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Dead Men Walking
Topic Started: Nov 28 2014, 02:20 AM (70,916 Views)
Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
Nolan stuffed his hands in his pockets and returned to Antonio's truck. Like Jimmy, he had been curious as to what, exactly, was going on. Everyone overheard that guy, Pablo, and his explanation of Green River. But the names and places didn't mean anything to him, not in the same way it meant something to the others. He had popped out of the truck to see what the word was on their next move. He overheard the exchange between Jimmy and Eli though, which pretty much told him all that he needed to know.

"So what are we doing?" Antonio asked as Nolan got back in.

"Sounds like we're staying on course for now." Nolan informed him. "Sounds like Eli is considering something stupid like going after them."

"This again?" The hesitation was clear in his voice.

"Cory was a bad guy. He killed a lot of people in Flint." Kelsey added in. "Including Glenda. Kind of."

Glenda. That was a name that Nolan remembered hearing. A middle-aged woman who had looked out for both Kelsey and Willow early on. From the stories people told, she could gut a rotter with a single swing of a knife. They were probably exaggerated, but the group seemed to hold a lot of respect for her. Kelsey never really told Nolan how she had died, just that it was at Flint. It was a topic he was hesitant to breach with her.

"Be that as it may, it is a senseless risk. From what Pablo explained, we would be outmanned and outgunned. The best thing we could do for everyone is ensure the cure is delivered safely." Antonio almost seemed like he was lecturing on the topic.

"But more people will die if nobody does anything." Kelsey argued. "I thought you wanted to help people."

"It's... not that simple, Kels." Nolan sighed.

* * * * *

The remainder of the trip was uneventful and, frankly, a little awkward. At least Willow interpreted it that way. Everyone, herself included, was thinking about the implications of running into Cory again. With the exceptions of Emily, Nolan, and Antonio, everyone held a grudge with this man, whether directly or indirectly. For Jen, Annie, Connor, and Jimmy, the people his crew had mowed down and killed back at Flint had been friends. For Willow and everyone else... Glenda. Nobody had ever really seen him up close, but it was known that he was one of the leaders of that failed operation. The man was known to be a psychopath and the world would be a better place without him. But Willow knew what Eli was considering. And she completely disagreed. But she wasn't sure she would be able to talk him down from it.

Their destination for the night was a town called Vernal. It was a small cluster of tiny cities at the crossroads of a pair of highways. The strategic importance was that it was far enough south of Green River that Cory and his thugs weren't likely to be here. And the practical importance was that it was the only cluster of civilization for hundreds of miles. They could restock on food, gas, and find a nice little hotel to spend the night in. Willow got the feeling she wasn't the only one looking forward to sex tonight. As always, she needed a distraction from everything else. And there were no better distractions left in the world for her than a night alone with Brandon.

Naples was the first city they passed through. It was a sparsely populated factory town or something. There were few houses, but they passed some very large lots with industrial complexes on them. More specifically, car-related ones. Western Petroleum, Bay Boys Autobody, Auto Repair Pros, Haliburton, and Naples Auto Sales were among a handful of the car related services they were able to see just from the freeway. She had no idea there was a sort of auto center like this outside of Michigan. But at least if they had car problems, there was absolutely no shortage of them here. They passed one hotel near the end of the town on its own isolated little plot, but it looked pretty run down. There were broken windows and doors and plenty of rotters. Something had happened there and nobody was really too keen on finding out what.

Beyond Naples they hit Vernal. This was evidently where everyone that worked in Naples lived. They could see roads leading to more suburban areas of town, but the freeway itself just drove by a bunch of stores and restaurants and the occasional bank. They were going right through the heart of the city. Thankfully, the city had either been a lot smaller than it felt, or the rotters that would be here had been culled at some point. While it was possible that they had been killed earlier by someone, Willow didn't see enough dead rotters to justify any sort of large-scale cleansing. What she guessed were that those guys they had run into earlier had run through here and pulled them all to the far end of the city. Either that or the population had stayed away from the city shopping center and holed up at home. Either way, Willow tried not to worry about it too much. She really did not want to deal with any large packs of angry rotters right now.

"Hey, check that out." Willow pointed off to the side of the road somewhere around the center of town.

Nestled behind a buffet-style restaurant, a large parking lot, and surrounded on three sides by white fences, was a 3-story Motel 6. And only a handful of rotters were in the parking lot. The place looked like it was in pretty good shape, too. The doors and windows were all closed and unbroken, unlike the other hotels they had found. To Willow, that was always a plus these days.
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
Brandon had been distracted by a jewelry store they just passed.

"That top floor would give us a good vantage." he noted.

Innevitably his mind made the connection between a motel room and sex, and he was suddenly even more eager to stop for the day. All thoughts of Cory and his wannabe thugs were replaced by a singular obsession. His hand crept sideways toward Willow and found hers, threading his fingers between hers, gripping her hand with a light intimate pressure.

...

"I can't wait to put my feet up, all this sitting and driving has got me beat." Emily said dryly.

She managed to stay in shape when this had essentially been her job by somehow finding the will to get enough exercise in after work. That had sometimes meant night running which for a woman especially was an uncomfortable prospect. She never went anywhere without pepper spray and a taser though.

"We better stop soon. I gotta piss like a pregnant woman." she commented, shifting uncomfortably.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
“Looks like your wish is granted,” Jimmy remarked to his passenger. Ahead of them, the Sienna was turning into a parking lot next to a motel. “If I were you, I’d use my next two for something cooler.”

* * *

After stopping, Eli observed the back of the motel for a few long, quiet seconds. Brandon had mentioned the top floor would make for a good vantage point – which was true, but…

“Yeah, except if there’s trouble I wanna be able to move out as fast as possible,” he said. He thought for a few more seconds before making a declaration. “We’ll keep one or two people on watch up there at all times. Everyone else sleeps close to an exit.”

At that, he removed the car keys. He’d had some time to think on the drive over here, and he had more declarations to make as soon as it was convenient.

“Let’s clear this place quick and settle in,” he said. “We got stuff to talk about.”
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
Jen cut the power to the motorcycle and its purring wound down into silence. They had maneuvered around to the back of the Hotel 6. It was a smart move by Eli; they were pretty well secluded back here. While there were stores in the way, this place was visible from a decently sized highway. Behind the hotel, their cars could not be seen. And leaving the rotters out in front alive would serve as a pretty good deterrent to anyone poking around looking for people. Jen approved of it.

"Looks like we got a rear exit over there." Jen pointed to a set of double doors on the back of the building.

She then casually pulled out her baseball bat, readied her stance, and grand slammed an approaching bearded rotter in the face. It stumbled backwards in a spray of blood. Once it was down, Jen made sure to double tap it with another swing. Just in case it had any funny ideas about getting back up and causing trouble. She wiped the aluminum bat off on the rotters grungy clothing. He had probably been a hobo before dying, that just made this one even more disgusting.

"I don't think many of them were able to follow us back here." She explained. "I think all we need to worry about are the ones inside."

* * * * *

Nolan followed Jen's advice and pushed open the back doors. Thankfully they were made out of glass, so some of the light from outside was able to flow into the darkened interior. The were a small kiosk with some unused hotel brochures and a mirror to his right and couple of vending machines to his left. The vending machines still had candy in them too! Beyond those were a staircase and a hallway, both sealed off with doors but labelled with signs.

"It's kinda empty." Nolan commented. "I don't hear anything either."

"That doesn't mean anything." Willow reminded him. "Don't let your guard down until we know it's clear."

"Of course." Nolan sighed -- she could be bossy sometimes.

He didn't even have a close range weapon. Guns were great as long as the rotter wasn't in your face. The last time Nolan found himself in close quarters with these things, he had barricaded himself in a corner of the house with no rotters in it. Which, technically, was still an option for him here. But he didn't think the others would agree with it. He should have picked something up at Walmart for that.
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"Nolan." Brandon caught the other man's attention.

He held out a machete they'd picked up back at Walmart, it was about as small and usable as he could hope for with what they had, everything else he'd grabbed was too large for one-handed use. The group made their way to the reception desk first and found a staff key-card. that'd let them in anywhere they wanted, so they could clear every room. This time around Brandon was happy to let everyone else lead the way while he hung back with Willow and some others. This would be good practice for Nolan, so long as he stayed close to somebody.

Emily was glad for the bit of exercise she could get and stayed toward the front with baton in hand.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
“We need to check every room,” Eli said, once everyone had gathered in the unlit reception area. Everyone had likely come to the same conclusion – especially since almost all of them had cleared a hotel before – but the obvious was still worth saying.

“Please tell me we’re not doing it in blob formation again,” Jimmy jumped in to complain.

Eli considered that. Randall had them do that back at the Champagne Lodge, and he expected Brandon would advocate for it again... but he wanted it done quicker. And considering how many of them there were, and how tight a squeeze the hallways were, it just seemed inefficient.

“What do you suggest?” Eli asked

Jimmy smiled, pleased that he was being consulted. “At least three teams,” he said. “One for each floor.”

“Fine,” Eli conceded. “Then you can lead the team on the top floor. Brandon, you lead the way on the second. I’ll take down here.”

Jimmy gave him a mock bow, and then turned to the others. “Alright gentleman and ladies, here's what's up – watch your corners, look before leaping, and keep your ears open at all times. Any moaning, groaning or grumbling and you stay put ‘till you know where it’s coming from. So who’s with me?”
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
"I'm with Brandon." Willow announced almost instantly.

Jen rolled her eyes. What a surprise that one was. Hopefully they didn't get distracted by each other while they were looking around. Last thing any of them needed was the two of them getting bitten because they decided to step outside for a quickie while on patrol. She stopped herself after that thought and rubbed her eyes. There wasn't any need to be so vindictive about what the two of them had. She should be happy for them, not taking out her bad experiences on them mentally. That didn't seem like a healthy alternative. She should just smile, like Jimmy always did.

"Don't worry, J-Weston, I'll make sure you stay in one piece." Jen volunteered to go to the third floor with Jimmy. "Without you, who will find everyone their dirty magazines?"

As usual, joking around always made her feel a little better when she was down. Unconsciously, a smile crawled onto her face as she harassed Jimmy a little.

"Kels and I can stay on the first floor with Eli then." Nolan suggested. "That alright with you?"

"Yeah. That's fine." Kelsey told him quietly, and a little uncomfortably.

"I'll help Eli as well." Antonio added in. "No offense, Nolan, but you are fairly untested in combat against these things. I would feel better if you have another heavy hitter with you to keep you safe."

"And you are that heavy hitter?" Nolan asked with an entertained look. "Since when have you been one to boast, Antonio?"

"Since I decided to try out the Jimmy approach to all this." Antonio explained. "Doom and gloom isn't getting anybody anywhere. I figured I could try to loosen up a little. It feels good to be a little less serious for once!"

Jen rose a curious eyebrow; Okay, now this is just weird. Did he find some of Emily's pot?
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Eli wordlessly accepted everyone’s volunteering. Once Antonio was done, he pointed at the people remaining.

“Emily, you go with Brandon and Willow,” he said.

Eli thought it best they had a third. Brandon was vigilant, but he was only human. Eli didn’t want to risk him being distracted on the job.

“I can go with Jimmy,” Emmett stepped forward.

Eli looked down to his wound, then back up to his face. “You can stay with us,” he said, then pointed to Annie. “Same with you and Connor, doc. Chances are the majority of the rotters’ll be down here anyway.”

“And chances are the third floor will have the least,” Jimmy added. “Don’t worry, big guy, the JW’s have it under control.”

“Great,” Eli clapped to wrap up the meeting. “Then get to it. Be quick but thorough, an’ when you’re done meet back up down here.”

“Aye aye,” Jimmy gave him a friendly solute, and then headed for the stairs.

* * *

After banging on it a few times and hearing nothing, Jimmy opened the doors to the stairwell. He was greeted by pitch black darkness, which was to be expected.

He dug into his jacket and removed a small but powerful flashlight he kept handy for occasions just like this. It was one of the few battery-powered tools of his he made sure was working at all times. Every time he thought the battery might be getting low, he had always switched it. With some items – like the handheld Tetris game in the glove compartment of his truck – he could afford to let the battery life reach its natural end. This wasn’t one of those items.

There was a clip to the flashlight that attached neatly to the body of his spear – and he demonstrated that now. He held the spear at the ready as he started climbing the stairs, ready to impale any threats the light might reveal.

“So you seem like a fish to water when it comes to this kind of business,” he said, quieter than usual. He didn’t risk glancing back at Jen, even though he was making chitchat. “Remind me, why weren’t you on my team back in Flint?”
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"So three blobs then?" Brandon remarked with a smirk.

Brandon turned and handed over the supressed HK to Willow, he recalled she was pretty God damned handy with it. He drew his kukri. Emily sidled up next to him with her baton. She raised it in front of the both of them. Brandon tapped it with his kukri with a wry grin and Emily lead their little team on, flashlight in hand.

"So what happened to that Martin kid?" Emily asked as Brandon followed behind.

"He found some friends of his own. Always stayed amiable with him. He started selling his medication in high school. Last I heard of him he got into Cornell." Brandon said.

"Heh, alright Martin. Oh what about ah, Katy. I had such a thing for her and I just didn't even realise it." Emily asked keeping her eyes and ears open for rotters.

"Katy liked the guys. They liked her back. Lost my V-card to her at the prom after party. Shit was not good but it opened my eyes to the fact that people like my face and body so I was pretty happy with myself." he said in a jokingly matter-of-fact manner.

Emily snorted as she chuckled softly.

"Nah I felt kind of bad for her after I thought about her again recently. I got the feeling she really had some self-esteem issues, like she just wanted somebody to validate her but she was going about it all wrong. I found her, back in Patterson when we did a sweep of the Rec centre." Brandon elaborated.

"That blows." Emily remarked as they stepped out onto the second floor.

"Yeah. How about you? When did you figure out you liked the vaj?" he asked.

"You've got a way with words. It wasn't like a sudden realization but I did finally accept it when I went on a date with this guy, Phillip. He had his hands on me and stuff and he was kissing me and it was just awful. I told him straight that I was a lesbian and that I was sorry for wasting his time. I think he was pretty embarassed, his friends gave him shit for it. I just had to admit it. Mom didn't take it well, but she didn't exactly take it badly either. Talked about speaking with a priest about it but she realized pretty quickly that wasn't going to happen. She must have asked me if I was sure about fifty times like 'Okay sweetheart, see you this afternoon. Emily, just... are you sure you're a lesbian?'." Emily recounted.

Brandon laughed quietly, containing himself. Emily chuckled softly and shook her head before readying herself outside their first door. She nodded to Brandon to swipe the card who in turn looked back at Willow to make sure she was ready.
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Is that so?
Jen shrugged nonchalantly as Jimmy's question. She crept forward behind Jimmy, her signature baseball bat held at the ready; every once in a while she would check behind her to make sure none of the rotters were being sneaky. They never were. In fact, it was pretty quiet up here. The first two rooms had yielded nothing of interest. Though she could hear a few bumps against the wall coming from a few rooms down.

"Guess you shoulda jumped on the Jen bandwagon before Spencer picked me up for town guard."

The truth was that she had been pretty damn pathetic when she came walking up the gates of Flint. She was beaten up, hungry, and alone. The only things she had in her possession were the filthy clothes on her back and a bloodstained baseball bat. After Annie had patched her up, she talked to Geraldine. She had apparently been impressed with Jen's ability to survive, and Spencer suggested she help out with guard duty -- he even offered to help her shoot a little. A skill she had proven to be only decent at. Helping Jimmy out with scavenging was just something that never came up. And she never really considered it either. She liked being close to the comforts of home. She never thought an attack would happen. And she never thought that attack would end up being the nail in the coffin that had her leave.

"I'd say it was a pretty good catch for him. Maybe I should ask you why you never tried recruiting me."

* * * * *

Willow smirked as she listened to Emily and Brandon trade banter with each other. All of these names made little sense to her. But it didn't matter. She didn't even feel a tinge of anger or envy when they mentioned Katy being Brandon's first. Willow could be insecure, but she was not really the jealous type. Something like that wasn't gonna bother her. Not was his relationship with Emily. If anything, it was actually really nice to see. Seeing Brandon happy made her happy.

Of course, during the entire conversation, she was still alert. Her hands were gripped tightly on the suppressed HK. The gun that she had her first badass moment with back at the rec center. That was the moment she realized that she was actually pretty damn good with a gun. Felt kind of nice to have it back in her hands for a bit. Thankfully, though, there hadn't been much of a reason to use it yet.

As the group was getting ready to go into the first room, Willow nodded her head. She was ready. All she had to do was be ready to channel her inner badass. Like she always did.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Jimmy gave a small shrug as they arrived at the door to the third floor. “I guess I wasn’t thinking,” he said.

He heard a noise – it was faint and dulled by the door in front of them, but his ears were attuned to it. It was the snarling growl of a deadhead. Pretty much unmistakable.

He quickly held a finger up to his lips and turned back to Jen. When she got the message, he turned around again. Slowly, he reached out with his left hand while holding his spear-flashlight combo in the other. He turned the knob carefully, pulled it back slightly…

Then pulled it back all the way, grabbed his spear with both gloved hands, and lunged forward. He saw the decomposed face of a slender rotter just as his cold steel blade impaled itself in and through the rotter’s gut.

Jimmy’s lunge stopped only when his blade got caught in the wall, pinning the rotter there – kind of like a shish-kabob. The grossest shish-kabob ever.

Jimmy was just about to be amused by the sight, but then another groan – similar but different to the first – caught his attention. He pivoted quickly into the hallway, to the other side of the spear that was stuck in the wall. A second rotter – wearing a drab maid’s uniform, much like the first – appeared and reached for him. It shambled forward excitedly, right into the spear, which might as well have been a clothesline.

The second rotter fell onto its back. Jimmy reacted quickly. He knelt down, grabbed it by its sensible shoes, and yanked it under the spear and towards him. The rotter was a little thing – petite and willowy even before a month or so of wasting away in undead form – so it was an easy feat. As he did, Jimmy drew a knife from an ankle holster with his other hand.

He brought the knife down into the former-maid’s skull, piercing it all the way to the handle. It stopped struggling immediately.

Jimmy looked up. The first rotter was still struggling against the wall, unable to move with the spear through its gut. Jimmy then looked to the door, where Jen waited. With his eyes, he gestured from her to the hapless rotter.
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
Brandon swiped the card pushed open the door, with Emily leaning in just behind him illuminating the room with her flashlight. Brandon checked behind the door cautiously. The bedroom was clear. They formed up on the bathroom and checked it with the same diligence. Nothing. The room was messy, the cleaners hadn't gotten around to it yet when everything went to hell.

They repeated the process with the next room along. Again no signs of rotters and the room wad a mess. The next room was only different in that it wasn't a mess. The air was stale though so Brandon opened the window and pulled back the curtains to let some light and air in to banish some of the grungey atmosphere. Air out those sheets and pillows a little and the place would be good for the night.

Once again they formed up on another door. Brandon was about to swipe when he heard a scraping noise coming from the other side. He pressed his air to the door and vlosed his eyes. He could hear a rotter on the other sie dragging its feet. It was close. A faint murmur caught his attention as well, the sound didn't originate from the same spot the shuffling did.

At least two. Brandon mouthed to the others.

He gave his kukri a little shake and then siezed it tightly. He nodded and then swiped, storming into the room and immediately lodging the heavy blade in a rotter's cranium.
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Is that so?
Jen didn't even see Jimmy's signal. She didn't need to. She was already bringing her bat down like a hammer onto the top of the rotter's skull. It's head caved sickeningly and rotter brains splattered on her bat and the wall it was pinned against. As thankful as she was that their two month old skulls were easier to break than ever, it was still disgusting as hell to see their brains splatter out like week old soup.

Jen relaxed her shoulders and exhaled slowly. That was a quick, but relatively easy fight. Before she could even say anything about it, her body tensed up again. She heard a shuffle and a footstep behind her. Jennifer acted on instinct, she pivoted on her front foot and swung her bat at the same time at the source of the sound behind her. The bat nailed its target hard in the chest and was thrown roughly into the wall by the doorway. Jimmy's light revealed it to be another rotter, a taller male dressed in the staff's uniform. It looked up at Jen with its dead eyes and rotted teeth and reached out for her. She responded by smashing its face with her bat. Twice. Just for good measure. It stopped moving. That had been a little close.

"So how do people even die in hotel rooms like this anyway?" Jen asked after taking a brief moment. "Do you think they starved up here? Or were bitten and came here looking for shelter?"

* * * * *

Willow smirked as Brandon nailed the first rotter in the head before it even knew what was going on. That eliminated one rotter right off the bat.

She didn't want to shoot if she didn't have to. Even though they had just restocked on bullets, conserving what they did have was never a bad idea. She had a knife, but with three people in these cramped spaces, getting into position for that would have been a lot of trouble. And then Brandon would probably lecture her on the reasons she shouldn't be doing that. All things considered though, he would have a good argument. So she hung back, gripping the HK, and waited.

And she made sure to keep an eye open behind her too.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
“Mysteries lost to time,” Jimmy answered, just before letting out a deep breath.

It was kind of a go-to line for him. He had said something similar to Eli back during their stay at Flint, when they went on that run in the ice skating rink together.

“I tend to think it was the latter, though,” he said. “When this all started, no one knew a bite was all it took.”

As he spoke, he cleaned his knife, re-holstered it above his boot, and then stood up. He got quiet and concentrated as he yanked the spear out of the wall, letting the rotter with the busted-up-melon for a head fall lifelessly to the hallway floor.

“Three down, question-mark, question-mark, question-mark to go,” Jimmy remarked, as he cleaned the blade on the spear next.
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
Emily shined her light at the corner the groaning was coming from. There was no immediate threat from this one. It's midsection had become a meal for the big one Brandon just dropped. Emily picked up on a little detail. The male one that was dragging its way over to them was wearing a wedding ring, the female, which now had a bloated stomach full of rotting meat was not. Lovely. Maybe it was an innocent situation, she prefered to think it wasn't though, it made dealing with all this easier when she remembered that people sucked.

She whipped it across the head a couple times with her baton and gave it a good stomp with her heel to make sure it wasn't getting back up. They swept the rest of the room but found nothing else. The rest of the floor was void of danger. There were a few more rooms that had been cleaned, but even so they still faintly smelled of sex, though that was most likely just Brandon's imagination.

"I'm gonna go report in with the others."Emily said excusing herself.

"Okay. Hey, I can use your help later, I'm going to be practicing unarmed combat with some of the others." Brandon said as he went about opening the window to this room and letting what little daylight was left in.

"Sounds cool, I'll be there." she assured him as she stepped out into the hall and walked away.

Brandon immediately dropped what he was doing and rushed Willow as soon as Emily was out of sight.
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