Daniela Diaz (all_bright) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-08-24 19:41:00 |
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The inside of the new grocery store was so packed there was hardly an inch of elbow room to spare. Dani had stopped by after leaving the lab for the day, thinking that she would just be able to dash in and out, but clearly she had underestimated Austin’s hunger for the things they’d been lacking for so long. By the time she finally reached the front of the checkout line and laid her few items on the counter, she’d been in the store for much longer than she’d bargained. At least outside there was space to breathe. As she stepped out into the open air again at last and shifted the weight of the tote bag hanging on her shoulder, Dani thought to herself that the owners of Walker’s were going to sell out of their inventory in no time at this rate. Then she heard the moaning. Her head snapped up, eyes scanning the street outside the store to see how close the shufflers were. For a moment she hoped that it might have been the wind or something, but no, there was a small cluster of undead headed this way. They must have been drawn by the crowds, somehow. Ultimately what had brought them to Walker’s didn’t matter as much as the fact that Dani’s car, her only way out of what was fast becoming a perilous situation, lay on the far side of the group of shufflers. “Dammit,” she swore quietly, and turned to lock eyes with another woman standing nearby. “We’ve got to get out of here.” “Yeah,” Torrie responded. She hadn’t even made it inside Walker’s yet, but with the ambling geeks making a beeline for the building, she thought groceries could wait. Lita would forgive her if their fridge wasn’t stocked. Probably. She tried to count the shufflers, but gave up because of the tickle at the base of her skull that said three times might just be the charm, and there weren’t any soldiers in sight to dispense with them before they tried to make her a chew toy. It had been a bad decision to leave her handgun at the house. “To the left?” A suggestion that Torrie made only because the shufflers were more congregated to the right. Violet nearly ran into the women standing there as she came out of Walker’s, as she'd been looking down inside her bag to examine what she'd gotten. She stopped abruptly and looked up, about ready to say something about people standing right in the way but then stopping as soon as she saw why. Her eyes widened immediately and she felt like all the blood had drained right out of her as panic set in. “Oh… no.” Her grip on her supplies tightened as she took a step back, gaze flickering from the shufflers to her truck. She was faster than them, right? Hearing the voice from behind her, Dani looked over her shoulder and nodded in recognition at the sight of the woman who worked in the food truck. Her name evaded Dani’s memory at the moment, though. Too much of her brain was busy running through all the possible ways that this scenario could go horribly wrong. The number one way involved standing here like a deer in the headlights until the horde reached them. Time to move into action. “To the left,” she agreed, even though that direction was only a marginally better choice than the other. At least there didn’t seem to be any runners among the undead that were approaching. Shuffling and lurching was bad enough at a slow speed. “Come on, it’s now or never. We’re best served by sticking together.” Ducking in the direction that they’d agreed on without so much as a backwards glance to see if the others were following, Dani hurried along the row of parked cars. Part of her just wanted to crouch down with a vehicle on either side, in the hope that if she couldn’t see the walkers then they’d never find her, but logic refuted that idea right away. However these things hunted, it wasn’t line of sight. And it was too easy to get trapped in the narrow space between cars. Far from stupid, Torrie moved left with the other two women. The residual fear from her last two close calls kept whispering to her that she should all out sprint, but without knowing where she was headed, she didn’t want to just run. “Start checking car doors?” Torrie suggested to the other two between breaths. Maybe if there was a vehicle open they could wait it out until they could all safely get where they’d been going to begin with. With nothing on her to serve well if any of them got close, because a bag of groceries hardly lent itself to fighting off zombies, Violet wordlessly followed with the other two. Though part of the silence was due to fear. Even if she had managed to have something on her, she was hardly a fighter. Much more of the running away type. Hiding away until it was safe type. At Torrie’s suggestion about the doors, she quickly glanced around to orient herself and swallowed hard as she willed her voice to come back. “My truck,” she said quietly, nodding her head toward it. “I can get us in and it's better than a car.” “Good idea.” Dani paused too, long enough to be certain of the food truck’s location. It was parked nearby, thank god, and not back in the opposite direction. They would have been hard-pressed to make a retreat, with the majority of the shufflers moving toward the grocery store behind them and effectively blocking that path. There was still moans coming from all around, though, so it was safe to assume that at least a few of the undead might still be an obstacle in reaching the food truck. Dani would have given anything for more time to make a better strategy than simply ‘run for it,’ but she was also aware that even a brief delay might result in losing the truck as an option. Nodding to the other women, she said, “We can make it.” Torrie eyed the lot also, internally breathing a sigh of relief of her own when she spotted the food truck. It was hard to miss, and sturdy. She’d take it. “I’ll take the back,” she said with a motion for both of the other women to keep moving ahead of her. Of the three she was the only one not carrying grocery bags, and if she was in back she thought she’d have a better vantage of what was coming towards them and behind them. As the women sprinted towards safety, Torrie caught sight of a set of shufflers ambling from between a couple parked SUVs. They wouldn’t cut off the path to the truck, thank god, but they’d probably come knocking as soon as the three ran past them. Torrie pulled her knife, just in case. Fuck all the times she’d been told as a kid not run with sharp objects. “Is it locked?” “Yes,” Violet replied, but she had the keys in her hand. She could have dropped her groceries, it would have made it easier, but she would be damned if she was going to lose her food because of stupid zombies after she’d gone to the trouble of going to get it. There was good food in there, and if she lost it in all this then what did she have that made it worth it? Assuming they made it out, which she assumed they would because she had no plans for any of them to get caught. She got to the truck first and quickly unlocked the door, proud of herself for the fact that her hand was only shaking a little, sliding the door open and getting inside, standing out of the way so the others could follow but keeping her hand on the door so she’d be able to close it quickly once they were clear. Though Dani was following close behind the other woman as she dared to get without risking their entanglement, those last feet to the door of the food truck seemed incredibly long. It took everything she had to keep her eyes fixed on that point of refuge, rather than darting a glance back behind them to see whether the shufflers were drawing in. When a moan that was louder than all the rest sounded from behind the nearest vehicle, Dani lunged forward, stumbling over the last few steps between herself and safety. Once through the doorway, she moved farther in and out of the way, simultaneously trying not to touch any of the equipment. (It smelled faintly of hamburgers inside the food truck, Dani couldn’t help but notice.) “Come on!” she called, needlessly, for the final woman couldn’t be more than a split second behind. Torrie took the last few feet towards the truck in a sprint, and only just got clear of the door when a pair of shufflers reached the truck. Their hands scrabbled at the metal, but they were just a fraction too slow to make it before the door had been slid closed. “Fuck,” she muttered, bent at the waist and breathing hard. Harder than she should have for such a short sprint, but she chalked it up to adrenaline. “Thanks.” She straightened just enough to make eye contact with the one who’d offered her truck as refuge from the geeks. “They’ll probably lose interest soon.” Torrie waved a hand towards the parking lot. Violet slammed the door shut as soon as the final woman was inside, locked it, and pressed back against it as she looked at the other two in her truck. She held her groceries tightly with one arm, her keys gripped in her free hand as she took a few moments to breathe, trying to ignore the sounds coming from outside. “Sure,” she replied, slowly moving to set her things on the small counter. “I have, um, water? If you want some?” There wasn't much in the truck considering she'd only been using it for transportation, but if they were stuck there for a while she was sure she could come up with something more. “Water would be fantastic,” Dani said. She started to reach into her bag for her phone, but caught herself. There wasn't anyone on her list of contacts, except maybe Nina, who could do anything about the situation unfolding at Walker’s except worry. Anyway, the odds were good that soldiers would arrive any moment to clear the horde out. Or, at least, she hoped that was the case. Folding her arms to hide the fact that her hands were still shaking, Dani looked over at the two other women and only belatedly added, “Yes, thank you. I'm Dani, by the way. This is a hell of a situation to get introduced in, but …” She shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Torrie interjected as she straightened all the way up, then added, “I’m Torrie.” She didn’t really care if either Dani or the other woman thought it was weird that she couldn’t call their food truck hide out the first time she’d met new people in a zombie related way. Granted, on the list she’d take it over having a walker breathing in her face any day. She weighed whether it was worth texting Lita about it, just to see if her new roommate had any strings she could pull, but ultimately decided that it wasn’t worth interrupting her day. “They probably should have built a fence.” And if she knew who had been responsible for Walker’s she probably would have said that straight to their face. How difficult was it put up chain link? “Violet,” she said absently, since they were doing introductions, and grabbed out bottles of water for all three even though Torrie hadn't asked for one. A particularly loud thump against the side of the truck made her jump, but her hands were steady as they handed off the water to the other two women. “Maybe that should be suggested, or mandated,” Violet added, taking a sip of her water before frowning. “Who would we talk to about that?” Eyeing the side of the truck where the thump had originated from, Dani clenched the bottle of water in her hands but didn’t open it. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking asking for the drink. Even though her throat felt dry and parched from running, her nerves were still thrumming, making even the small task of having some water seem incredibly daunting. God, she hoped this would be over soon. “I have no idea,” Dani answered Violet. It would be too strange to come out and admit that she was friends with the mayor, so she settled for simply adding, “But I know some people at the Capitol, and they would know who’s responsible for that sort of thing. I’ll ask around after we’re out of here.” More than the water, Torrie wanted a cigarette, but she didn’t have any on her and she wouldn’t have lit one up inside the truck anyway. She settled for opening the bottle she’d been handed instead. It was something to do with her hands at least. “I know some people with connections also,” she said. Solomon still knew people, most likely. She hadn’t asked, but she didn’t think his reputation had been tainted by their previous mayor. And KC, who she would have told anyway, but maybe he’d say something to his sister, if she asked. “It’s not going to look very good if no one wants to buy groceries because of the geeks,” she added, sarcasm only a little apparent in her tone. It was hard to know if the zombie activity outside had died down without looking, but aside from a few thumps they seemed to have lost interest with the women and the truck. “I don't know many people,” Violet admitted, because while she saw and interacted with many thanks to her work, that didn't mean she was on terms with any of them to ask around with them. The soldiers who had hung around the truck were who she knew best, but she doubted they would be able to be much help about something like that. “It’s frustrating than someplace opening up like this is marred by…” she trailed off, waving her hand toward the door. “Can't even go to the grocery store without being scared.” “Sadly, the inability to safely do any number of ordinary things is typical of Austin.” Making a face to go along with her statement Dani finally twisted open the lid of her bottle and took a sip. Now that the sounds coming from outside had died down a little, she could almost pretend to be standing inside the food truck because she’d chosen to be there. Almost. Nevertheless, the second it was safe to step outside again, she was heading for the car to get the hell out of here. “Is there any better way to see what’s going on out there? I don’t love the idea of having to open the door again to check whether the parking lot has been cleared.” Today was not the day Dani wanted to find out whether or not she possessed immunity. “Not from back here,” Violet murmured as she moved past them to go toward the front. There were windows on the doors there, and the windshield of course. She hadn't wanted to look before, but with the noise seeming to die down she wasn't as worried about what she would see. Carefully, she moved to where she could peek out the window on the door - and thankfully saw the welcome sight of soldiers rather than only shufflers. “The cavalry’s arrived.” “Thank god,” Torrie responded. Her shoulders relaxed a hair more. She and the soldiers weren’t best buds, but at least she knew they were capable of clearing the walkers out so she could get to the building, or get out of the parking lot. She still hadn’t decided which way she was going to go yet. “Think we should give them a few minutes to clean up before we leave?” “I'd rather not rush out there prematurely,” Dani agreed. Relieved, she sagged against side and rubbed a hand across her face. “However, at least there's a light at the end of the tunnel now, thank goodness.” They were all three of them undeniably lucky today. Lucky that the shufflers hadn't been any more numerous or any faster, that Violet’s truck had been within reach, that the soldiers had shown up as quickly as they had. Really, it was amazing they hadn't fared much worse. Dani let out of a soft, wry laugh. “It's been lovely meeting you both, but let's never do this again, alright?” |