Ash Holloway
Location: Wewahitchka, FL (B7 -> C8)
Skills: N/A
Too long. It had been way too long since this journey started, since they all had become refugees yet again. They had a clear goal in mind, whether the goal was a burnt out shell of a settlement or thriving metropolis was immaterial now. He had his mission. The sidequests had been handled, he had recovered from his wounds, and he was so close now to Mexico Beach that he could damn near hear the waves hitting the shoreline. He just had to make it a little while longer and he could give the dog tags back to Thana, and see where they stood after almost a year and a half. He promised. Even if that big Texan knocked her up and she was perfectly happy with him, goddamnit he promised that woman that he would get there, and he was going to do it. Thana was the mission. Mexico Beach was just the place.
The sun was already warm in the sky when Ash began to stir. For just a moment, he had the mistaken impression that he was back with his old unit, back when he was a highly educated badass with the Army Corps of Engineering, Combat Division. He was a young Lieutenant back then, a little green but fully willing to learn. And order about the noncoms as needed. Mostly the latter. But even as a younger man, Ash was strong, brave, and willing to put his education to use, setting up bridges in the middle of a firefight, defending the location until the troops could arrive and take over, and cutting a path to the next hotspot with the Special Forces guys. It wasn't all bullets and demo charges, however. He did good works by setting up potable water and irrigation systems for developing countries, fortifying soft locations, and building hospitals for locals who desperately needed them. It was long before he
had to be a true leader.
Nonetheless, the haze of the morning coupled with flashback dreams was interrupted by the heavy whock-whock-whock sound of something very familiar to the man. Familiar, but a long time since he had heard it with his waking ears. In his state though, with eyes half closed, Ash blurted out with a younger officer's arrogance:
"Evac Huey, First Sergeant! Get those ladies togeth..." Wakefulness slammed into him with the surety of someone dousing him in ice water.
He wasn't dreaming. The sound kept up in the distance, growing steadily louder. Ash looked around at the others in his little group of survivors. There was a helicopter, and active,
working chopper and it was
this close to their goal, yet everyone felt the need to stay inside and talk about gathering supplies later on. Digging into his best chunk of Commanding Presence, Ash's voice boomed across the interior of the bank,
"FIVE SECONDS TO GRAB YOUR SHIT. WE ARE ON THE MOVE." Ash had only his pack and his rifle to fetch for himself; he had passed out fully dressed, including the gear on his belt. A comfortable enough seat in the break room sufficed to steal away his consciousness the previous evening, leaving him very ready to move on immediate notice. Good thing then, that he intended to do just that.
"Huey inbound, everyone follows me now." Ash couldn't believe he actually used the words "Huey Inbound" this far along in the apocalypse. He was already on his way to the side door, opening to the main parking lot.
"We go fast, but we go smart. Two by two cover formation, keep your eyes open. Tati, stay to the middle with Jamie and use buildings as cover. The rest of you, mindful of our flanks and six. Go." Ash was already out of the door and keeping low in the proud tradition of an veteran American solider moving through unknown and potentially dangerous territory. As soon as his feet touched the relative open of the street, he paused to take stock of their surroundings. His eyes, adjusting to the light of the morning, scanned his immediate vicinity and the skies in search of people on the ground and the source of that almost forgotten noise.
Thalia Carmichael
Location: Wewahitchka, FL (B4 -> C4)
Skills: N/A
Thalia was already awake, having drawn the short straw for watch assignments the night previous. Last shift was always a pain in her ass, and there was something just depressing about seeing the sun just start to rise without the promise of hitting a local bakery for some doughnuts or the like when they were
really fresh. God, but she missed doughnuts. The Boston Creme filled ones with chocolate glaze across the top, or the crumbly, cake style ones, or the ones with real fruit jelly squirted in the middle, not to mention the massive selection of homestyle muffins she used to
love to pick up from this one spot up the road from her old office in Boston. Well, she was making herself hungry, with the only recourse being to rummage through whatever they had in their packs. Which was bullshit. It was one of the worst thing about the Apocalypse, too: Food generally sucked. If she was on her own, out in the wilderness for a good length of time, it wasn't really so bad. Sleeping behind domestic walls, be they barren, sometimes reminded her of the things she wouldn't have anymore. And she was a food person, or used to be. So yeah, sucked.
Oh yeah, and the bottom half of her forearm was missing. That kind of sucked, too. Thalia adjusted the strap to her amazingly improvised prosthetic and readied herself to meet the day as best she could. The fake arm was nothing special, but it gave her a better sense of balance and had a nasty sharp bit of edged, impaling steel on the end. She'd never make the Video Game Hall of Fame, owing to a shortage of thumbs, but she could stab the hell out of something at close range while still using her shield again. Satisfied that her stabby prosthetic (ugly though it was) wasn't going to slip anymore, she walked over to where Beatrice lay and lightly shook her shoulder,
"C'mahn bitch, daylight's burning. Almost there now. Just three more months of mosquitoes and crocodile shit and we're golden." It was an exaggerated number, but one had to admit that the going was slow, even after she was able to move properly.
Thalia mentally debated assisting Beatrice's greeting of the day by placing a foot on her hip an shaking her unmercifully, but ultimately decided against it. She didn't want to go toe-to-toe with the surly woman, at least not this early in the day. Maybe later on. With a shrug, she walked over to the wall nearby and slid her feet into badly stained sneakers and picked up her shield. She liked that shield, Really did. And the bitch who used to carry it. She made it too, the previous owner, and though the foulmouthed lady smith to whom it once belonged had slipped from this, their mortal coil, Thalia was confident that the item he left behind would give her a lifetime of service, with minimal maintenance. She slipped the carrying strap over her shoulder, letting it come to rest over her almost empty pack, and gave her pistol a quick check. Yeah she was good to move. And wanted to, with a sense of impatience.
Manny seemed to content himself with planning their next move, scavenging whatever they could based upon what buildings either were or might be closeby. It was a craps shoot, usually. But talking about it sometimes turned it into a game for them. Expectation vs. Reality. The trouble was, more often than not Reality took a ballbat to them. But it was a good way to pass a few moments. Doc wanted a scavenging party? Sure. It was what she did, and pretty damned well, too.
It was when Alexander spoke up that Thalia really paid attention. She saw enough Oliver Stone movies to know what a 'Nam vet meant by "Huey" and "Chopper". Now, it took her a moment to figure out which way was south off the top of her head, but the guess was made super easy when he noted which direction Alexander was looking as he said that.
"Wait, helicopter? Working military helicopter this close to Mexico Beach? This could be something, Mugsy." Thalia wasn't the excitable type. It didn't show much in her voice either, but she did share Alexander's sentiment.
"I'm going to check this out. You guys should come, too. Hey Bea! C'mahn, girl! I'm gonna get all the chopper for myself and not save you any!" Thalia removed her 9mm from its holster and slipped outside. She jogged toward the copse of trees to the side of the residence they had squatted in that night, then darted across, into the highway. She figured that, if the helicopter saw her and she couldn't ascertain its intentions, dropping prone might be a good survival tactic. It wasn't like a discarded body on the road was that rare of a thing, anymore. She began to make her say, swiftly and cautiously, to what looked like was once a roadside redneck convenience store if she'd ever seen one, to use the building as soft cover while she made her way toward the noise.
Hank Wright
Location: Wewahitchka, FL (E8 -> F8)
Skills: N/A
Well, Hank heard Wayne. He heard Hadrian, and he heard Erica. The former County Sheriff heard the noise approaching, but he didn't have a single clue what it might be. Not one. Were this sound to have been heard when the origins of it were commonplace and everyday, perhaps Hank would have figured it out in quick order. Or maybe
someone might have. Nope, this was an excellent time for his stalwart group of survivors to blank on something, and simultaneously to boot. He had meant what he said, about four months ago in the swamps of south Georgia: He still could not fathom how all of them were still alive.
Shaking his head, Hank bent down to pick up his backpack. The groan that issued from him was indicative that he was an onder guy yet. Sleeping on the concrete floor, while actually quite cool to touch, was not to be considered a very good thing to do all of the time. Not anymore.
"Yeah, yeah... let's not get all dramatic about it. I'm going to go take a look. Maybe it's someone with a bottle of aspirin. Hell, maybe it's strippers giving away free hotdogs in the parking lot. Hmm..." Not bad. Hank would shelve that idea for a later time. For right now, he bent down again and grabbed two very important things to his survival: His shotgun and a shovel. As it happened, the older man had gotten more actual, practical use out of a shovel than he did pretty much anything else since the Outbreak. Another mental note to file away for later, but kept in a place different from the first one. When in doubt, carry a shovel.
"Hey, I'm going to go check this out. When you little girls are done kissing each other, maybe you can join me, huh?" His eyes widened as he nodded with more vigor than necessary to get his point across.
"Come on, let's get this particular piece of damnit out of the way for the day. Barbie, Sportacus, you with me? Maldonado?" One guttural expression later and Hank was strolling out of the door and down the road just a piece. He stayed to one side of the road and within shouting distance, though curiosity over the familiar but still misplaced noise had definitely gotten the better of him. He really wanted to know.
