this asshole just crazy? Was he racist? Was that how he always reacted to people with slightly darker skin? Or was that how he could count on everyone acting, now that the world had gone to shit?

Eli cringed harder, and then forced himself onto his feet. He frowned at the now dead body lying in front of him, and the brain matter spilling from the hole in his head. Eli felt a guilty knot in his stomach.

For now, Eli ignored the knot – and the dead body – and headed to the back room, from where the man appeared. There were some canned goods on a desk, but they didn’t draw his eye. His view was more attracted to a small black canister, which appeared to be sealed tight. Written on it – DO NOT OPEN. Next to it – a compact notebook, with an oval tree logo in the top right corner.

He picked up the notebook, and flipped through the pages. It seemed to be a journal. The beginning was terse, only one sentence an entry. Arrived in Denmark. Received package. Returning package. Lost radio contact.

Eli gulped. The next entries were slightly longer, but only slightly. They talked about a plane crash, and a confrontation. The recap was vaguely worded, and Eli had to read it twice. Some men had been drawn to the site of the crash, it seemed like, probably looking for supplies. A fight broke out. This man – the pilot, Eli now knew – was the only survivor.

He put the journal down, and turned to the last item the man had left lying on the table. Eli could tell it was a map of the United States, but it was folded in half. He unfolded it, and found a thick black circle in Illinois, near Chicago.

DELIVER CURE TO ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB. The man had scrawled that in permanent marker.

“Fuck,” Eli said out loud.

* * *

Morning hit, and a blurry-eyed Eli stumbled shakily out the door. After the events of the last night, he was more drained than ever. Ignoring even the package that was weighing down his pack in more ways than one, the math he was doing in his head was pretty complicated. Sure, he had gained a new gun and some supplies, but he had also taken a life – and a real life, too. Not the life of a rotter – if life is even what you could call their state of being – but the life of a person. He’d done a lot of shit during his ill-fated career in crime, but that’s not a line he’d had to cross. Not until now.

Those thoughts and more swirled through his head, and he almost didn’t notice the low, guttural moaning from around the corner. He did, though, eventually. He brought his short walk to a sudden stop, and gawked.

As he faced down three rotters, he realized then that the village wasn’t as empty as he thought it was yesterday. They had emerged from the next street, and were stumbling drunkenly and stupidly towards him. Their eyes were sunken and unblinking, and flooded with white. Their flesh was drawn tight over skull and bone, and their lips were torn away, leaving just a tangle of rotted teeth and blackened gums.

They were men, all three of them – or they used to be. All medium-built, all wearing matching uniforms coated in the black mucus the rotters drooled. They must have been colleagues, before they'd been bit. Now they were something else.

Eli prepared to run.
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Azithromycan. Erethromycan. Levofloxacin. Cefadroxil. Cefprozil. Doxycycline. Vancomycin. Amoxicillin.

All of these names were completely foreign to Randall Phillips. He scanned the back of every remaining bottle of pills and saw these and countless other barely pronounceable words and names.

"Fuck..." The stout 42 year old man, with a thinning head of hair, sighed.

He had no idea what the difference between these were, or if there even was a difference. He wished Dr. Tu had just come out here with him; Tu was a medical doctor and Randall was just a general contractor. However, with so many sick back at the lodge, there was no way Dr. Tu could afford to leave. Not only was he the only doctor they had, but he was not physically prepared for the world outside. Even a simple supply run could be dangerous. Instead, it was up to Randall to find the antibiotics that the doctor needed. He just wished he had known ahead of time that there was so much variety in antibiotics. Still, the more variety, the better, if not right now then for the future. Randall simply tossed all the bottles of pills he could find into his bag.

"Hey! Randall!"

A voice he recognized as Aaron's called out from the store. Randall zipped up his backpack full of medicine and slung it over his shoulder. "What's up?"

"Come on out here! Look what I found!"

Randall sighed. Aaron was not the brightest bulb in the box, but he had been on the varsity football team at the local high school. Aaron's skills were more in the realm of 'smashing' than 'thinking'. In compliance Randall slipped through the prescription room, dodging the trays and tools that had been flung throughout. He passed by the fragments of glass that marked the front desk and through the employee entrance, entering the store proper. There he saw a bulky young man of 17, with bright blue eyes and short blonde hair, holding in his hands a few cans of shaving cream and disposable razors.

"I guess nobody wanted them." He said simply.

Randall couldn't hide a small smirk. "Good thinking, Aaron. Pack them away."

Randall himself was wearing at least a month's worth of facial hair. For that matter, so was Aaron, and everyone else he knew. They may have just come here for some antibiotics, but any commodity they could find was worth it. People needed those simply luxuries more than ever.

The drug stores had been hit by the initial panicked rush almost as hard as the grocery stores and gun stores had been. The disheveled shelves and rotting bodies on the ground served as a silent testament to the chaos that had unfolded here one very long month ago. Even though he had not been at this store, the story was the same everywhere. A frantic rush for food and supplies that turned man against man in a violent maelstrom of human bodies and bullets. Even many of the cops joined in. It had truly been anarchy. The very thought of the first day still sent a cold chill down his spine. A chill that he felt every time he came into town.

At the front of the store, he met up with the last two members of his supply run team. Glenda, a quiet, middle aged woman who had been a chef before the apocalypse - and was so good with a knife it was scary - and Colin, a fresh out of college social worker, who just so happened to have a black belt in Karate. They were both trying to remain hidden as they intently looked at something outside through the shattered windows of the front entrance. Glenda held her butcher knife close and Colin's fists were clenched.

Colin cocked his head slightly as Randall and Aaron approached. "Three of them," was all that he said, in a low whisper.

Randall then saw what he was talking about. Three deadheads, lumbering down the street towards some unseen destination. They were no more than 5 meters away, yet they had not taken any notice. He was prepared to let them pass by so that they could leave the store without any risk, but they seemed almost too driven and worked up for just three deadheads. Randall risked a peek outside the window and saw a man further down the street. Not just any man, one that was still alive. The deadheads were entirely focused on him. A living human was a rare sight these days. While they could be dangerous, he instantly decided it was worth the risk. An extra pair of healthy arms was also becoming quite the commodity.

"Someone is alive down there." Randall whispered to the others. "Glenda, take the closest one; Colin, get the middle; Aaron, you got the farthest one."

Without another word, they filed out through the frame of the former glass door. The deadheads noticed their presence, but their sluggish and decayed bodies posed no threat to the experienced scavengers. Glenda slipped her knife upward through the jaw and into the brain of one. Colin grappled one, forced him to the ground, and smashed his head in with his heel. Aaron merely slammed his baseball bat into the skull of the third one, sending it onto the ground with a spray of brain matter and teeth. In a matter of seconds, they had successfully dispatched all three of the infected with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine.

During the confusion, Randall had slipped down the sidewalk and now held his Beretta 9mm directly at the stranger. At a time of anarchy, when thieves and cutthroats are potentially more dangerous than the walking corpses, Randall was prepared to take no risks.

"What is your name and are you bitten?" He demanded instantly.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Eli had bent his knee, and was just about to take off into a sprint when the rotters fell like bowling pins, all at the same time. He hesitated at the sight of the three living ones taking them down. His hand snaked down to his waist by instinct, ready to draw his revolver at even the slightest provocation.

But another man -- someone older than him, with a heavier build -- had gotten the drop on him. Eli removed his hand from his waist and outstretched all his fingers. This guy, at least, bothered to ask questions first. That was a promising sign. He chose not to let his panic spin out of control.

"Eli," he introduced himself immediately in his light Puerto Rican accent.

He raised his arms -- which had been toned in one of his short-term prison stays, and had been maintained in the years since -- in a gesture of surrender. Though he was wearing a gray button-down shirt layered over his grimy long-sleeved tee, his bulk was hard to hide.

"And nuh-uh, 'mano, I ain't been bit. And I'm not after any trouble, neither. I'm actually grateful for the assist."
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Randall relaxed slightly, but kept the gun trained on him. He certainly didn't sound like a crazy. He was also not the best interrogator, so he didn't exactly know where to go from this point. Did he ask about how many people he had killed? No, that wouldn't be fair. Not to mention he could lie. He needed something more concrete that he could ask that would tell him whether or not this Eli guy was someone who could be trusted or someone who-

"Hey, uh, Randall?" He felt Colin place a hand on his shoulder. "I think we can trust this guy."

"Are you sure?"

"C'mon man, really?" Colin chuckled and let go of his shoulder.

Randall stuck his tongue out slightly and bit down lightly with his teeth, something he tended to do when in thought. Colin had successfully found out a thief inside the lodge during the first week simply by asking him if he was a thief off a suspicion. The man was a little sheepish at times, but his ability to read people was honestly a little unnerving. So far he had not been wrong. He decided that he would defer to Colin's thought and slowly lowered his weapon.

"It's dangerous in the city. I don't know what you're doing here, but it isn't my business to know."

Randall holstered the 9mm at his waist, his body tensing slightly as he prepared for the shot from Eli that never came. If he was smarter, he would have just shot Eli and be done with it; if he and the others didn't make it back to camp, then who knew how many would die without the antibiotics. Marie could well be one of them, a thought that turned his blood cold. Yet he couldn't do that. Many others had abandoned their humanity and become heartless killers, but that was something Randall was desperate to hold onto. His compassion.

"Look, we gotta head back to our lodge. You're welcome to come with us, we can always use and extra pair of arms, even if it is just for the day."
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
As Eli hesitantly lowered his arms, he blinked hard, surprised by the offer. He shook his head a little, as if to clear out the cobwebs. He was still getting over that guy from the wine store, and the mysterious package he had taken off his now cold dead hands. It was a lot to process, and now there was all this on top of it.

"Wait, wait, wait," he said quickly.

His hands were lower, but his fingers were still outstretched and visible. He didn't want any sudden movements to jeopardize the peace they had reached. He spared quick glances at the two college-aged guys, and at the middle aged woman, before glancing back to Randall. One of his companions had let slip his name, but that still wasn't much to go on.

"Who are you?"
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Randall paused and his eyes lingered on Eli for a few moments before he finally answered.

"My name is Randall, and these guys with me are Colin, Aaron, and Glenda." He motioned to each of his companions as he introduced them. "It's a long story, but we're part of a larger group holed up just outside the city. We can't offer much except a warm bed and a safe place to stay, but for most folks... well, that is more than enough these days."

"We aren't bad people." Colin added in. "We're just trying to get by. At least until this whole thing blows over, you know?"

Everyone paused as Glenda executed a nearby deadhead with a quick stab to the skull, letting its body fall backwards with a sickening thump.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Eli flinched as he saw the rotter fall. He had only just seen it emerge from a nearby building by the time the older woman -- Glenda, Randall had called her -- was on it. Clearly, the streets weren't safe and he needed off them. And then there was that other matter. The one that was burning a figurative hole in his backpack.

"Okay," he said with a nod.

He moved towards Randall, but paused after only a step. The way the kid, Colin, had phrased that last thing he said struck him as odd.

"Wait," he said again. "How long has your group been out here?"
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"There will be more of them, we shouldn't stay here for long." Glenda warned everyone in a remarkably calm manner as she rejoined the group.

Randall inhaled deeply. It was true that the streets had been quiet today, but that only unnerved him more. Where were the rest of the infected? Wherever they were, he did not want to count on them staying away for long. For all he knew, they could be in a horde wandering about the city, ready to turn the corner at any moment.

Randall assured Glenda with a gentle wave of his hand, "It is alright, Glenda. This will only take a moment. Better we have him trust us before we get there than have a fight break out when we get back because of a silly misunderstanding."

He turned to face Eli.

"We've been here since it all started, about a month ago. When the shit hit the fan, the few good cops remaining rallied all the survivors they could find and set up a shelter in the old lodge. Unfortunately, we had little more than the clothes on our backs and whatever resources the lodge had stocked away, but we have managed to get by pretty well all things considered." The former contractor's right eyebrow cocked upward. "Why do you ask?"
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Eli nodded slowly after Randall's story, then gave his best sympathetic frown. These people seemed nice -- they had offered him a place to stay, after all, when they had no reason. He hated to break it to them, but they deserved to know.

"I'm sorry about this, but... I got some bad news."
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*********************

Outside the city of Mount Kisco proper, the surrounding countryside was deceptively scenic; hilly terrain that was covered with trees painted bright shades of orange and red. Despite the tranquil air, Randall was certain the stench of the living dead still permeated through the wind, but he could no longer smell it. It was an idea that he had uncomfortably come to terms with only recently.

Nonetheless, the scenery and relative proximity to New York City made this location a fairly popular getaway for people who wanted a nice, quiet weekend away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The popularity spurred the growth of lodges in the area surrounding the small city of less than 10,000. He had always disliked living in an area where he felt everyone else was better off than him financially, but he was glad for it now; the Mount Kisco Country Club had saved countless lives. Despite being tucked in the middle of the suburbs, it was the perfect shelter for weathering the storm they found themselves in. The suburbs were fairly spread out, so the density of deadheads was relatively low, yet it was close enough to civilization that gathering supplies was not difficult. The surrounding golf courses gave plenty of room to see the infected before they were on top of you (assuming one were to slip past the surrounding gates, which so far none had managed to do) and the shelters and lodge supplied a warm place to stay during the increasingly brisk nights.

"Remember, nobody here can say anything until we speak to Roland and figure out what to do." Randall reminded everyone once again as they emerged from the forest and back onto the main driveway that led into the lodge. Randall had some to the conclusion that staying off the streets was safer than trying to use the roads - there was less chance of detection.

The lodge itself was truly made to appeal to the wealthy. The simple grandeur of it gave the impression of a remodeled plantation from the south; a wide single story complex with 1800's style roofing with a gated porch that spanned the entire width of the pearl white exterior. The lodge and patio themselves were even elevated a good three feet off the ground and surrounded in shrubs; the place felt like a fortress even before taking the black iron gates that encompassed the entire country club grounds AND the location at the top of a hill into consideration.

"How do we know it's even true?" Aaron retorted. "This guy could just be lying."

"He's not." Colin curtly interjected.

"Well, he might have it wrong is what I am saying. Look, we don't know for sure."

"But what if he isn't?" Randall cut them both off, he was in no mood to listen to their normal bickering. "This is exactly why I don't want any of you guys saying anything until Eli and I can talk to Roland and we can figure out what out next steps should be. The worst thing we can do is start an unwarranted panic. Can you guys at least do that for me?"

The general contractor took a deep breath and then exhaled very audibly. The silence of agreement from those two was music to his ears.

"Sorry, Eli. It's not that I think you're lying, it's... just a lot to take in." Aaron commented weakly, glancing towards the silent Eli like a dog that had been caught stealing food.

At the front gate, a very skinny young woman in her early-mid twenties sat on a chair. She had shoulder-length hair that was dyed a dark pink, but her naturally golden hair was visible for a few inches at the roots. A bolt action rifle that had been pilfered off the wall of the interior rested on her thigh, her eyes focused on the Game Boy Color in her hands. She didn't even lift her gaze, even as Randall was nearly at the gate itself.

"Hey, Willow, think you can let us in?"

The woman glanced upward from her video game. She reached a hand to her lips and pulled the roughly made joint out of her mouth and gave everyone a one-sided smile; "Hey, you guys are back."

Randall couldn't help but notice the light trail of smoke coming from her mouth as she spoke. He had no idea how she was going to cope with the loss of her weed in the near future; after all, her supply had to be running low by now.

"Yeah, and we got the medicine for Dr. Tu."

"Awesome." She popped the joint back in her mouth and turned her attention back to her game. "Let me just save this here..."

Randall rolled his eyes as Willow finished saving her game progress and tucked the Game Boy into a pocket on her baggy jacket. She then pulled out a small key from her jeans pocket and fiddled with the heavy chains and padlock they used to secure the gates.

"I'm surprised they left you on guard duty today." Randall tried to make conversation as everyone filed in. He didn't know her too well, so it was kind of a shot in the dark.

"Yeah, me too. Guess whoever was scheduled today came down with that sickness goin' around. Roland asked me to cover." Willow grinned as if she was the most important person in the complex right now.

Man, Roland must be desperate for new hands if he asked Willow...

"Got it." Willow popped the padlock open, undid the chains, and then pulled the gate open just enough for everyone to enter.

"Is Roland inside?" Randall inquired after everyone had filed in.

"I guess so. I dunno." Willow shrugged while closing the gate behind everyone and wrapping the chains back around the doors. "Been out here all day. it boring, but someone's gotta do it, right? Important job and all."

"Yeah, right. Thanks, Willow. We'll get someone out here to take over for you in a little bit." Randall assured her, but she seemed more intent on figuring out how to securely wrap the chain back around the gate.

"Well, here we are, Eli." Randall held an arm out towards the lodge. "Home sweet home. Let's go find Roland. Just look for the big black guy. You can't miss him."
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
As they approached the country club gates, Eli surveyed the surroundings and nodded to himself. He was impressed. He hadn't considered coming to one of these places for shelter, though he now realized he should have. After all, even before all hell broke loose, they had been designed to keep the riff-raff out. Of course, a month ago, the riff-raff meant people like him.

He considered that, among other things, as Randall, Aaron and Colin conversed. He half-tuned them out, but got the gist of it. And he understood their resistance, he knew how difficult the truth could be to accept. He had lived through New York, saw what happened with his own eyes, and even he couldn't believe it sometimes.

"It's cool," he said to Aaron, before his eyes were drawn to Willow.

A hippie name for a hippie chick, he thought, observing her pink hair. It was in need of another dye job it wasn't likely to get any time soon, but it still suggested an individualistic attitude that seemed to fit. Eli wondered if she would have the same air nonchalance if she knew what was really going on outside those gates.

After she had let them in, he gave her a weak smile as he passed. She was nice looking, and if he saw her on the street before all this chaos hit, he would have tried a little harder. Now there was just too much on his mind.

Once inside, he adjusted the straps on his backpack and looked around some more. He adopted a thoughtful expression.

"Sure, 'mano," he said to Randall after his instruction. "Just lead the way."
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"Hey, Randall!" An older gentlemen with well kept salt and pepper hair, a contrasting slightly ragged beard, and a gray suit to match them both greeted the new arrivals from his seat on the front patio. "Did you guys find anything?"

It was Bob, the manager of the estate. Even though the police had forcefully taken it over for the public good, he had been more than cooperative and was well-liked by most everyone. Even though he seemed to have problems with some of the 'rabble', Randall always respected how the man was able to put his personal feelings behind him in light of the current situation.

To answer Bob's question, Randall pointed to the bag he carried on his back, "We got enough antibiotics to treat everyone with some left over."

Bob lowered his round glasses and peered directly at the group with his steel gray eyes; "Who's the new guy?"

"We found him in the city." Randall quickly answered. "He's a good guy, don't worry. Colin vouched for him."

Bob frowned - which led Randall to suspect he thought the answer wasn't good enough - but thankfully he did not pursue the topic further, instead preferring to turn his attention back to his book that laid in his lap. Bob, like so many others here, did not truly understand what it was like outside the gates of the community. But Randall preferred to think it was for the better that way. Or at least he thought so before Eli's news met his ears.

As they walked up the stairs and onto the front patio - porch seemed too quaint a word to describe it - Randall began coming up with requests for his fellow scavengers.

"Glenda, could you go grab something from the kitchen and then relieve Willow? I'd feel safer with someone more capable keeping watch."

"Aaron, would you mind passing out the extra supplies you collected in the drug store? Try not to show any favoritism, try to go by a need basis. That means the people with the biggest beards have first dibs on the shaving cream."

"Colin." He handed the young man his bag. "Make sure these antibiotics make it to Dr. Tu. I'll be over there to talk to him myself as soon as Eli and I get our word in with Roland."

Randall appreciated how willing all three of them were to cooperate; none of them raised any objections and split to go about their requested tasks the second they all entered through the main entrance. Even though they bickered at times, they had formed a close camaraderie through their sometimes life threatening ventures into the city and they shared together in the knowledge of how bad it really was out there. Although, if what Eli said was true, it could be much worse than even the four of them had known.

The front room was a sprawled out chamber with granite floors, luxurious carpets, and a mahogany receptionist's desk, with gold trim, that was currently unmanned. The amount of money invested in this room alone was sickening. While most of the lodge had been repurposed into makeshift housing quarters for everyone, this room was mostly untouched from its original form. Randall eyed a short and stout policeman with messy brown hair having a conversation with someone else, whose name Randall could not quite recall at the moment, near the back of the room. Randall wasted no time in approaching them.

"Jerry, I need to speak with Roland. Where can I find him?"
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The Last Melon
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The Last Melon. Duh.
Roland turned out to be in the admin offices, the camp's impromptu headquarters. A radio lay in his limp hand, and his chin slumped down onto his chest. He jolted awake when Randall opened the door.

"Randall! How did it go? Did you find anything for the hospital? Any sign of the army?"

Roland Henry was a heavyset black man in a rumpled police uniform. The stress of running the camp had taken an obvious toll on him; his hair was peppered with grey and deep bags ran beneath his eyes. He stood up as Randall approached the desk and shook himself, narrowing his eyes as he noticed Eli behind him. "And who's this?"
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
"Don't worry, Roland, we got the antibiotics." Randall assured the policeman as best he could. "Everything the pharmacy had left, at least, but it should be enough. Colin is delivering everything we found to Dr. Tu as we speak."

Randall then took a deep breath, obviously composing himself.

"As for the army, well... that is why I am here." He turned towards the man he was with; "This man here is Eli, we ran into him in the city. He... well, I think he has some news that you need to hear."
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Eli frowned. By the looks of Roland, he was already fraying around the edges. Eli was hoping to find someone a little sturdier-seeming at the head of the table.

"Look, I'm real sorry I gotta be the one that breaks this to you," he said. "But the army ain't coming. The army's done."
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