Under the Fallen Arch [IC]

[FinderOfPaths]

As Jarod coolly and silently as ever followed the survivors, the scream of the jets overhead drew his sight to their target: The Gateway Arch. Daniels his gaze to their trails as well, no surprise considering his position and circumstance. The twin fighter jets' strafing run was less of a sight to behold whether it be for beauty or insight, as the only message it spelled was that the rescue party was no more. It was essentially a hit-and-run of their only secure way out of this nightmare, and for Jarod, it was a lot more. For the entire time he'd been in the Red Zone, ever since that damned crash, he'd been trying to live up to the agreed-upon goal: get to haven in Northern America, wherever the hell that might be. And Jarod was wholly convinced this was it, that this was the solution they had pained so much for over time...

At the least, Daniels was able to contain his utter hatred of the situation until they got to the Holiday Inn. The mute hunter was not quite so subtle; while the police soldier and the rest stopped at the corner, Jarod stayed behind to pick up a convenient, half-burnt lead pipe off the ground and proceeded to tear the nearest crashed car apart with it. By the time he was done, the car had looked notably worse for wear with half of its windows smashed, the hood battered off entirely to reveal a bashed and totaled engine, with the pipe jammed almost impossibly between the oil valve and the battery. Thankfully, no alarms went off, yet at least a dozen shambling undead figures were still attracted by the noise of a lead bar versus glass, metal and a gasoline-ignition system. Jarod was well on his way with the rest of the group at that point, moving at a quick trot, looking not a bit satisfied and staring lasers of unparalleled anger straight ahead for the rest of the journey.

Anything with half a brain could tell Jarod was not angry, not very frustrated, but absolutely furious. It was a fact that set everyone a good distance away form the hunter and begin to question his mental stability, or apparent lack thereof. And if anyone had bothered to listen to Jarod's raving rampage upon the wrecked vehicle, they might have heard the faintest evidence of some sort of pained yell, as if the very hopes he still clung to for existence had been bombed along with the Arch.

[JarlWolf]

Rodney stood there. He didn't blink in the whole time in between Paulie having shot that woman and Paulie moving over to the ledge, still shocked. He wiped his face and blinked, and finally moved up to Paulie. He had heard the Jets fly overhead, and when he caught up to Paulie he saw a distant, bright glow coupled with thick, disgusting plumes of black smoke with almost blue tinged flames far out into the distance in the Arch. The wind had started blowing their way for a moment, and he caught a whiff of the horrid smell. It almost smelled like pork sausage being burned, but far more foul. He stared with near disbelief, and he looked over to Arch.
"My fucking god.... they..."

The smoke risen higher into the air, and it plumed up like a awakened beast. A beast that had birthed from the fiery bowels of vengeance and reckoning.

Rodney grasped the ledge with his hand, and tucked his hatchet away. He looked at the ledge, and then stared out in the direction of the bombing.

"If we had gone further Paulie those planes would've dropped that load on us without a second thought, and scorch us with whatever and whoever the fuck else was there.
I've heard, and we both seen some crazy shit Paulie, but now we know for certain."
Rodney stood still.
"The Government isn't coming to save us, or to evacuate us or anything.
They left us for dead Paulie...
...and now we are alone."

He just shook his head in disgust for the following incident. He looked at Paulie again, raising his eyes to eye contact level.
"Lets move. We got to be careful and find somewhere safe for now, the inner city is fucked to hell and back."

Rodney stepped away from the ledge, looking around. The corpse of the blonde woman lay limp behind them, a bullet hole straight through her forehead, jet black like stains of coagulated blood flung onto the concrete.

[Red Beret]

Sarah Schultz

It was painfully obvious that something was wrong. Jarod and Daniels both looked painfully enraged, and Sarah knew that it had something to do with the jets that had flown overhead not too long ago. Burke was being quiet--in fact, he'd slipped off to scout ahead deeper into the hotel. Daniels was beyond enraged. Sarah had seen a similar look on too many faces to think otherwise. They obviously thought that something bad had happened, and at the back of her mind, she was thinking the same thing the rest of them were, but somehow she wanted to cling onto the notion that they were wrong, that the distant thumps had not been the Arch, that there was still someplace safe to return to, that they wouldn't be abandoned in this horrible place. Still, she looked to Daniels again and saw that she was most likely horribly, horribly wrong.

Jarod didn't look any more hopeful, and in fact looked even angrier than Daniels. It scared her... Daniels was angry, sure, but there was something about the uniform that made it okay in her mind. He was a soldier after all, and that naive part of her told her that he'd know what to do... at the very least, he was unlikely to go off and do something dangerous, right? Jarod, on the other hand, was mute, had already shown that he was more than willing to get into a hand-to-hand encounter with the infected, and probably not the most stable person to be around at the moment. His inability to communicate normally with the rest of them was likely only compounding things.

She was determined not to show fear, though, unaware of the exact circumstances, she couldn't bring herself to be angry. She was exhausted, probably over-analyzing things, but she wasn't actually mad. It was possible that she was in shock--she didn't think so, herself, but it was certainly possible that all of this was working in unison to suppress any emotions that might bubble to the surface. That was something for shrinks to sort out, though. She looked at Daniels again, this time with a weary gaze.

Did they bomb the Arch, Sarge?

"We'd better get some rest," she said instead, "We can probably fortify the kitchen, doubt anything's actually working, but we can't stay in here. Too open."

Where had Burke gotten to? He was probably already five steps ahead of her, he seemed like that sort of guy.

"We can probably get blankets and pillows from house service... I don't recommend splitting up, though," she continued, "We've come too far just to have someone get... well... you know."


Paul "Paulie" Buscetta

"Lets move. We got to be careful and find somewhere safe for now, the inner city is fucked to hell and back."

"Yeah," Paulie said absently, then shook his head, "Yeah, let's get outta here. God damn it."

They made their way slowly back down the stairs, and were lucky enough to have as uneventful a descent as they'd had a climb. Then it was back through the hallways, past a banging door, and into the kitchen. Kiva was gone. There wasn't any sign of a struggle or anything, she'd just vamoosed. Now she was going to be out there by her lonesome. Not that two old men (face it, Paul, you ain't exactly young) like themselves would have been much help, but Paulie was certain it would have been better than striking out on her own.

"Shit, let's check the bathrooms," Paulie suggested, "I'd feel bad leavin' the kid behind, yanno?"

It was somewhat true. She'd saved his life a couple of times in the bast twenty-four hours, but he wasn't about to get sappy about it. Rodney agreed, though, and they each took a bathroom. Paulie heard the sound of an axe swinging echo out from the men's room, but the women's room was completely silent. There was no Kiva here. Paulie took a moment to relieve himself, and felt a small, irrational sort of guilt when he saw Rodney leaning in the doorway. He brushed it aside.

"She ain't in here," he said, "Let's grab what we can from the kitchen and get outta here."

[howler01]

Daniels listened to Sarah...and the utter rage and anger he felt subsided, slowly, from his face. He loosened his grip on the radio and slid all the way down on the pole till he was on the floor. At first, he nodded blankly at her. he understood what she was saying, they needed to move to a more closed location. Somewhere they could all hole up and sleep. He continued to nod, and he could see the fatigue in her eyes. She was tired, and it hadn't yet hit her that their plan A had gone up in flames. Or, if it had, she wasn't showing it. Daniels gave Sarah quite a bit of credit for that. He said,"Right. Good plan. We go get blankets and pillows and bedding stuff from housekeeping, we find the kitchen and lock it down. Then, we sleep." As much as the other looked to him to lead their group; Daniels wasn't sure just how much he was in charge anymore. He clearly no longer had any authority with the command post just a few miles away. He could try radioing elsewhere, but he doubted they'd even listen. They needed a plan B; some alternative route outta here...but to where? That was most important. Secondly, where the hell was Burke? he'd probably gone off in search of medical supplies or something. They'd need him, too. He could very easily patch any one of them up if they got hurt.

He looked outside and saw what remained of a car that Jarod had utterly destroyed. Daniels chuckled at this; finding it weird that the mute one among them had gotten so angry; but perhaps for different reasons. He grunted and stood up from where he had been sitting and called out to him,"Jarod. Come on, we're going to make the kitchen fortified then we're going to get some sleep. You can play Street Fighter 2 later." Daniels was of course referring to the bonus stage in which any of the character had to destroy a car for points. He'd have given the man 1 million right about then. The car symbolized both of theri anger, and Daniels own frustration with the way things had not worked out at all so far.

He walked towards the kitchen and pushed open the swinging double doors to reveal a fairly standard hotel kitchen. pots were everywhere, not really stacked; but not really strewn about. It looked as though the zombies had interrupted food preparation for the day. The white lights showed him that room had three exits. The main one, which he had entered through, one of the side, presumably to a dumbwaiter, and one more, presumably to the bell boy area where they could go follow the food up. The first thing was to check these exits for zombies. the sergeant raised his gun up to a shooting position and proceeded towards the exit to the dumbwaiter, figuring it would be easiest to check first. He pressed the button to call the elevator once and heard nothing. he pressed it again...and still nothing. Finally, he spotted the reason why the button wasn't working; the elevator was already on that floor and it was utterly empty. Coming back into the kitchen areas Daniels said to those present,"That room's clear, make sure we lock that door and block it somehow." He then proceeded towards the second of the three exits.

"one of you, cover me while I check this one out. Could be zeds in here." Daniels said cautiously. He waited for backup before going in.