Sam Fields (seattlevet) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-03-30 23:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 06, leo parker, | leo and sam |
Week Six - Tuesday
Characters: Sam Fields, Leo Parker, and Walker
Location: Office building in downtown Vegas
Summary: Sam Fields enters Vegas, and goes looking for supplies. She meets Leo and Walker, and makes friends. Well, sort of.
Rating: G
The worst of the Nevada heat was starting to ramp up when Sam entered the office building, through the back service entrance. She sighed with relief when she could feel the air conditioning kick in - thank god for people who just set up these things automatically. Even after a plague, this building was blowing cold air for all the employees who weren't around.
She shouldered her rifle over one shoulder, and started move through the piles of papers, left here and there, during the first panic of the plague, and towards the first floor employee cafeteria. She doubted any of the stuff in the fridge would be good, but there was a chance of some canned stuff she could salvage, and bring back to the tiny house she had claimed for her own, just outside of the Vegas strip.
She needed a base of operations, though, and all things considered maybe this office building would be. Hell, maybe she'd find another person. Maybe she could find Jonas, but on her second day here? She wasn't having much hope in stumbling across him.
She kicked open the doors to the cafeteria, hazel eyes narrowed as she looked around suspiciously. She'd had a few nasty surprises of people coming up behind her while they were hiding behind doors or tables, and frankly after struggling inside? With the sweat still drying off from under her tank-top and jeans? She was not in the goddamned mood.
Leo wouldn't have guessed that an office building would have turned out to be so fruitful to raid, but within an hour's time he had collected more than he could carry back on his own. Even little Walker's arms were filled, his eyes barely peeking over the top of a cardboard box filled with new, thin three-ringed binders. If nothing else, Leo figured Alice would be pleased. She was the organized one; the one with all the lists. Their last stop in the building was the cafeteria kitchen, where they hoped to find something for lunch. "Here," he lifted the box out of the boy's arms and set it on the floor.
"It's getting hot out, now," Leo explained. "We might as well wait here awhile." Walker nodded, already sifting through the cabinets at his level, in search of something to eat, even though he had a few snacks in his backpack already. Leo sat down on the floor and piled his goods in front of him. He had decided, for Jack's sake, to organize things the best he could before he dropped them off in storage and had come prepared with his pockets stuffed full of zip-lock baggies. Nearly half-way through sorting the dozens of batteries he'd gathered, Leo startled at the nearby sound of doors being kicked open and Walker's head jerked toward the entrance to the kitchen.
"Hide," Leo said under his breath, standing and pulling his shotgun over his shoulder in one fluid motion. Walker, almost stiff with fear, immediately climbed into a big metallic cabinet and pulled the door shut as quietly as he could. With the barrel of his gun lifted at eye level, Leo took small and cautious steps toward the cafeteria.
Sam shifted the gun into her hands, and crouched down, to look under the tables. Nothing nasty waiting for her under there - no crazies, no thugs, and no wild animals, which she didn't think would be a problem in Vegas, but it always paid to be safe. Especially these days.
There was a soft noise from the kitchen, nothing that said, 'AMBUSH', but Sam lifted her head and stared at the door, apprehension washing through her. She set her small shoulders, lifted the shotgun so she was ready to take a warning shot, if necessary. She moved towards the double doors slowly, and stopped five feet away.
Right, first, assume that the noise is human, but nothing else. She swallowed, then lifted her voice loud enough to be heard. "I'm armed!"
She paused, for another moment, waiting to see if she got blasted away. When she was still standing there, she added hopefully. "All I want are supplies! I didn't come in here for trouble!"
There was a moment of silence on the other side of the door as Leo waited in the kitchen, listening to the hesitation in the stranger's footsteps, then in her voice. Some of the tension eased when he realized it was only a girl, but he didn't dare let his guard down. With his butt of his gun held firmly against his shoulder, he edged closer to the doorway but kept out of sight.
"Then put down your gun," Leo ordered, his voice filled the otherwise quiet place and then he added, "I don't want any trouble, either."
Sam let out a snort of derisive laughter, then said tiredly, "Sure, and you're just going to put your gun down after that, behind the door where I can't see you, and we'll all be civilized? Please, I was not born yesterday."
She shifted the gun, gnawing on her bottom lip, before calling out. "You come out here, or you let me come in there, and if, IF I see you put down your gun, I'll put down mine."
She waited, staring at the door tensely, her jaw tight and her stomach oddly hopeful. She wasn't sure why, but after reaching Las Vegas, her final destination ... it'd be nice, if for once, she could find someone to meet up with. Have a real conversation about the state of the world, all that.
Human contact. Weird, how a year ago, that wasn't something Sam thought about in the slightest.
Siding up to the door, Leo glanced over his shoulder to make sure Walker was still out of sight. When he moved to peek through the small circular windows, the door rocked on its hinges a little, giving way to the slightest touch. Leo took a moment to survey the rest of the cafeteria, his keen eyes quickly scanning from corner to corner before they finally rested on the girl. She appeared to be younger than him, dark-haired, and small. But, like him, she was going to refuse to lower her weapon.
"You alone?" Leo asked, his tone sounding a little less guarded but still tense.
He had been listening intently to every noise around him since the moment he realized they weren't alone in this building, but he hadn't heard so much as squeaky sole. Not yet.
"Yeah. I'm alone." She wet her lips, once, then nodded her head back towards the kitchen. Her gaze didn't leave him for an instant, and neither did the muzzle of her shotgun. Sadly, trust was hard earned, these days. Still, he looked as wary as she did, so that was something.
"What about you? Who else is in the kitchen?" She paused, considering the fact he might just have someone in there carrying food, and added a touch more conversationally, "If they're not armed, they can stay in there. We'll call it a truce measure."
Leo found himself holding back a dry smirk, and once he was certain that this girl was alone and not really any kind of threat, he lowered his shotgun, if only a little. "Just a little boy," he told her. Usually, it was easy to disarm people with the mere mention of a child being present; especially women. Thinking carefully about things, he finally came through the double doors and stepped out into the cafeteria, the barrel of his gun not quite at his side but not pointed at her face either. Leo wasn't about to invite her into the kitchen, where all of his new found loot lay sprawled across the floor for easy taking.
"You live here or somethin'?" Leo asked, looking her up and down -now that he had a better view- with an expression that was a cross between aggravation and curiosity.
Leo was not wrong - when Sam heard 'little boy', she slowly lowered her gun down off her shoulder and put it at her side. Like the other man, she kept it away from his face, but kept it in her hand.
She watched him, closely. Taller than her. Older as well, but not that old. Perhaps a few years, at most. She gave him the cautious head nod of approval, but didn't move any closer as she answered his question. "No. I was thinking of setting it up as a base, though. Someplace to hide out during the worst of the heat. Guess you're just here foraging then, if you're not staying here?"
He gave her a little nod, contemplating the situation. "Yeah," Leo answered. "Just lookin' for some things." He pushed the kitchen door open a crack to peek inside and check on Walker, but within seconds his attention was back on the girl. "What's your name?"
She tilted her head, a little, before her lips quirked up faintly. "Wow, weird. It's been ... forever since I introduced myself to someone. Forgot what it feels like, doing something so frigging normal."
She gestured one hand to herself, palm flat. "I'm Samantha - but the only people who call me that are teachers and people I have no intention on liking. I prefer Sam."
With a bit of a smirk, Leo narrowed his eyes, but then he swung his shotgun over his shoulder and propped the door open again. "You can come out," he called into the kitchen. The creaking of the metallic cabinet doors being swung aside was followed by the sound of Walker's running footsteps, and suddenly the little boy appeared at Leo's side. Walker eyed Sam, half-hidden behind Leo, his wide eyes filled with curiosity and uncertainty.
"This isn't some place you'd want to hang out," Leo said. "Too big. Too easy for someone to sneak up on you." Obviously. A bit more ease settled over him as the conversation took over. "You oughtta go to the museum. There's others there, like you and me," he looked up at her. "They wait there every day for people to show." Leo paused, his eyes drifting down to the boy at his side as he thought. "Haven't you seen any of the signs?"
"Yeah, well, easy place for me to hide as well. But neither here or there .. " She put her shotgun down, giving a half-smile to the little boy as she did so, clicking on the safety as she did so. She turned back to the two of them, and breathed in deep.
"Listen, I got a question. Well, two questions, really." She breathed in deep, and hooked her fingers into her belt loops. "One .... do you either one of you feel the need to speak to me about how Jesus is my personal savior, and two, have either one of you know a young man named Jonas? He's about 5'11, and sort of looks like - uhm - that one actor who does all those really funny indie movies? Except he's gay."
Surprised by a couple of random questions, Leo stared at the girl for second. At first, he wasn't sure he was understanding her for some reason, but then his expression may have hinted that he thought maybe she'd gone a little crazy. She certainly wouldn't be the first person who'd lost their mind since the spread of the virus, and she certainly wouldn't have been the first that Leo ran into. He fingered the trigger of his gun thoughtfully and narrowed his eyes again.
"Jonas?" Leo repeated the name, trying to recall if he'd heard it since coming into Vegas, even in passing. "Doesn't sound familiar." Walker clung to Leo's pant leg like a monkey and continued to stare at Sam. "And I don't know much about Jesus." His trademark half-smirk quirked at the corner of his lips, but he was still wary.
"Damn." Sam sighed, dropping her head a little, disappointment flashing over her face, clinging to her features as she gnawed on her bottom lip. "I was hoping ... well, nevermind what I was hoping. I'll just keep looking - you said this museum ..."
She caught the look in his eye, and the way he caressed the trigger, and she bit her bottom lip again. Right. The Jesus thing. She met his smirk with a wry one of her own, and nodded towards her gun. "True story? I didn't start carrying that around with me, until I met some real religious, End of the World nutjobs in Oregon. You'll excuse me, but it makes me a little nervous when people start spouting off about the 'The Lord, Thy God' bullshit, these days."
She kept her distance, didn't move towards Leo or the boy, as she fixed her hazel eyes on them, and kept them there. Calm and steady, for a long minute, so he'd know she was being straight with him, before she continued to speak, slowly, "Now ... would you be able to tell me where this meeting place is? I do need to find Jonas. He's ... he's all I got left, and he said he'd be here, waiting for me."
Leo let his guard down a little more, the tension loosening from his shoulders. Religious zealots were already dangerous enough before the end of the world, and now they felt they were justified. He'd run into his fair share of extremists along the way, religious and otherwise. "The museum," he said. "It's Nevada State. At Lorenzi Park." Leo added that last bit and lifted a hand to swipe a few wild strands of hair out of his eyes. "I don't know how to get there from this place," he said. "Not off the top of my head. You'd be better off heading that way tomorrow, though. It's too hot out now, and by the time you find it you'd probly miss all the action."
Sam noted the address, repeating it a few times in her mind so she wouldn't forget as she distractedly watched him sweep hair from his dark eyes. "Well, I've got maps ... I can probably make a pretty good route once I know the straightest path there. Probably have to hoof it though, right? Streets being clogged, and all."
She caught the little boy looking at her intently, and offered him a tiny smile and a wave that was nothing but finger waggling, before she lifted her gaze back up to Leo. "Okay - so when's the best time to get there tomorrow?"
"Noon is when th-," Leo drifted off a moment. "No, wait. Afternoon now, I think." He shook his head dismissively. "It doesn't matter, they're there 'til the late afternoon. Alice and Jed is who you'd be askin' for." Walker smiled shyly when he was waved to, his face brightening even though he hid further behind Leo.
"If there's somebody else there, and not those two," he added. "I wouldn't stick around."
Sam nodded and bit her lower lip as she repeated those two names in her head, for instant recall. Jed and Alice. Jed and Alice. Museum. Some time after noon. She breathed deep, once. "Got it. Thanks."
She shifted on one foot, then another, before adding, almost hesitantly. "Are there ... are there a lot of other people, here? Y'know, like, civilization? People acting like they were actually raised in a barn with family groups and protecting one another and not their water bottle supply?"
Because, well, if that was possible ... then it was possible Jonas was around here, somewhere. Alive, even.
"Yeah," he answered, leaning back against a long, dust covered cafeteria table. Walker crawled underneath; that being one of his quirkiest behaviors. Leo gauged the girl from where he rested, and while he might have been showing it at all, an empathetic wave of excitement washed over him when he realized he'd get to be the one to tell her there were others, many others, and so far they were all being civil.
"We've got a pretty good crowd," Leo's expression softened some. "You know... considering. But don't get me wrong. They're protecting their water bottle supply, too."
"Yeah, I guess that water bottle thing was a little too much to ask for. Considering the fact we're both armed like there's a fox in the chicken coop." One corner of Sam's mouth twisted up, wryly, and she edged, carefully, closer to the man. She found a place to lean where she wouldn't have to strain her neck, and smiled down at the little boy again.
"He's cute. Is he yours?" She asked, looking back at Leo, folding her small hands into her pockets. The scar on her arm flashed, briefly, one long, jagged white line, then disappeared as she folded her arms down flat again so she could lean back properly.
"Kind of," Leo answered and found himself smirking at the fox in the chicken coop bit. He didn't seem to mind that Sam had moved closer. As long as she didn't act like she was going to try to bust into the kitchen, he didn't see a problem where her presence any more. "Picked him up a few months back. His parents were --" he cut himself off, and gave Sam a look. "He was alone."
Walker maneuvered between and through the bars beneath the table, seemingly oblivious to the adults' conversation, but Leo knew he was listening intently. "So we started hanging out," the man added, his tone a little lighter than it had been before.
"Yeah?" She met Leo's gaze, and her jaw tightened in sympathetic response, before she forced down any dark looking emotions, to look over at Walker. "That's pretty sweet, man. I'm trash at making friends. I'm way too mouthy to be any good at it."
She folded her arms over her chest, and smirked briefly in Leo's direction. "Also, I carry a big weapon that fires bullets, and constantly point it in other people's faces. Small woman, large gun, you can see why this would discourage conversations longer than a minute."
He continued smirking, eying the girl from where he stood. At least she was witty, and seemed to h..ave her sense about her. "Yeah, go figure. I kinda have the same problem." Walker paused in his monkey game under the table to offer a mischievous grin to Sam.
Sam gave Walker a knowing wink, and a smile, before she glanced back towards the kitchen. Her lips puckered briefly, before she nodded towards the ceiling. "Listen, I won't be taking from where you guys are supplying, but have you hit the upper levels yet? I need to know before I move on, when it gets cooler."
Following her gaze to the kitchen, Leo remembered his stash scattered on the kitchen floor and shrugged. "Go wherever you want," he said. "I've no idea what's left to find in this place, though." He gestured over his shoulder toward the door he had been so protective of a few moments ago. "The kitchen's pretty much gutted. Someone got here before us." Actually, it looked like the kitchen had been emptied and cleaned before the disasters hit. Leo would have made a move to leave, himself, if he didn't have things to gather up first.
"Well, maybe I'll find a can of soup, or something. And hey ..." She gave Leo a hopeful little smile, as she bent over to look at Walker. "Maybe if two guys who might just be friends help me? We'll all find what we want."
Always eager to help out when the grown-ups had a job to do, Walker came crawling out from under the table looking hopefully up at Leo. It wasn't like they had other things to do, especially with it being as hot out as it was, but Leo still found himself deliberating. Sticking around would mean making more small talk, and conversation never came easily to him; especially not with strangers, and especially not while he was sober. Walker tugged on the man's pant leg and pleaded silently. The kid knew Leo would want to leave.
"Alright," Leo conceded.
"Awesome. And now, I'm gonna ignore you, and talk to my man Walker." Sam straightened, and offered her small hand to the little boy, giving him a smile. "Because frankly, Leo looks like he needs a break, and I talk girly like I talk Swahili. Which is not at all. So, Walker, do you like animals?"
Still on the shy side, despite getting a little more hyper, Walker hid behind Leo again when Sam held out her hand to him. Leo offered her a disappointed look and explained. "It takes him awhile to warm up to people."
Sam bit her lip and said nothing, her gaze all quiet understanding. "It's fine. I wasn't much better as a kid." She rolled her eyes, and smiled wryly. "Goddess, forget that noise. I'm still that way. Just meaner."
She nodded towards the kitchen. "I'm going to scrounge. Stay, go, whatever you guys need. Thanks though, for everything. I hope ... I hope I'll see you again." Funny old world. She actually meant that. She gave him a nod, and a half smile, as she went back to her gun.
"I'm sure we'll see you around," Leo gave her a small but reassuring smile and stood upright, mussing Walker's hair as his eyes followed Sam. "But you be careful. Don't let your guard down," he told her. Tapping Walker on the shoulder, he got the little boy's attention and gestured back toward the kitchen, and the little boy obediently followed Leo through the door and out of sight.