[IC] #SNB | [Full]

[Carlyle]

ᴋ ᴀ ʀ ᴇ ɴ ʙ ʏ ʀ ɴ ᴇ

---

_{Location: Jenkins' Diner, Rushford}

Date: May 7th, 2019

---

It was early in the morning, but Karen struggled falling back asleep. Old, outdated diner booths rarely made for a good night's rest, nor did the endless worries she had been having ever since the initial outbreak and panic. She couldn't believe that the dead were walking, or that people she had known since her childhood were eating their neighbors. Was this truly the sickness the State Police were trying to quarantine off? What of her Michigan relatives; were they alive? Dead? For all Karen knew, they could've even be among the cannibalistic undead by now.

Kaylee was looking forward to graduating this year. God, I hope she and her parents made it out in time.

With an exhausted glimpse at her watch, Karen forced herself out of the booth she had been using as a bed and walked behind the counter to start brewing a pot of coffee for the group, feeling that she needed something to calm the nerves. Even if they were living a nightmare that was thought to be purely fiction, her instructors at FLETC stressed the importance of keeping a level head on your shoulders. Then again, they didn't quite prepare their class for the whole"zombies eating people" thing either.

"Good thing I don't have a problem with black coffee," Karen quietly mused as she dug through one of the creamer baskets sitting on the front counter. "But surely you have the good stuff somewhere, old man. Don't tell me you left us in the apocalypse with the choice of half and half or half and half."

Of course, that seemed to be the case for all of the counter bowls. Looking over at Jenkins' granddaughter, Katherine, Karen pondered asking her, feeling that if anyone knew where the good creamer was, she'd know.

Maybe I could ask where her grandfather's been, too. I'd hate for him to be mixed up with all of this.

[mickilennial]

---

Coffee Creamer wasn’t something that had been on Katie Jenkins mind. Not that she had been paying attention to the older woman’s murmurs as she looked through the cabinets. Had she asked, Katie would’ve mentioned checking with the milk and other refrigerated supplies. For the most part it had been Katie in the diner by herself until the last few days. She wasn’t sure who had been the first to join her in the diner, but the group had seemed to grow larger with each passing day. In the end, it didn’t really matter. Eventually, they were going to run out of food and water. Katie knew that. She knew that from the beginning, but she hadn’t even considered the thought of leaving despite wanting to leave Rushford since forever ago.

A mud-covered shovel next to an old mop told some parts of the story. She hadn’t volunteered to tell it. How could she? She didn’t even want to relive it. All she could do was to operate like it was normal as impossible as that was given what the pandemic had turned into. How the other inhabitants of the diner could sleep throughout the night she couldn’t even understand.

Katie hadn’t slept in three days.

Such things were clear. The long shadows underneath the red-haired girl’s eyes, the way she moved devoid of energy, and the empty smiles and nods were all symptoms of someone who hadn’t figured out how to function. Ironically enough, it was all for very different reasons as the rest of them. They might’ve assumed he had lost his life to one of the infected outside or something else, but no, he had vanished in the most coincidental and ironic fashion. Not that any of them asked her about it. She wasn’t sure how she’d answer if they did.

Those were the kind of things that had crossed her mind since the moment more people came into the diner in the last few days, though at the very least she found solace in the fact that she wasn’t entirely delusional. A weaker person might have pretended everything was normal and the pandemic wasn’t happening. She wasn’t that dense or broken, but she was broken. Just broken enough to not walk out into the street and ask for it all to end.

“I can work up a light breakfast in a few minutes.” She commented, seemingly to no one. “Should have enough. Hope so, anyway.”

[Starmie]

Ｌ Ｅ Ｎ Ａ Ｇ Ｉ Ｂ Ｂ Ｙ

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_{Location: Jenkin's Diner, Rushford Date: May 7th, 2019 Interaction: Katie Jenkins (@Inkarnate)}
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It had been almost a week since the chaos ensued. It had been almost a week that Lena had been stuck at Jenkin's Diner. Almost a week since she last saw her family, her cats, her grandmother... Almost a week since she last slept peacefully and carelessly. Now the dark hours of the night were filled with dreadful thoughts ever since she first saw the dead attacking people, tearing at their flesh and spilling blood like there was no tomorrow. But then again, for them, there wasn't.

She was staring at the ceiling while laying down in one of the booths at the diner, counting the stains and imagining shapes with them, wondering when had been the last time someone had cleaned the yellow spots. Probably never. Who the hell scrubs fat stains from a diner ceiling? But she didn't have anything else to keep herself busy with. She kept her phone off to save battery, and she had already finished the book she had with her. All she had left to entertain herself with was paperwork, and she was not spending the long hours of the apocalypse thinking about car insurance.

Her arm was falling asleep so she switched positions, now staring at the gums under the table. People could be so gross. No position was comfortable enough. Before the chaos, she had been at work, so she wasn't exactly dressed for the zombie apocalypse. Her dress shirt and pants made it difficult to find a good position to lay in. Finally, she heard Katie saying she'd make breakfast. She jumped out of the booth and stood up, straightening her shirt.

"I can help," she said, eager for the opportunity to do something. She stretched her arms and legs for a second before heading behind the counter to help cook food for everyone.

[role model]

Henry use to have a job, a one bedroom apartment, one dog, and a girlfriend. That was before Hell come home. Now he had a megaphone and a state map. And, binoculars. Life was suppossed to get better, easier. But these days the definition of wisdom was sitting still and watching out of a big wall of glass attached to the foundation of some diner.

He woke up in the middle of the night several times. One time was to go to the bathroom, and another time was to go to the bathroom to read under the dim light. He looked at the car sales manual called AutoCars for a little while and went back to his booth. The other few times were because he could not sleep. But, he didn't see if anyone else was alert.

Then, dawn came. He was lying still in his booth bed. They started talking about breakfast and coffee, and he arose slowly because his bed was uncomfortable. So, he woke up and yawned and do a few stretches and looked at the people. He said, "I need some coffee so bad. And if we still have any biscuits I want one."

He wasn't trying to be impolite or greedy, but the times had hardened him and his manners. He said, "I prefer the coffee if somebody else wants the bread."

[Typical]

---

Kenny Sokoloski

---

^{Rushford: Jenkin’s Diner || May 7th}

Kenny shifted in the booth she lay in, her eyes closed in stubborn hope that sleep might come again. It wasn’t until the smell of coffee hit her nose that she finally sat up, accepting the faint sunlight. From what she could see, Karen was up, as was Katie, the former digging through a creamer basket and the latter looking as tired as she was the day before, if not more. Though Kenny doubted any of the group slept well, Katie seemed to be having an especially rough time. There were little hints—the disarray of the diner, her general lack of liveliness, the shovel beside the mop in the hallway—but Kenny hadn’t asked, hadn’t wanted to ask. They’d all taken blows in the last week, and asking about someone else’s forced her to consider her own.

“I’ll help too,” she said after Lena’s offer, sliding off the booth shakily but readily. Her hands went up to adjust her ponytail as she walked towards the kitchen, glancing at Katie and Karen. She wasn’t much for making food, but she could grab ingredients and set up silverware just fine, and she’d done the same for the past few days.

“I think I saw some milk in the back,” she said as she walked past the counter. “Not sure about creamer, but I can check.”

The storage room was markedly darker than the main room of the diner, lacking windows aside from a single one on the door in. Overhead were lights Kenny chose not to turn on, opting instead to head straight for the fridge, which thankfully had its own light. Inside was a meager assortment of ingredients as well as two jugs of milk, one half-empty and one unopened. Shifting those aside, she managed to retrieve a rather light bottle of french vanilla creamer. A shake confirmed it was almost empty, and Kenny shut the fridge door behind her with some resignation before heading back to the front.

“This is all I could find,” she said, sliding the bottle across the counter towards Karen. The smell of coffee was still in the air, distinct and comforting, reminding Kenny of the weekend mornings when she’d bring her brother by for a free brunch. Old Man Jenkins was kind enough to not bat an eye, provided their mother cover their table, and Kenny enjoyed watching her brother drown his pancakes in syrup.

All that remained of those days was the smell of coffee, which hadn’t changed a bit. It was almost strange how familiar the smell was, how warm yet cold it made her feel, and she forced an easy smile that didn’t touch her eyes when Henry spoke. “Sure, lemme pop those in the toaster first.”

[silvermist1116]

Krisana Herrera

Krisana sat on the table of the booth she occupied throughout the week. Her legs were crossed, her hands on her knees, earbuds in her ears playing calming music in Spanish from her iPod. She'd taken up meditating to keep it together and there was no better time to do it when she now had the time to waste. Her tongue salivated from her sweet craving and she was minutes away from freaking out about her mother possibly being dead, but she tried to meditate it all away. She had her moment when she couldn't reach her mother at the start of the pandemic. She boarded up the shop, then followed the small group here. Honey Sugar was a few shops down the road and would be an easy trip to get her poison, but she wouldn't go alone and she couldn't ask anyone else to make a suicide run with her for sweets. That'd be a stupid thing to die for. She's settled for drinking tea with a lot of sugar in to satisfy that need for fruity flavors.

"Morning everyone." She called out. Around her, her pandemic companions got ready for breakfast. Pots and pans clung together from the kitchen, the scent of coffee was strong, and her stomach growled. Yeah she needed to eat. The radio crackled from the counter top. Another morning run of a supposed safe haven near Maumee River. She doesn't know much about radios, but she's sure it's a repeated recording. The voice doesn't fluctuate when the person speaks. It's said the exact same way it has been for the last few days. If the recording is scheduled, then there's a chance they're nothing waiting for them if they leave.

Krisana climbed down from the table and sat in a stool at the counter in front of Karen after the broadcast. "Are we going to attempt to leave today? The longer we wait the more chance there's nothing waiting for us a the camp."

[Dio]

_{Location: Jenkin's Diner. Rushford, OH}

---

The original plan was to meet his parents at the diner and to get the hell out of town, but things didn't go as planned for Dash. His parents were old, so they were slow. Obviously that day, he gave them the benefit of the doubt that it was just their sluggish pace that was keeping them back and that he should wait for them patiently.

In the first few days, he waited with hope. Hope that they would be there well and alive. That hope was coming from a place in Dash's mind on the brighter side of things, but in the past week, he realized that looking at the brighter side of things wasn't going to help him survive.

Dash sat quietly at his picked booth in Jenkin's Diner, scribbling away in his journal. Journaling was something Dash had assigned every year as an assignments to his students for the semester, it was to write a entry either daily or weekly, to allow for creative expression for his students and to help them with their writing skills. Doing it himself had become therapeutic and as a creature of habit it stuck.

As some of the group gathered for a cup of coffee, the teacher finished up his mental vomiting, joining the group at the counter. "I'll take a coffee too."

[role model]

Henry sighed. His boots were underneath the table attached to the booth he slept in. He was wearing an old Guns N Roses and, at the bottom he had on carpenter jeans that was held up by a nice leather belt. He took about ten sips of coffee, then returned to get his boots. They were half-knee and wide, good for dressing up in them and breathable. He put them on. Then, where his boots were his binoculars sat lopsided on the floor lopsided. It was his booth, so everything he owned lay nested there. He got the binoculars.

He checked north, south, east, and west. He took a minute or two to adjust the faculties of the handheld telescope. He looked over everything once or twice, ignoring what was going on around him. Then, he spliced back into the diner and considered that Krisana was right. He held onto the binoculars while he briefly spoke.

"I just checked. I think Krisana might be on to something. We haven't seen nothing, not a corpse or anything. I say because we don't have guns we should figure out how to move from here and get to the next camp and stock up. We can't stay here forever."

[Skelm]

Kent Archer

^{Rushford: Jenkin’s Diner || May 7th}

---

By the time the others began to stir, Kent was already awake and reclining in his usual booth, an old newspaper clipping spread out before him on the countertop. In truth, he had never slept at all, having made a personal commitment to act as sentry while everyone else tried to get some rest. But in reality, it hadn’t been a choice; he had simply resigned himself to the inevitable after a long struggle with his inner demons.

For the past few weeks, insomnia had become Kent’s usual nighttime companion. It seemed to correlate with the onset of the pandemic, though he had a feeling that the root cause went far beyond that. The outbreak had merely exacerbated another kind of crisis that had been lingering beneath the surface for several years – one that involved his family and the damage that could be wrought due to what he now considered petty differences.

As a result of his own petulance, his wife and son remained unaccounted for, lost to the chaos that had so acutely gripped the nation. They had left him alone to wrestle with a myriad of complex emotions, including guilt, anger, and regret. All of this on top of the mitigating effects of sleep deprivation. In many ways, it was almost too much to bear.

And yet, he had somehow managed to trudge onward.

The group of survivors, who he had stumbled upon by happenstance at the local diner, was his only consolation. Not only had they given him a sense of purpose, but they represented hope – something that he so desperately needed in these dark times.

That thought persisted, even now, as the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled his senses. It was a welcoming scent, something that evoked a semblance of normalcy. While it might’ve been a relatively small matter compared to the enormity of their situation, Kent appreciated the reminder. Sometimes it was the little things that kept you functional in the middle of an apocalypse.

With a wide yawn, Kent stretched and finally dragged himself out of the booth, his motions slow and measured. He found that getting himself moving in the morning wasn’t as easy as it used to be, particularly when he had stayed in the same uncomfortable position all night long. It was yet another unfortunate consequence of aging, a reality that he now inwardly cursed.

Well, at least my sciatica isn’t acting up. It could be so much worse…

Kent ran a hand through his tousled hair and issued a sigh as he sauntered toward the counter to join the others. They were already immersed in idle conversation, the topic ranging from breakfast offerings to the mysterious broadcasts about a camp that supposedly harbored a safe haven from the virus. It was that last part that piqued his interest.

“Maybe not,” Kent drawled in response to the young man’s proclamation – Henry, was it? Assigning faces to names was still an ongoing process. “But we can’t afford to make careless decisions either. Sit down and enjoy some breakfast first, then we can devise a plan.”

He offered the man a small smile before heeding his own advice and settling down on one of the stools lining the counter.

[mickilennial]

---

You couldn’t complain in the apocalypse.

That’s what this was, right? An apocalypse? Pandemics didn’t tend to include sick people trying to eat you, at least, not ones she had ever read about. One of her final customers called the sick people ‘zombies’. It was a quick word to describe them, she supposed. She didn’t like horror movies much, so she didn’t know.

She sighed, as she kept the appearance of having her faculties, as hard as that was. “It’s a pretty long hike to the safety zone. You’re not getting there on an empty stomach.”

Katie moved into the kitchen as the two men continued their conversation. While she felt weird that the two girls took the initiative to help with food, it wasn’t the strangest thing in the world. It was almost normal. Back when Kenny would offer a helping hand to her mother and the rest of the staff. She remembered it like it was yesterday, her father cooking in the back as she took orders while the bus boy cleaned the corner booth. But all of that was gone now. All of them had gotten sick, left town, or hurried off to the safe zone. Tommy Booker, a student a year under her who kept asking her out, said it was stupid. Anyone who went to safe zones in movies ended up dead.

Was it really all that smart for them to do the same? The power was still up. She had plenty of food stocked up. She felt uncomfortable. She wasn’t old enough to make these kind of decisions.

“Are omelets okay? Probably the easiest thing I can make for everybody.”

Her grandfather's omelets brought food critics from out of town to Rushford. She knew the recipe as good as he did. It was one of the few things she had left from him.

[Carlyle]

ᴋ ᴀ ʀ ᴇ ɴ ʙ ʏ ʀ ɴ ᴇ

---

_{Location: Jenkins' Diner, Rushford}

Date: May 7th, 2019

---

"Thanks." Catching the canister before it slid off the counter, Karen gave the bottle a light shake. "We'll have to go easy on it, but I think it can last a couple cups between us."

Turning away from the counter, Karen began pulling out an assortment of coffee cups from a cabinet as the radio crackled to life for the morning run detailing Camp Whispering Springs as a "zombie-free" sanctuary. Part of Karen wanted to immediately run out the door; to go back to a time when being eaten alive was a nightmare or a horror element in entertainment. On the other hand, she couldn't help but to hold her own suspicions about the former summer camp. But Krisana was right; they would have to make a move soon. The diner wasn't going to last forever, and getting out of town would be much safer.

"Well," Karen spoke up, placing a cup in front of those sitting at the counter as she chimed in the growing conversation. "I think that's a question for all of us after we've all had a chance to eat first, like what Dr. Archer said. But to answer the question, we should probably get going. Sooner or later we'll run out of food, and there isn't much for some miles."

Her eyes then fell on Henry. "If we're planning on getting out of dodge, then I should probably mention that I do have my service weapon." Karen lifted the edge of her t-shirt, revealing her SIG P232 that had been concealed underneath. "I haven't felt the need to bring it up, but now seems like a good time to. I only have one magazine for it, though, so don't expect it to be our saving grace for long unless we find ammunition laying around somewhere."

[silvermist1116]

Krisana Herrera

"Omelets are great, thank you, Katie." Krisana poured herself a third cup of coffee, filled the rest with french vanilla creamer and sugar. It didn't mask most of the bitterness of the coffee like she thought it would. She pushed the cup aside. It's undrinkable. Instead, she went around to the counter and added a pot of water to the heater to make tea instead. She listened to the conversation going behind her. "A gun can be our last ditch effort if we get trapped somewhere. Since there hasn't been a zombie spotted yet we can use whatever blunt object we find. My hammer is just as good as anything else." She pulled the pot off the warmer, poured herself a cup, then sat back at the counter with an orange tea back. Four packs of sugar later she had her sweet hot tea. Perfect for her craving sweet tooth.

"I have boxes of candy at my store. It's not the healthiest food, but it'll be better than nothing if we run out of supplies." She can't forget her sweets. The one time she tried to quit cold turkey was the worst thing she ever experienced. The withdraws made her irritable, definitely not good for her mother's business. "It's a few doors down and I still have the key to get in. It's boarded up, so it should be just as safe there as it is here if someone wants to make a run with me before we get going."

[Typical]

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Kenny Sokoloski

---

^{Rushford: Jenkin’s Diner || May 7th}

While Kenny listened eagerly to Krisana and Henry’s discussion of how the group should move, she was grateful for Kent’s assertion that breakfast should come first. The smell of biscuits wafting up from the toaster oven beside her made her realize how hungry she was, and trying to think about future plans and risks on an empty stomach made her feel sick. Looking at the gun Karen pulled out only served to further curb her appetite as her mind skipped to thoughts of what it’d be used for, but she swallowed her discomfort, trying to focus on how helpful the weapon might be. It was something to fall back on in the case that things went wrong, and likely more effective than the bat she’d left sitting against her booth. Looking at the bat now, at the faint brown-black splotches she hadn’t been able to rinse off in the back, made her stomach turn, but she knew she’d have to steel herself for when they left the diner. She needed to be able to protect herself and the others, just as she needed to get to the summer camp. Caleb was counting on her.

The suggestion of omelets brought Kenny a surge of comfort, and she nodded in agreement with Krisana. “Omelets sound good to me too,” she said to Katie before focusing on the girl she knew from the candy store counter. Kenny hadn’t talked to Krisana much outside the store, but the curly-haired girl had always welcomed Caleb and her with bright smiles. Though Kenny didn’t love sweets, she enjoyed a good saltwater taffy now and then, and Caleb loved poring over the shelves of colors and tastes enough for her to have recognized Krisana easily the first day.

Krisana’s mention of the candy store, then, brought a sad smile to her face. Venturing outside to retrieve candy didn’t sound like the best idea to Kenny, but that was more because the thought of picking up her bat made her nervous than because she didn’t think it worth it to make a trip for sugar.

“Maybe heading to the candy store could be practice,” she suggested. A look around reminded her of how young she was in this crowd, and she felt a light beat of nervousness, but she continued on with only a minor waver in her voice. “We could stock up and get a look around town. We’d kill two birds with one stone.”

[mickilennial]

---

“Not much of a run, is it? It's only just three doors down.”

The sound of cool running water from the kitchen didn't distort much, but Katie admittedly needed to wash up either way. Her remark had been loud and clear enough for everyone to hear. Admittedly, Katie was concerned about people going outside while sick people shambled outside. She wondered how dangerous it was. Still, it was only a few doors down. It wasn't like they were heading into the heart of main street.

She thought momentarily about Kenny's musings about getting a look around town. They wouldn't get much of a safe look from the front of the building.

“You would get a safer look of things upstairs. Roof access next to the apartment isn't locked.”

[role model]

Henry dressed in his boots and returned to the half-drunk coffee. It was on the table, so he picked it up and consumed it while he looked idle listening to the discussion. He was into it, but his goal was to commute far away from the diner. He didn't have a destination.

"We should pack some stuff like candy and guns and start moving. We've got to have resources that asset a way out of this hole," he said illy. "There's a Circle K not too far. But it is a hike. I want to move, though."

He wanted a new home, a new shelter. And the second he started feeling like he was in the bush in a war zone that was there for a week waiting for a firefight he looked out of the diner's big window and become mildly alarmed.

He went to his booth and got his binoculars. Walking up to the window he held up his binoculars to his eyes and perused the outside for a moment. Then, he wiped a little sweat off from his face and turned around. He said, "I think I'm a little more fearful than I know. I'm starting to get paranoid. What are we going to do?"

[Starmie]

Ｌ Ｅ Ｎ Ａ Ｇ Ｉ Ｂ Ｂ Ｙ

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_{Location: Jenkin's Diner, Rushford Date: May 7th, 2019 Interaction: everyone}
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"Are you kidding me? Omelets are fancy! I was never able to make one myself, most I can do is scrambled eggs." As soon as the coffee was done she poured some in a cup for herself, adding some of the cream they were able to find, and a packet of sugar. She mixed the drink with a wooden straw.

All this talk about going outside was making her anxious. Mostly because she was worried about her family. She didn't know if her house had been looted or if her family was still there. Or if they were even alive. "I don't live too far away from here," she interjected. "Well... It's about a 45-minute walk, but my truck is still parked outside. We have a garden and some camping supplies..."

[Carlyle]

ᴋ ᴀ ʀ ᴇ ɴ ʙ ʏ ʀ ɴ ᴇ

---

_{Location: Jenkins' Diner, Rushford}

Date: May 7th, 2019

---

Honey Sugar's Candy Store. It was a place Karen had visited here and there in the past, but now that the world was ending, she wasn't so keen on stopping by. Candy could keep their sugars up, but trying to survive on it alone would lead to dehydration and ultimately death. Still, Kenny and the others were right. They were going to need supplies if they planned on surviving until they reached the summer camp, and going on a run could help them understand their surroundings.

"Right; after we eat breakfast, then we should head out." Karen grabbed one of the map brochures by the cash register, and began marking various locations with junk laying around on the counter: a sugar packet for their current location, a penny for the Gibby's property, and a creamer for the truck stop right before the bridge.

"What I'm thinking is that we get Henry on the roof with his binoculars, while a group runs over to the candy store, grabs what they can and carries it back to the diner. If everything goes well, and if we or Henry don't see anything that we wouldn't be able to handle or escape from, then we can see about the Gibby's property once the group returns."

Taking a sip of her coffee, Karen continued. "That said, I'm not entirely sold on the Circle K idea, though. The station didn't... last long when everything happened."

[mickilennial]

---

“You mean when the sick started killing us.” Katie uttered dryly, in a tone affected by the lack of proper sleep.

Katie considered the thought, at least, it seemed like the self-decided leader was making plans. Plans were good. Though, she was obviously unintentionally (or intentionally?) in a sort of mood. The diner was safe-ish and that was good enough for her even if she knew deep down that she would have to leave sooner or later. What would happen if she stayed behind? How long could she last with what food was left over? The milk was going to go bad in a week. Food was all perishable, even if it was canned and dried. Plus, it's not like she had anything to defend herself with safely should the sick or not-sick break in.

Flip.

Still, Tommy called the safe zone a death trap. Which is why he said he was going in a different direction. He had helped. Maybe she should’ve went with him. She hoped he was okay.

‘The omelets would be done in a few minutes.’ She thought.

[Starmie]

Ｌ Ｅ Ｎ Ａ Ｇ Ｉ Ｂ Ｂ Ｙ

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_{Location: Jenkin's Diner, Rushford Date: May 7th, 2019 Interaction: everyone}
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"Sounds good to me," Lena said, observing the improvised map Karen made on the table. "I'd like to volunteer to go to the store if that's okay." She took a sip of her coffee, ignoring Katie's comment. She really didn't want to think about the dead walking around when she was volunteering to go out into the madness. "Candy really isn't the best thing, but maybe we can find some other supplies at the store as well."

Her stomach grumbled and she took another sip of coffee to calm it down. She was hungry and waiting anxiously for the omelets to be ready. She walked back to her booth and grabbed her backpack under the table. It wasn't a utility backpack but it would have to do. It was made of black leather and so it was quite heavy even when empty, but it was what she had. She emptied the contents on her booth, making a pile of the paperwork, leaving only her wallet inside -- she wouldn't want to lose that.

[Typical]

---

Kenny Sokoloski

---

^{Rushford: Jenkin’s Diner || May 7th}

Katie’s mention of the rooftop sounded like a good idea to Kenny. Conceptualizing the softball field from a bird’s eye view was something she’d done often, so she was partial to making strategies from vantage points. There were few safer ways to get a clearer grasp of their situation, and she was glad when Karen agreed.

The supplies Lena brought up, however, were overshadowed by her truck, even if Kenny knew a truck was nowhere near the answer to their problems. Besides the obvious gas shortage, a truck would struggle to fit three people, much less eight, and riding in the back was hardly an option at the moment. Still, a car was the safest mobile option they had, and it’d be another ace up their sleeve when they found a use for it.

“I’d like to volunteer to go as well,” Kenny said after Lena, glancing at the woman who’d volunteered first before looking around at the group. They were older than her, but she was fast, and that counted for something. As for the sick, dead, or otherwise zombie-seeming figures stumbling around outside, she’d gotten this far, and someone had to go.

A ding from the toaster oven drew her attention, and she headed over, sliding the biscuits out onto a plate and grabbing some silverware before returning to the counter. “Biscuits are done,” she said, setting the plate down and glancing behind to where Katie stood in front of the stove. Breakfast was coming together nicely.

“Anyone want honey or jam for their biscuits?” she asked, checking the master condiment caddy beside them. Inside were bunches of small jam packets, available in strawberry, grape, and mixed fruit flavors. There seemed to be fewer packets of honey, perhaps because honey tended to be used for tea as well, but it was something. “Or margarine. There’re a few packets left.”