[IC] Walking Dead: New York City

[Lucius Cypher]

Donny nodded his head at the others comments. But now they were just talking about old stuff; time to get out. "We need to leave. Looks like we got a guest." Donny pointed his spear towards a single ghoul that just walked in. Just one, nothing they couldn't handle, but where there was one there was a thousand more. They could probably fortify the hotel lobby into a prime-time ghoul grinder, but time was limited. They couldn't waste time on any elaborate repair projects, and if they really only had five days to get out of town, he doubt that they'd have more than twelve hours of a sleep these next few days. "Let's take the car as far as we can. I also think we should try to arm up a little bit better than what we got right now, that's for certain. As impressive as this may be," Donny motioned towards his weapons and equipment. "I'd prefer to have more professionally made stuff." Donny walked over to the Ghoul, dropping into a fighting stance with his spear. He only touched upon staff fighting for a month back when he was doing karate, so he was going to have to scrounge out as much knowledge as he could.

Since he couldn't make ghouls bleed to death and stabbing them in the chest doesn't seem to do much not anything, he'd have to stab them in the head. The ghoul walked forward with it's arms stretched out, and the first thing Donny did was use his spear to slash off as many of it's fingers as he could in one swing. Three swipes later, and the Ghoul lost it's left hand and all fingers aside from it's thumb. Now he didn't have to worry about getting grabbed. His heart was racing but his breath was steady as he took a few steps back, the ghoul taking a few steps forward. With a quiet kiai he lunged forward and stabbed the blade of his spear into the ghoul's mouth. Another push and the undead monster died once again. With a quick side kick he knocked the Ghoul off his spear and looked towards the others. "Quickly now, before the horde finds us."

[Father]

Stewart's face contorted into one of pure irritation, seeing how many people began to piggy back of his rare kindness, but that guy wrapped in shrapnel made since. It was time to get out before they were swarmed by...whatever those things were. Taking a deep breath, he relaxed his shoulders and turned around from the group of folks and began to walk quickly towards the direction of the parking lot, leaving them to catch up whenever they wanted or felt like. His car wouldn't be able to hold this many people, but to hell with it. They'll deal that when they get there and to be fairly honest, he couldn't care less if he left any of them behind. They were strangers for fuck sake. "Yeah... Let's just get out before things get even more fucked up and hopeless." He adjusted his glasses and sighed, thinking about this whole situation, but, hopefully it'll be a lot easier now that he's found himself in a group of people that seem sane enough.

[UncleBob]

Between stabbing Ricardo in the face, and now, Josh wasn't quite sure what had exactly happened. He knew he'd cycled home as fast as possible, thinking the police had to be after him, and prepared a bag to get out of the city. He was going home, back where he'd be...safe? Who was he kidding. He'd go to jail for this one for sure. No- positive thinking. He'd get back to Detroit, everything would be fine, happy days, happy days, goddammit. He'd fucking killed a man. Yeah, the man wasn't in his right mind (the eyes still haunted him) but that would go down as murder. In the bag were a few changes of socks and underwear, a book, and his freaking awesome hand-powered torch thingy that would get charged by winding a handle. Pretty useful in a dark apartment. He had gotten rid of his blood-soaked clothes, and instead opted for a white t-shirt, dark grey hoodie and his tough, if seriously old winter coat. It was nice and warm though, left over from when he lived in Detroit, seeing as the winters there got pretty damn cold. In New York too, but being smack bang in the middle of town meant he didn't quite feel it as much.
Then, with his bag by the front door, he'd flopped down on his bed and crashed for the night.
In the morning he'd called his mother, telling her that he's coming home. She sounded slightly hysterical, and very insistent on him leaving the city.
'You gotta leave, Joshua,' She'd said. 'There's a hella lot of crazy stuff going on, people getting ill, people dying. You get outta there, you hear?' Well it'd been the first thing Joshua had heard of New York being in the throes of some epidemic, but he assured her he was coming home. Then he grabbed his bike, and was about to make it out of the door when he turned back, and on a whim grabbed the cleaned knife from the kitchen, the same one that he'd killed Ricardo with. Some anxious, niggling voice in the back told him he'd need it.
And here he was, legging it down a road with a pack of angry people behind him, moaning and yelling. It was comical really; he'd run over a pothole, bending the wheel of his bike utterly out of shape. And as he dusted himself off, he suddenly found himself face to face with, well, a crazy thingy, with the same eyes Ricardo had. The crazy thingy seemed to be as surprised to see Josh as Josh was to see it. They were both perfectly still for a split second, like, 'What are you doing here?' And then the shit hit the fan.
Josh had run down away from the crazy thing, yelling at the top of his voice. The crazy thing had roared and was joined by a gang of other crazy things, and then commenced to chase Josh down the road. They were forming a veritable mob, and one knife couldn't stop them all. So he kept running.
And then, to his complete joy, he saw people. People getting into a car that was in a parking lot of a hotel.
'Help me! Help me!'

[Vantas]

On the first day of the apocalypse Gram had been working at the sporting goods store like usual; her regular outfit of red pants, a green turtleneck with sleeves that went to her lower elbows and a black vest on, a white headband pulling back her unruly blood red hair. Her mp3 player blasting in her ear playing one of her favorite songs
At first she didn't hear the screaming from the streets, her music turned up so loudly that she couldn't have heard if a bomb had been dropped outside of the store but then she saw glass shattering in the corner of her eye, as she turned her head she saw people jumping into the store, stealing things and fighting each other for items. She was so confused and angered but then looking out of the corner of her eye she turned slowly to see the people falling dead in the streets, killing each other to get past and then she saw them.
Festering skin, moans of hunger- from the deepest pits of hell.
She started to run, she had to get away from whatever the fuck those things were, it was her only instinct. Her black converse slapped against the hard ground, her music was still playing in her ear but now she could hardly hear it over the blood pulsing in her veins; louder than any music.
She ran away from the store to her car, trying to get in before someone stole it. Her door was locked, she always locked it when she got out and she had left her backpack in the break room. Swearing violently she turned her head out of habit and then broke the window with her elbow, cutting it up but not too badly.
She reached her hand in and unlocked the door, wiping away the broken glass shards with her gloved hand and leaning down; pulling off the panel that hid the wires to the old car, she was going to hot-wire it, she needed to get to her apartment.
It worked, the car roared to life and she slammed her foot on the gas pedal.

Pulling up to her apartment she ran upstairs; knocking fiercely on her door.
"Danny, Danny. Fuck. Danny open the door!"
"Gram?"
"Yes, it's Gram, now open the door!"
There was the sound of seven locks undoing and then the door opening, Gram ran in before the door was even halfway open then turned and closed it, her heart pounding, her MP3 player only half in her ear. She pulled out the ear buds and threw them to the side, looking at the young boy in the room who was currently relocking the door.
He was around seven years old, small, with blue green eyes and strawberry blonde unruly hair.
This was Danny, Grams little brother and 'adoptive son', she had taken him in after her parents couldn't take care of him anymore, she had only been seventeen at the time, but nevertheless, he was her responsibility and all she was thinking about was keeping him safe, the only family she had left.
"Gram what's going on out there? I heard screaming and guns and- And- on the news they said-."
Gram walked forward, pulling her brother into her arms.
"It's fine, we're fine, we're leaving. Now. We have to leave before it's too late."
"I don't want to go!"
"Danny this is no time to argue, we have to go, come on."
"I don't want too, it's too loud out there and too scary, I don't want to leave."
"Danny!"
He crossed his arms and backed away from her, his eyes filled with tears, as cold as Gram was she couldn't stand to see her brother cry.
"Fine, one night, we're leaving in the morning."
She knew this was dangerous, but she couldn't leave without Danny wanting too, if he didn't want to it was likely he would open the door while she was driving and jump out. He'd done it before.

On the second day of the apocalypse Gram walked out of the building, her brother in tow, only to find her car had been stolen.
"Fuck!" She screamed, pulling at her hair. Wearing the same clothes she had on last night.
"Gram what's wrong?"
"What do you think is wrong, Danny? My cars been stolen!"
"Don't yell at me!"
"Don't talk back to me!"
They continued like that for seven minutes.
"Stay here, go up to the apartment, stay there until I come back."
"Where are you going?!"
"I'm going to find a car, now go."
"I want to come with you!"
"No, don't be an idiot, you'll be safer here. I can't have you dragging me back while I look."
"...Fine."

Gram watched to make sure her brother got in the building before running off, going to find a car.

She looked for nearly five hours, every car she found was broke, dead, or had parts stolen from it. None worked, it was unbelievable; finally she gave up and decided to go back to find Danny and to travel on foot. Only, when she got back to the apartment and knocked on the door no one answered, "Danny?" She croaked, "Danny open the door! Danny!" She grabbed on the door handle expecting it to be locked, but the door swung right open.
She gasped in horror looking around, everything was gone or ransacked, her couch turned over, her tv broke and knocked down, her cupboards picked bare. But the only thing she was focused on was Danny, he was gone, nowhere to be seen.
She ran around the room, then the whole building, screaming for Danny but he didn't answer.
He was gone. Dead, or taken, either way he was gone; and it was Grams fault. She should have let him come with her, she should have known better than to leave a seven year old alone.
She walked up to her room and pulled the couch back upright and sat down on it, too shocked and forgone with grief to do anything but sit there.

A few days past before she realized how hungry and thirsty she was, honestly she didn't care, she didn't care about anything.
She could die and she didn't care, but she realized Danny might be alive. Might be somewhere, and he needed her. She had to find him, she had to get out of the state and find him.
She would start at the sports store, see if there was anything she could find there to help her. She walked there, the only thing she had was a water-bottle the thieves hadn't taken. She drained it of water and stumbled to the store. Her throat now drenched and a fire in her heart, a need to find her brother.
She started walking downtown to the sports store, hopefully, something would be there.

[thatguy]

Watching the Junk man spear the undead beast, James looked around in case there were any others as the non-group of young adults managed to reach a car, which was just a regular sedan, though kind of dark green.

He opened the back driver's side door for the woman named Gwen saying, "ladies first," in a respectful kind of way.

Then he heard the plea for help, followed by the gutteral and familiar moans of the beasts. It took a moment, but James finally saw the guy with a knife being chased by a mob of those things. He tried to decide on which was more important, his own neck, or someone else's?

"I'm going to regret this," he said with a moan, and raised his pistol. He walked briskly, careful and patient as they approached. "Get in the vehicle," he ordered the running man, and motioned his head to the green sedan.

Seconds later tehe things were half a block away, and James considered which to shoot first.

Several yards left, and he shot his first target, what was once a well dressed business man, now crumpled to the ground, causing several others to trip and have a hard time getting back on their feet.

He studied them for a longer moment, and realized they had no idea how to stand back up, so he slipped his gun back into his waistband and ran back to the car, "let's go!" He ordered everybody.

[Expllo]

As Stewart began walking away, Kevin followed behind him. Hearing the dead coming, he wasn't going to waste anytime, that meant following the guy that did have the car and not talking about future possibilities. He got into the passenger seat, he wasn't going to get into the back. It was a little weird though, being in a car when most of the time he spent on his motorcycle....Harley, he remembered what happened, it had broken down and he had to resort to the hotel. She did me good, I guess it's time to let her go, Kevin thought with a small sigh as he just looked forward awaiting for everyone to get in the car.

Hearing the guy call for help, Kevin looked out to window to see where the guy was, down the street being chased by walkers. James had made a shot and told the guy to get over to them, which Kevin thought iffy of....But at the same time they were hopping into some random guy's car without actually thinking of his feelings about it, so Kevin didn't speak on it and just looked forward once more and closed his eyes. He was surprisingly calm, and almost looked asleep, which showed how little he cared of the situation. He couldn't keep his eyes shut for long though, as memories of his grandfather popping out of his casket made him jump a little, so he continued to look forward with his wrench tight in hand. Hopefully this guy doesn't take long to get to the car, Kevin thought.

[4weekcoma]

Gwyn rolled her eyes, running and getting into the back of the car.

"This doesn't make me the weak one." Gwyn stated, pointing at the guy. "You hear?"

Gwyn hated the idea of being the weak girl with the small knife - which is what she currently was. She needed to show she was tough, then she'd get a better weapon, and she could look after herself. She didn't want to be dependent on anyone else. All of a sudden Gwyn felt really nauseous, like she was going to throw up - right then. She opened the door and leaned over, spewing her guts out on the side walk. It must have been the stress of the situation, but it was weird for her to just throw up like that. Really weird.

"Sorry." Gwyn said to no one in particular, scooting over the the other side of the car to make their retreat faster. "Come on, let's get out of here."

[Lucius Cypher]

Good thing everyone else decided to get moving, because by the time they got to the car some dumbass started shouting for their help while being chased by a horde. "Awesome sauce..." With a quick glance he counted off twenty ghouls, which was twenty more than they should have to deal with. As everyone was getting into the car, Donny popped the trunk. He didn't think anyone wanted to be crush by him or anything. He dully noted the girl poking after stating she wasn't weak, and decided that this was not the time to make wise cracks. Tempting though. Getting inside the trunk and securing himself the best he could, he got his spear at the ready. "Let's get outta here!"

[Father]

Stewart plopped into the driver's seat with an irritated groan. Not only was the world going to shit, but he had complete strangers piling into his vehicle and like the chick in his backseat, he felt like vomiting too. After all the running, blood and gore, and the dead walking around to eat people, he deserved to vomit. This bull was disgusting! "Eugh..." With a sigh, he leaned forward over the steering wheel and popped the keys into the car's ignition, priming the engine until he heard the engine rattle under the hood. No luck. He cursed under his breath as he tried again, listening to the engine jump to life and the usual jazz music radio station replaced with static. A sigh escaped his lips and he adjusted his glasses before standing up, looking towards the those that weren't already in the car.

Cupping the side of his mouth, he shouted and waved towards gun-guy and bait-person. "The cars up, get moving!" He lowered his head back into the car, checking if everything was actually ready. He had adjusted the rear view mirror, fiddled with the window wipers like an amateur, and then finally, reassured the readiness of his vehicle. "By the way, I'm Stewart." He said out loud, staring up at the mirror.

[thatguy]

Once everyone else, including the runner, and the guy with the makeshift armor suit had piled into the car and trunk, James squeezed in, in time for Stewart to tell his name. "James," he simply said as they started to pull out into the midly abandoned street with World Trade Center 1 looming in the background and they started towards the Robert F Wagner Jr. Park.

Anxious about the white noise, and not wanting to stare out into the death and chaos outside, James leaned towards to dial in the radio, "don't mind me everyone,"he said lightheartedly as he flipped through several channels until they reached the intersection of West and Rector, despite the stoplight.

James struck gold when he reached a government radio station, "...A recording. We repeat, this is a recording. All uninfected individuals must leave the city limits in 5 days time, this is an epidemic and the authorities are going to handle it, in the meantime, please leave the city limits as calmly as possible. We will provide answers, but in the meantime- wait, hey you! You can't come in he-"

Then came a gutteral moaning sound familiar with the ghouls, then static, and then the same "this is a recording" voice...

[4weekcoma]

Gwyn swallowed. This was so bad. She needed a smoke, god, she hadn't stopped for what seemed like forever. She missed the normal world.

"This is really bad, isn't it?" she asked. Well, obviously. God, she must've sounded like an idiot. "Well, yeah... I mean... we need to get out of the city. You think we can get the whole way in the car?"

Gwyn already sounded whiney, she could hear herself. She'd never gotten like this before, she was normally so independent. Guess being surrounded by killing machines with no real weapons made her a whole lot more dependent.

[Lucius Cypher]

Once everyone got into the car, it drove off. Though Donny didn't have any sort of seat belts, the ride itself was still rather smooth. He still held on tightly in case though, watching the streets roll by. The car zoomed past many ghouls, most didn't even bother to so much as turn. Probably too slow to really catch them anyways, thankfully. Watching the ghouls from the trunk brought a funny thought to Donny; mostly it was how eerily normal they looked. At their speed, the ghouls almost looked like normal people. Even if they were just shuffling around aimlessly in groups, that was how New York was before hell broke loose. "Like some fucked up Aesop or something..." He said to himself.

As they continued onwards, Donny used his free hand to look at a road map he found in the hotel. He knew they had just passed the intersection of West and Rector, though he never really knew New York all that well. Still it was better than wondering aimlessly around. The map was updated to this year, and from what he could tell, there was a shopping district not too far away. It had a Kohl's, Best Buy, Dicks Sporting, the usual commercial shopping marts. Assuming that they haven't been picked clean, he wondered if they could stop by and pick up some new equipment. He could likely upgrade his armor and arsenal, maybe even find a better ride than this. Thinking about it, surely some of the Ghouls would have their car keys on them, wouldn't they? Donny made a mental note to filch their keys after he killed them, might come in handy.

[UncleBob]

Josh was infinitely grateful to whoever the dude was with the gun, but he wasted no time thanking him. Nope- he just kept his momentum, made some super awesome flying leap into the car, luckily not stabbing anyone. He slung his bag off his shoulder and rested it in his lap, and then proceeded to just breathe for a few minutes while he thanked his lucky stars he'd made it.
Should he question why the fuck he'd gotten into a car with a bunch of strangers? No...and the guy had a gun, probably worth hanging around with him. So he decided to make some conversation.
Still panting heavily, he said, 'What...what the fuck...' Pant pant. 'Were those...things?'

[Father]

Stewart kept his attention on the road while he continued to drive slowly, avoiding other survivors and those things as best he could. Bad enough he's got these people with him. Switching his eyes away from the street to the sidewalk, he could clearly see those dead things either shamble towards the car or pay them no mind and continue on with their captured meal. It sent a cold shiver up his spine as he focused back on the street, "Ain't that the question of the hour..." He sighed, stopping himself from being an even bigger asshole than he usually is. Now wasn't the time to take out his frustrations on a completely random stranger. "But yeah, I have no idea what they are. Lets, lets just get the fuck out of New York." Removing one of his hands from the steering wheel, Stewart adjusted his glasses, deciding to keep quiet once again.

[thatguy]

So much hunger.

For the past week, the undead feasted, unchallengingly upon the living, growing their numbers and swelling their ranks to terrifying levels.

So much noise.

Driven by the cries, the yells of their next victims, of gunshots and carhorns, the undead shamboled on, at first they were alone, and as their ranks grew, the herds they traveled in grew, driven towards the sounds n the bridges, towards the jammed up traffic, towards their unsuspecting meals.

So much hunger.

The non-group of survivors, piled into the sedan, had passed what once was a nice quiet corner of New York, Robert F Wagner Jr Park was now a gory, blood splattered war zone of a place as death feast on the living until nothing remained.

A group of the things had been following the car from behind, but another, larger group had heard it coming, and slowly shamboled in it's direction, gathering followers with every awkward step.

At Broadway, the car had to turn, due to a collision and another collection of feasting flesh eaters, one of which was once a paramedic, now ironically killing the driver instead of save him.

As the car passed Liberty street, the occupants were getting desperate, as every street going towards the Brooklyn Bridge was blocked, and more ghouls were gathering en mass. They could not turn back if they wanted to. The image of the bridge weaving in and out of building view was like God laughing in their faces.

Then finally they saw it.

The car had stopped at Vesey street and Park Row, a park covering a square block, but it wasn't salvation that the survivors were witness to,

T'was a stampede of death, coming down Vesey and what was soon to be the highway. They were cornered, and their only choice was to run...

[Lucius Cypher]

Worse. That's their situation. Or more eloquently, things were getting worse. It started understandably at first: the usual ways towards the Brooklyn bridge was getting blocked. he knew this well enough. But as the car continued to drive around, stopping and than going, Donny noticed that it seemed that every path was blocked. That they were trapped. Donny kept his spirit up by thinking that it was just a matter of time; a matter of time before they got their break, that they'd meet someone or a group that would help them out. Anything.

What came instead was dread. Things were getting worse.

The car came to a halt longer than usual. Curious, Donny leaned out of the car to see what was up. "Holy..." There it was. What he feared most; the horde. He had always imagined what it'd look like; thousands upon thousands of undead coming towards him in a mass of rotted flesh and teeth. And though this description matched well with what he saw, he still scared out of his mind. They came en masses, pushing against each other and coming in faster than they would in smaller groups. Strange how fearsome they were working together; maybe the surviving humans could learn a thing or two from them. But no matter, now wasn't the time to think about the lesson this was going to teach; they all needed to book it. Because they couldn't very well drive back since they were now trapped between two hordes, and the car wouldn't surviving plowing through the entire mob. "Feats don't fail me now!"

Donny was one of the first to get out of the car. He didn't really have any idea where he was going, but anywhere was better than here. He ran into only one Ghoul that managed to get the jump on him, but his attempts to bite him was met with failure thanks to Donny's armored plates. He stabbed the ghoul with his spear but didn't bother to try to pry it out; he just snapped the handle off and used it to bat away more ghouls as he made his mad dash away from the horde.

[UncleBob]

Gun or armour? Those were important questions that everyone has to ask themselves once in their lifetimes. And now was Josh's moment. Stay with the dude with the gun? Or the dude with the armour?
His mind was made up, however, when the said dude with the armour got out of the car and started ploughing through the ...ghouls? The name didn't sound quite right, but oh well. That was what they were calling them anyway. He grabbed the knife, and leapt out of the car after the armoured guy. Leapt out into a ghoul.
Josh screamed and stabbed simultaneously. It hit the ghouls jaw, went in but the bone mostly deflected the knife. The creature kept coming, so he went for the eye. Joshua plunged his knife right in and the ghoul fell. 'Ok, ok they don't like eye stabbings. So I gotta go for the eye.' Then, raising his voice, he shouted the same warning for the others in the car. 'Go for the eyes, guys!' He dispatched of a few more like that, miraculously hitting the eye, albeit after a few tries in some cases. The horde of ghouls were starting to thin, but they were still much too strong to hold off. They had to get out.
Josh chased after the guy with the armour, finishing off any dazed ghouls the human tank had left behind.
'Quickly! We gotta get outta here!'

[Expllo]

The cries, the screams, Kevin tried to ignore it all as they went on. As they went on, the car began trying to maneuver through cars that were broken down, that was when Kevin saw the huge road block ahead and sighed. It was like the All-Star said, roads were blocked and they would have to get used to walking, especially since he saw that large group of dead walking towards them. He wasted no time in getting out of the car, they couldn't go forward, they couldn't go back, best bet was to run. It seemed as if he wasn't the only one thinking this as All-Star got out at the same time as him, and then 'Save me' guy after them.

Of course, Kevin would follow All-Star, hell it was a good plan. The guy had armor, one of those things tried biting him then he'd just pushed them on All-Star, while they tried eating through his suit--hell, they might not, but worth the thought anyways--then he could just bash their head in and help All-Star up. Ok, maybe that was too much of a dick move, he wouldn't do that. But running with him was better than staying in that car where they would be trapped by the horde.

As they ran, All-Star hit the dead away with his spear handle, Kevin smacked them away hard with his wrench, it seemed to be working as it made a clear path for the two. He didn't know how the others would fair against this, if they were fast enough then they could run through their path, if not then they could make their own. Kevin stopped caring at the moment, as his own life was on the line, he knew a few adults could take care of themselves and didn't need his worrying. Besides, there was nothing he could do to help them....

[thatguy]

It all happened rather quickly, the hordes were cornering them, undead arms outstretched to feast upon their meals. Several of those in the car decided to bail, Armor was out of the truck, 'Save Me' was running behind him, as were a couple others.

So James took a moment and looked over his Walther PPS. He had eight rounds left, he sighed thinking to be foolish to make a stand and looked at the others who had yet to leave, " Follow the leader," he told them jokingly and grabbed his pack before running in the direction of the small park where the others were going, and where several stragglers of the northern herde had deviated.

He climbed atop a small playground for a better vantage point, noting the hordes couldn't do much else but shuffle awkwardly. Firing his weapon at a nearby member of the undead, James decided to picket his weapon, and yelled out for those outside of the car, "go to the buildings!" He said, pointing to the ones a block over, particylularly one that seemed a little extra barricaded, called Modell's Sporting Goods.

[UncleBob]

'Go to the buildings!' Gun man yelled.
'Good idea,' Josh muttered. But with the amount of creatures around him, groaning with their half-rotten faces, like the dead had just decided to up and start walking- that's it! 'Walkers, damn, of course. That sounds better.' Then Josh decided that he probably had better things to do than think about the proper definitions for these monsters, and saw a gap in the slowly thinning horde. He darted through, and ran for his goddamn life, aiming for the shop that sold (used to sell, probably) sporting goods. He hoped to hell that the others could make it through the same gap, but in the end it was looking after no.1 and that shit. There were a few outside the shop, which he started dispatching as quickly as possible.