characters for ~globalizing (deadbait) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-06-19 00:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [06] june, alejo costa, marcus caravahlo, thomas kerr |
Who: Tom Kerr & Alejo Costa (later; Tom & Marcus Caravahlo)
Where: Clogged stretch of road relatively near an old subway station
What: Tom is raided returning from a long run
When: Very late on June 18th / early morning of June 19th
There were way, way too many people at Grayson's Library shelter, and Tom was already tired of feeling like an ant in a series of musty leather and paper tunnels. They had told him that it was the smaller of the two shelters that were both off-shoots of the Capitol and open to civilians, but after spending so long alone or in very small, dysfunctional groups, Tom had been quickly overwhelmed by the necessary layout of the place. What's more (and not that he would have complained for reasons of physical comfort), there were no private sleeping quarters, and a strange claustrophobia had started to manifest in him right after his first night there. The old carpets had been nice, but listening to the murmur of people talking, their quiet snoring, the occasional tears; so much life around Tom had set him on edge, somehow even more so than the nights he had spent penned-in by the dead. His third night there he had spent sleeping on the roof, and after that it had become a slow integration process. Tom nodded at people a lot, and gave one- or two-word answers, and tried on a lot of smiles that didn't quite seem as genuine as he wanted. He was trying, though. And the smiles weren't failing because of a lack of effort behind them.
But when the opportunity came to go on a longer run, Tom was quick to find his place again. Scouts that had been there longer and had more connections passed over the job because many had already tried the disaster relief station that the Army had set up a good ways outside the city, and didn't see the point of risking such a long trip for likely so little payoff. Tom, however, didn't see why not (jogging was better when you had a destination), and since the map showed a lot of areas where wrecks and other generally bad city emergency planning made it difficult to get a vehicle through, he also elected to go on foot. A poor decision in retrospect, since after searching the relief station that had basically been picked clean, all Tom found was a locked cabinet full of files that he busted open, with another station address listed inside it. Paper, he thanked whatever God was watching. Not digital. The rest of the supplies were not housed at the relief station, but at a designated supply building planned for overflow, and despite the fact that it was another twenty-five miles away, Tom was able to find the building the files indicated on his old map with no issue. A vehicle would have made it easier, but if he kept up at a good run for most of the way, Tom thought he might not be gone more than an extra half a day. Peaches, he thought, not knowing how wrong he would end up being.
Initially (and eventually, when he inevitably had time to think about it), the trip had been worth it. He'd had to scale up the old art-deco building to the second floor before he could find a window unboarded enough to break into, but once inside, Tom felt the first real smile in a good long time spring like a surprise onto his face. Supplies and dead bodies. But way, way more of the former rather than the latter. The bodies themselves were practically mummified, and Tom couldn't say he was surprised; the building itself looked like nothing from the outside, the first floor boarded up tightly but not expertly, so the invitation to loot was only mild. There were absolutely no markings outside to indicate that it had been taken over by the military for temporary supply storage. Judging by the office supplies and the endless rows of cubicles, it had been some older telemarketing building before the turn had happened. Now, the hollow boxes and boxes of human working stations were filled with sealed boxes and boxes of supplies; medical, ammunition, rations, and the rest of the hardware that the mummified bodies had gathered in order to wall themselves off before they eventually joined the ranks of the other ancient Egyptians. He didn't know what had happened there, and he didn't want to know. Tom didn't have time to stand there slack jawed, either; he knew he would lose the light before long, and he'd need it to descend the outside of the building again, since he wasn't the best climber. Not to mention that the light would make it easier to get back through most of the city. He'd made plenty of trips in the dark before, but Tom was not overly fond of them.
On the ground again with his two bags packed tightly with a bit of everything, pretty much a sampler for what was to be had at this location, Tom was uncomfortable with how much he resembled a supply scout and how much of a target that would make him on the roads, but he saw no way around it for the time being. He thought he'd bring back his tasters and let the rest of the shelter know where the supply building was, and then a larger team could come back with all the hands he really needed. Tom still had the map tucked into his jeans, an after thought that would later save his secret when most of his other possessions were stolen. In those few moments before he took off running again, he was sorely tempted to turn and run in the opposite direction, but the urge passed quickly. There was so much in that building that Tom had no use for, and even what he could use... He was only one person. And if he couldn't put all that treasury of goods to use himself, than it was a telemarketing building full of wasted potential, and that was too much to be borne.
Tom hated to let a crop go to waste, even one of bullets, gauze, and medical tape.
He was most of the way back to the library when he heard the gunshots. Just a few that sounded like a call-and-answer, a shoot-out in the direction he was headed, and Tom, already sticking to the long black shadows of the buildings since it had grown dark hours ago, ducked into a doorway and waited to see what would happen. When he didn't hear anything else, Tom pulled out his flashlight and checked his map quickly, recalculating his route away from whatever was going on. Avoidance was something he did very well. Ducking out of his hiding spot again, Tom was two more blocks down when he came across the wreck. It was wide and unmarked on his map, an overturned tractor trailer laying across several crushed parked cars, but luckily the moon was bright, and he decided he could make the climb without adding too much risk to the route. The pile looked sturdy, like it had rested that way for years. Hefting his heavy packs up higher, Tom was noisier than he would have liked during the climb thanks to his supplies, and when a car shifted on top of another with an incredibly loud, long screech of metal-on-metal, Tom panicked slightly and dropped the last eight feet, landing hard with a roll and dropping half of what he carried in his stumble. In these few moments of climbing and disarray, Tom's customary cautiousness had failed him. When he straightened again, hoisting his second backpack up and over his shoulder once more, he suddenly realized that he had company. Clearly capable of being just as silent as he was, and in that moment, clearly much more so, Tom froze like a shadow in the dark. He was dressed in clothes to match, but somehow knew he'd already been seen. The guy was less than a dozen feet away, and the baseball bat strapped to Tom's pack was now just out of his reach. His gun wasn't, but Tom didn't want to think about that yet. This surprise was bad enough.
"Uh. Yeah." His voice sounded incredibly loud in the dark and on the abandoned street, and Tom lowered it almost immediately. "Not really polite to sneak up on folks, you know. But I mighta had it coming." He tightened his grip on the strap of his bag, and eyed the distance between them. If the other guy was armed, it was too dark for Tom to tell. The next alley up was a fair sprinting distance. The guy in front of him had much longer legs. "Got friends? 'Cause I don't like to do it in groups." Great, panic humor, he thought, hoping, not for the first time in his life, that it had just been the undead he'd had the misfortune to unwittingly run into. Unbeknownst to him, Tom's bad luck was catching up to him again. It was almost exactly 2 o'clock in the morning. "There something I can help you with, pal?"