nadia costa (treta) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-02-05 12:31:00 |
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Austin was never safe, not since the virus had struck and the dead rose up to join them. But now even Nick was uncertain about going out onto the streets. Uncertain, but not worried enough to suspend scouting trips, after all life couldn't stop simply because a new danger was presenting itself. Danger was all around them, it just so happened that the Hellhounds antics from the day before brought the danger level up a notch. So they had more mindless decaying bodies trying to take a bite out of them, he had survived being lunch for one of those corpses once….lightning could strike twice, right? This was the sort of thought process that had driven him to take Nadia and Jeremy out into the newly congested streets of Austin. Things couldn't just freeze because there was more danger, but - and maybe it was a control thing - Nick also wasn’t going to send his scouts out there without going out himself. So as they moved along the streets, he was both aware of the hordes that were a little too close for comfort and the two scouts with him. Selfishly he was thankful that Olivia still had her cast on, because it limited her from being out on the streets with them and thus from his anxiety level ramping up that much more because he was worried about her. Groaning could be heard a street over and Nick knew curfew was quickly approaching for the LBJ, not that he necessarily adhered to it. Call him a rebel, but he preferred coming and going on his terms. It pissed the security team off something awful, and not that he would tell anyone but he kind of enjoyed getting under their skin. “Did we get everything we came for?” Nick asked as they stepped out of the run down corner store. The place had been picked over long before they got there, but he was of the opinion it never hurt to give a place another look - even if you came up empty handed. “Because much as I hate to follow the security personnel's rules, we probably want to get our asses back home before the security team decides to lock us out.” What he really meant was he wanted to get their asses back home before the doors were closed, but he wasn’t about to reveal his own lack of self-preservation or the depth in which is protectiveness went when it came to his scouts. "I think I have everything on my list." Jeremy pulled a list out of his back pocket, scanning it quickly as his other hand tightened both straps of his pack over his shoulders. Despite his immunity and the fact that he was going on three years as a supply scout for his shelter, it was hard to be entirely comfortable out in Austin. Especially not on a day like today, only an hour or so after LBJ's self-imposed lockdown had been lifted and they all knew that the streets weren't full of only zombies. The list went back into his pocket and he turned his head to look impatiently over at Nadia and Nick. "You two ready? We better get a move on." Nick gave a nod when Jeremy asked if they were ready to leave. He had no desire to linger around this place, or out in the open. That part of him that was hugely protective just couldn't stand to risk the safety of his scouts like that. The woman was readjusting the straps of her backpack too, letting the new weight re-settle on her shoulders, finding the sweet spot where it wouldn’t keep clanging against her spine—she’d learned in her first week in this job that weight distribution mattered, that it could throw you off-balance when when fleeing headlong from a runner. Her hair was tied back into a severe braid and tucked into her shirt, and she was bobbing on her feet. Nadia was ready. She nodded. “Having experienced a few unexpected overnights—” much to the unhappiness of the security team, yes, “I do not recommend it at all. Let us get home.” The three of them broke back into motion at a gesture from Nick, a well-oiled machine slipping their way quietly along the abandoned streets and back towards their shelter. And for all intents and purposes, they did everything right: no dramatic boot crunching on glass, no stumbling into a car and setting off its alarm, no tripping and stumbling. They were just as careful and stealthy as they always were. But at the sight of slowly-moving figures blocking the street ahead, the trio draw to a halt. “Merda—they’ve moved, the road is full. We will have to hurry around instead,” Nadia said, her voice strained. Already mentally mapping out the alternative routes that Nick and Jeremy’s team had taught her, once upon a time. “Let’s try this way,” Nick motioned off to his left down a familiar street; the two scouts turned to follow their leader obediently. “We’ll head down a few blocks and hope this herd isn’t that large.” Mentally he was already crossing his fingers that his words were true. Three people against a herd of shufflers didn’t bode well for them, but he refused to think about that as they moved down the street, the groans from the zombies a constant droning in their ears as they wove their way down side streets. Glancing at both Nadia and Jeremy, Nick hoped his expression read confident and not something akin to ‘Oh, shit.' As they made their last turn and were faced with a smaller, yet still very undead group of people. “Fuck,” he breathed out, trying to assess if this was a group they could easily sneak around or not. “Do we head further or try to get around?” Nick wouldn't make a call on his own, not because he couldn't, but because both Nadia and Jeremy had a right to weigh in on things here. "Jesus Christ." Jeremy's first reaction was to backpedal and head in the other direction, but he forced himself to stay put at Nadia and Nick's side. No scout left behind, after all, and he was immune. Still, he couldn't help the way his heart was pounding like an earthquake in his chest. "Get around," he said quickly, looking at the other two and hoping they could come to a conclusion sooner rather than later. "Definitely get around." The moaning was getting louder, though. Surround sound, the last thing you heard before they were on you. He reached up to needlessly hold onto the straps of his backpack, squeezing the straps in an attempt to have an outlet for the nervousness thrumming through him. The hordes roamed sometimes, but they were never like this—their city was a quiet one, the streets often cleared due to the efforts of their armed Capitol, as double-edged as that sword could be. But this was different. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, but the acceptance settled on Nadia like a heavy shroud: of course, of course the landscape would have changed after that explosion. Drawn in the distant zombies like moths to a flame. Summoning them from miles around. The more that the scouts kept turning and trying different side-streets, however, they kept finding more clumps of shufflers. It felt like a noose tightening around their necks. “If we pick one of the smallest groups,” Nadia whispered to the two men, calculating how far it was back to their front doors, “perhaps we could just… run. Get through them and make a break for it. It’s starting to look like we cannot just walk around.” "Are you for real?" The idea was pretty much suicide in Jeremy's eyes. Immune or not, smaller group or not, long sleeves and pants or not, the horde was too thick for the three of them to realistically make it through unscathed. Nick hated that idea more than he wanted to admit, hated it because a thought like that was exactly what had landed him in quarantine...but they were running out of options. His mind flashed back to watching Liv crash through the small horde in the store, to the panic he felt as his own feet had propelled him forward after her. He knew what his status was now, knew a bite wouldn't turn him. But a bite in the wrong spot could still end him, could end the two scouts with him. With a frustrated sigh, Nick scrubbed a hand through his hair before squaring his shoulders. “If we do that, if we make a break for it, we do it smart,” he paused. “Or as smart as we can.” Jeremy's stomach had flipped upside down as soon as he saw Nick stand up straighter, knowing exactly what kind of decision he'd made. "There's no way to do this smart," he countered. He looked over his shoulder, hoping for a miraculous, empty path out the other way, but there was none. And was that moaning he heard from behind them, too? Nadia’s head was riveted, staring behind them, her entire body stiff and rigid as she watched for signs of movement. Nick was already tightening the straps on his backpack and surveying the horde that was getting progressively closer to them. “And before we do it, either one of you immune?” "I am." Jeremy's heart was pounding in his ears; the feeling of those teeth ripping through his skin was something he'd never been able to forget. And now here he was, aiming for bite number two. Still, he turned his head to look at Nadia. "You?" She let loose a laugh, a strangled little noise. Here she was, with two immune men. “No,” Nadia confessed. “I don’t know. I have never had occasion to find out. Let’s keep it that way, yes?” “Absolutely seconding the whole “let's not get bitten” thing,” Nick remarked, hating this whole idea the more and more he thought about it. He felt responsible for Jeremy and Nadia, for them being out here in the first place and now they were having to do this? Even if he could look at it from a logical perspective and remind himself that they needed the supplies they had come out for, him putting his scouts in danger still didn't sit well with him. Unconsciously, the woman zipped up her jacket even further, up tight to the neck, readjusting her sleeves. The backpack already served as makeshift armour for her spine. Every last little bit she could do to weigh the odds in her favour before their attempt. Besides. It was either push through, or hole up in one of these buildings and not make it back home before nightfall, be trapped out here with the zombies. She’d rather take their chances in daylight, before missing lockdown— Still, they didn’t have to be happy about it. Nick glanced between Jeremy and Nadia, his expression still trying to remain positive, even while his gut told him this was a bad idea. But what option did they have? “So we’re all clear, no cowboy shit, okay? We run and we don't stop running until we reach the Library, got it?” In theory it sounded a hell of alot easier than it was actually going to be. Jeremy looked up at the street signs to confirm their location, trying to force his mind to block out the noises echoing around them and focus on calculating their route home instead. He clenched his hands and forced out a sharp exhale before his eyes met Nick's, then Nadia's. "Okay, so we're doing this." Nadia took a deep breath and nodded once, hard and decisive. [stuff from either of you here? Justine, did you want to add something here?] Nick summoned every last ounce of courage he possessed, told himself one final time that this was their only way out of this and then gave a nod. His face set in a look of determination, lacking any kind of hint of the internal war happening in his brain. And then the three of them were off at a breakneck pace as they aimed themselves towards the smallest group of zombies and hoped all would be well. 'Smallest' was a relative term here, of course: there were empty pockets of space here and there, but the zombie wall of mass in front of the group had turned at the sound of their footsteps and, somehow, was thickening, stepping closer together as though to better block their way. "Single file," Jeremy muttered quickly, terror ratcheting the closer they got. His mind flashed back to old sessions of red rover in gym class, when he'd been ten years old and shit had been simpler. With enough momentum, three of them right in a row, they could break through. Head down, eyes up, you're gonna make it, he told himself before the first impact. The resource manager and his fellow scout followed a heartbeat later. There was the press of decaying flesh against his shoulders, an almost animal growl that escaped his throat as he forced his way through with his arms close to his body. Jeremy zig-zagged, stepping around and away from the hands that reached out to grab him, his lungs burning as they sought fresh air. The end was in sight, though, and so far he'd gotten through unscathed. Right behind him, Nadia’s hood was pulled up and she kept all her limbs pulled in tight as she ran. Whenever clawing fingers caught and clutched on her sleeve, she wrenched herself bodily out of their grip and kept running, kept running, following the squirming angle of Nick’s shoulder blades ahead of her, legs pumping, chest burning. The street felt like it was going on forever, an unending stretch even as the library drew slowly, slowly closer—too fucking slowly. They were shoving through the dead now, elbowing them aside, struggling to ram them out of the way. The crowd of dead had been smaller the last time Nick had done this, still he had to muster up every last bit of courage to avoid flashing back to that day, to ignore the weird jolt of phantom pain he felt where he had been bit before. Focusing on the here and now, he shoved clawing hands away from him, shouldering into decaying bodies and praying he didn't lose his footing as he used all his force to topple them to the ground. He could see Jeremy ahead of him doing the same, making it through unscathed so far. Despite better judgment, he spared a glance over his shoulder to Nadia and allowed himself a momentary flicker of relief when it seemed the female scout was faring just as well through the horde as the two men were. That relief was short lived as his body began to protest the brisk pace and long run, his heart racing and impatience growing as the Library was both in sight and still so goddam far away. It was impossible to say how long it took for the three of them to cross the final stretch of road that led them home. Jeremy didn't even bother to try and count just how many zombies they evaded by sheer dumb luck, too; there were the three massive groups behind them, the ones they'd run through, but as they came into UT territory more came out of nowhere to join the fray. He stumbled to a knee as one stubborn zombie grabbed hold of his backpack; with a yelp, he tugged his arms free and pushed up, almost falling on his face before he got back onto his feet. "Keep going!" Jeremy screamed, struggling to catch up on the ground the others had gained on him. "We're almost there!" As the three frantic survivors went hurtling towards the main building, they came right up to the fences and hit them at a flying run, knowing they didn’t have time to enter properly. Nadia’s fingers dug into cold metal, her shoes scrabbling as they climbed the wire-mesh, fell over onto the other side, landed heavily and painfully, then hobble-ran the last stretch to the entrance. Scaling the fence had been easier than Nick thought it would be - and he probably would never be able to climb over it so quickly again in his life. Still, he landed with a thud on the other side and was right behind Nadia, Jeremy following on his heels, as they continued their run, granted more subdued than moments before, towards the doors of the library. Nick, Jeremy, and Nadia blew through the doors and the guards threw them shut, whisking down the makeshift bolts, and even going so far as shoving the nearby furniture up against the doors as a barricade, which is exactly what they were there for. The steady-handed guards looked back through the doors at the massing walkers behind the fences (shit, runners, there were runners in this group—), while the survivors stumbled away on leaden legs, breaths heaving. Nadia toppled to the floor, gasping for breath. One of the guards was talking to them but she barely heard him. “—bitten? Were any of you bitten?” Nick was doubled over and attempting to catch his breath as the guards asked their frantic questions, his head already shaking “no” as he rasped out. “I don't think so,” Nick shot a glance in both Jeremy and Nadia’s direction, seeking confirmation on that fact. Fuck, he didn't even want to entertain the idea that one of them might have been bitten during the stunt they just pulled back there. Jeremy couldn't help but look over his shoulder, checking the status of what they'd just left behind. It looked like the horde was being kept at bay for now, thanks to the fences the LBJ had put up around its main building, but he had no idea how he'd get home to the residential building. That was the last of his worries right then, though; he knew he needed to take this one step at a time. "Me either," he said, exhaling sharply as he willed his stomach to fight the cramp that was already forming. “Either,” Nadia echoed feebly from the floor, too exhausted to say anything else. “Do you think the fences will hold?” Nick asked, shifting gears and forcing his thoughts away from the idea that one of his scouts might be injured and towards the pressing matter at hand. "We can only hope they will." Jeremy glanced back again, through the doors and the makeshift barricade, and shook his head. "But I don't know for sure." |