[IC] The last Survivors

[Shoe Thief]

Somewhere near Washington D.C.

It's been over two months since the last contact with other survivors, even bandits. It's like no one is even left alive anymore. Though people have been lost in that same time, two months ago the Convoy had over 30 people and much more reliable equipment. Now we are down too 18 people and the remaining vehicles are not stable enough for long term travel.

As if on cue the a cloud of smoke starts to erupt from the engine of the Ambulance. Hunter was driving the Humvee in front of it and watched the whole event unfold as it broke down. The convoy was forced to stop, the surroundings were not the best to stop, thick woods all around and too much wind to tell what was a rustle of leaves or a rustle of the dead.

Hunter got out of the Humvee and walked over to the Ambulance, It didn't take much too see the radiator was shot... Again. But something else had to be going on? Smoke like that would not come out if it was just the radiator would it? "Does anyone know what caused the breakdown this time?" Then he smelled it, something had caught fire in the engine, Human flesh. This has happened in the past, Only not this much. The engine was lined with burnt gunk, cleaning it out would take days with equipment they didn't have, and water they could not spare.

Hunter walked off from the Ambulance, it had deices that you could only have on the road with an ambulance in it. He paced for a moment then kicked the side of the Humvee. "DAMMIT!" He would kick the side of the truck several times before the pain in his foot told him it was too much. "That's the second car this week, and I don't know about you guys but I haven't seen another working car in weeks!" Several were found last week but it was decided it wasn't worth the fuel. He spoke as if he was losing his will to speak at all. "Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this problem?"

[Irisity]

Georgia climbs out the car and tries her best not to slam the door shut. Hunter's yelling probably attracted enough dead already.

"Quiet the fuck down, Hunter," she says, adjusting the doctor's mask hanging around her neck. Her eyes shifted over the scenery around them. "Attracting Rotter's when we're broken down is a worse situation than this. Besides, it's the apocalypse, accidents are expected to happen." She turns back to the car and retrieves her bat and bag. "You guys discuss, I'll look around a bit. Call for me if you need me."

Georgia turned and started to circle the area, scanning it for dead.

[CoCoTina]

Samuel’s face twisted into a grimace as his eyes followed the smoke rise from the front of the ambulance. ‘It’s always something, isn’t it’, he thought to himself as he pushed down on the clutch and reached down from the steering wheel with his right hand to lower the gears. As the 18-wheeler came to a stop, Sam pulled the keys from the ignition and threw them into his pocket. He hid his flask of whiskey beneath his seat before throwing open the door to his left and swinging his legs outward. He took his time getting down from the truck since his left leg was asleep from the drive and his back was giving him some trouble.

As he shuffled to the ambulance he caught sight of Hunter kicking the Humvee. ‘Young kids – they’re such hot-heads’ he thought to himself and smiled. His face remained stolid as he leered into the open hood of the ambulance and caught a large whiff of the scent of burnt flesh. There wasn’t much that could surprise him before the outbreak and he was starting to get that way again with so much overexposure to these things. Hunter must have smelled that flesh too and by his ‘exhibition’, he probably estimated it would be a difficult fix.

“Now I don’t mean to step out of line or nuthin’ --” he began with a slow drawl, “but I reckon’ there ‘aught to be a stream or somethin’ nearby we could use to at least cool it down while ya’ll engineers work on a real solution. Worst comes to worst, we could hitch it up to another vehicle and drag it to the nearest city.” Samuel gave a light nod as he clarified, “But you’re the officer and all and it ain’t much matter to me so long as we get outta here. Georgia may seem to have her britches in a bunch but she has a point. I think them things can smell us and they’ll probably head this way soon.”

He noticed how stressed and down-trodden Hunter had been when he asked for ideas and he gave him a fatherly nod before giving the surroundings a quick look-over. Trees. Trees. Nothing but trees.

[Chairman Stein]

Due to his 'esteemed' position on the Convoy, Jackmier drove the Ambulance. For the first few miles all was well and the outer D.C area rolled past without qualm or complaint...
*Bang*
With a start Jackmier dozed from his subconscious drive. Within seconds the road ahead began to vanish from sight and was replaced with a thick grey cloud, or in this case smoke. "Ah fick mich!" Jackmier groaned as he slammed his fist into the dashboard, this wasn't the first time one of the Convoy's engines went down, but it was never his engine. "Nein, nein, noch nicht. Noch nicht du verdammter drecksau!"

Jackmier pulled off from the Convoy just in time as the vehicle finally stalled and came to a halt. Looking out his rear-view mirror he could see the rest screech to a stop. Turning his view back towards the front, he watched Hunter step out from his Humvee and stomp his way down the column to the Ambulance. Without saying a word he watched Hunter pop the top and look down into the heart of the machine, his cursing was clear even through the metal and glass.

With a sigh Jackmier threw the door to the Ambulance open and hopped down from his seat and onto the road, giving an audible groan as he stretched and adjusted his sweat & bloodstained dress shirt and tie. The smell of burnt flesh wasn't a new smell, even before the apocalypse, however the state of the engine was a far more annoying occurrence for the German and the Convoy as a whole. Silently, he watched Georgia trudge off for the sake of 'looking around' and Samuel give his say. Finally, he spoke.

"Aye, I agree with the old cotter. Finding a stream or a landmark of some sort would be in our best interest. I can take a look at the engine and see what can be saved." He stated simply, flashing his slowly fading white teeth and giving a smirk as he leaned against the Ambulance.

[Shoe Thief]

Hunter calmed himself down, things were bad enough, last thing he should be doing was making it worse with the fit he was throwing. He would look over too Samuel. "A stream is a good idea, We can check the maps and hope we find something soon. And if we can't we will have to drag the thing with one of the trucks or something."

Hunter then turned to Jackmier. "If you think you can do something with that feel free to try, never seen so much crap in the engines before..." Hunter walked back to the engine to get a better idea how much burnt mush there was inside of it. Didn't take long for him to spot the remains of a hand. "Have fun with this Jackmier, I'ma go... Help find the stream."

he walked over to the trunk of the Humvee and pulled out a shotgun, he saw the remaining ammo, there was enough for now but they should be careful with it. He went to the front of the Humvee and grabbed a map. He starred at it for about 2 minutes before he realized he had been looking at the wrong map. "...Dammit." This was the same map he had been using all day for the convoy to travel. He hated these stupid mistakes, for all he knew D.C. was just around the corner and the smoke from the engine could draw unwanted attention. He climbed back into the truck and grabbed the correct map, he had an estimate to where the convoy landed up, but it wasn't in the best of situations, an elevated highway was just over a mile away, big one too. Leads right into D.C. He would go back to searching the Correct map for a stream.

[datadogie]

Due to her being one of the only ones with actual military experience, and being used to riding rather than walking as a ground pounder, Belle had the honor of mounting the M249 on the humvee. Her position insisted that she keep watch, but with the thoughts of Ray still lingering in her mind she found it hard to focus. She often teared up as she looked around, but managed to get rid of the tears. She had told a few people about what had happened, just to let it out, but otherwise was too focused on riding.

Now, the ambulance appeared to be having trouble. You've gotta be kidding me, she thinks to herself, swinging the M249 around to look at the ambulance, before turning it back around to continue her sweep of the local area. This was not a good place to stop, and... Quickly, her head turned to look at Hunter kicking the car. "You've gotta be kidding me." Belle mumbles to herself. As everyone walks around the place, Belle swings the turret back and forth, looking like she is doing some mad dance with it rather than actually keeping watch.

As Hunter begins looking at maps, Belle decides to start conversing. She had nothing better to do, anyways. "So, Hunter." She asks, purposefully turning the turret and pointing the barrel of the gun down at him. "Give me all your money. No? Bang, bang, bang." She gives a little giggle, turning the turret away and leaning down to rest her arms on the roof of the vehicle. It was time to get serious. Now may not have been the time, now may have been the time. She didn't know, but she really needed a proper talk, and she was going to ask Hunter again. "Hunter, really. I need to talk to you. Almost everyone has been leaving me in the dark. What is it? Is it because I'm British? Is it because my original mission was to bomb an apartment complex? What is it?"

[The Undertaker]

Striker

You're always hiding behind your so called goddess
So what you don't think that we can see your face
Resurrected back before the final fallen
I'll never rest until I can make my own way
I'm not afraid of fading
I stand alone
Feeling your sting down inside of me
I'm not dying for it
I stand alone
Everything that I believe is fading
I stand alone
Inside
I stand alone

The music blared in Strikers ears over the sound of the loud rumbling engine of the Harley Davidson he drove down the forest plagued road they found themselves on. It just barely blocked out the noise of the loud engine of the bike, but then again after almost three or more months on the road he had already gotten used to the sound of its engine. Some would say a motorcycle was a bad idea, especially given the zeds had good hearing, but truth be told they didn't really have the ability to think the sound of a motorcycle was anything good to eat. Which was a good thing in his book, they were able to remain somewhat safe at least when they were traveling, however that did not take away from the fact that the convoy of vehicles were all slowly growing into the final stages of breaking down. Striker would be a lier if he said he did not have high hopes when this convoy was first formed, they had thirty people, good vehicles, ammunition, food, water and most of all they had a plan. It went well at first being on the road, there was a form of happiness, safety almost traveling amongst the wide open freeways. But when the first deaths occurred only a week in, people started to realize that they were not as safe as they were making it out to be.

It was a nice gesture he supposed, travel with us and live among those who would protect you, but when people started taking it a bit too seriously and depended on you to keep them alive... it was bound to go bad. No matter what way you sliced it, everyone had to try and protect themselves, hell Strikers entire team, a team of ten highly trained men fell to a horde of these infected pieces of shit. He had been lucky that day himself, lucky he had gotten detained in the quarantine zone a bit longer then intended, by time he had arrived back at the Refuge Camp Donaldson the entirety of the survivors had been compromised. Nearest thing he could figure was that one of the survivors had been secretly infected inside the walls, and then started the epidemic all over again. It was not a pretty site to say the least, he had seen less body parts after a Jihad bombing in a public area.

Skin against skin blood and bone
You're all by yourself but you're not alone
You wanted in now you're here
Driven by hate
consumed by fear
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floooooooor
One - Nothing wrong with me
Two - Nothing wrong with me
Three - Nothing wrong with me

The rock music blasted through the headphones as Striker revved the black Harley and speed up a bit, he had always kept a distance away from the convoy, he was none to impressed with the driving of some of the others in the group, and the last thing he wanted was to be crippled by one of them. The last time a vehicle broke down they nearly drove someone off the road trying to stop the vehicle, it was what happened when you panicked a little bit too hard. Striker flew up a slight incline as the convoy came back into view, he had just been in time to see Hunter one of the younger men of the group kicking a smoking ambulance. Striker shook his head as Chop Suey by system of a down came on in the earphones that were attached to the piece of shit MP3 player he had. He had seen this dance before the last time a vehicle broke down, this was the scream at life moment. Striker pulled his motorcycle up slowly as he twisted the brakes and came to a silent stop, his boot hit the ground as he turned the key in the ignition and the engine clicked off. Hitting the kick stand with his foot Striker got off the motorcycle and took off his head phones just in time to see the group going in separate directions, looks like he had missed the meeting again. Striker looked around subtlety at the woods surrounding them on both sides, it was thick and hiding only god knew what, but it seemed quiet for now... little too quiet in his opinion but that wasn't all together bad now and days.

Striker clicked the holster of his Beretta preparing it just in case of a surprise attack as he approached the ambulance and looked at Hunter who looked like he wanted to set fire to the vehicle and be done with it.

"Well Hunter it seems that God has once again decided to rain down his blessings among us. I take it that the engine is reacting badly to zed flesh again huh? The smell alone is enough to make you think about momma cooking dinner at home."

Striker joked with about as much hilarity as a person delivering a sad eulogy at a funeral as he approached the ambulance and bent down to his knee taking a look. Yeah it was definitively overloaded with the greasy black charbroiled skin that was zed, leaning back up he shook his head. Seeing the foreign doctor nearby he walked over to him silently, to say he liked the man was an over statement, the dude just seemed to rub him wrong in a lot of ways. Striker always had an eye for trouble, and secretly he had been waiting for some shit to go down the last passing months with the man. However he had kept that to himself, mostly to keep the air clear of static and the fact that the man had done nothing to any of them. Leaning beside the man with his upper back half against the truck he spoke in a dulled down southern mixed deep voiced accent.

"Well I see it was your turn this time Doc, nothing a couple bandages and a shot of morphine couldn't cure... that is if we were lucky enough to come across any at this point. How is everything else holding up?"

Striker kept his eyes moving around the area silently, he kept his ears open for possible zeds, the last thing he wanted was to be caught with his compliment down.

[Shoe Thief]

@datadogie
Hunter wouldn't react too the comment, even with the belt fed machine gun pointed to him. "Do not play with that thing, fire arm safety rule one, do not point a fire arm at a person unless you plan to use it on them." He looked up and made eye contact with Belle and held up a small mechanism. "Plus the gun wont fire with out this, the firing mechanism is electric, this is more or less a sub trigger to keep the belt shooting." He went back to reading until Belle mentioned being out of the loop.

He looked up confused. "Not much loop to be left out of, we are short on food, water, bullets are fine for now but not sure for how long, gas is... low enough we may have to ditch the Tanker, maybe a few other cars, we really only need a few with the amount of people we have..." He smiled for a second. "Now for the British thing, don't worry about it, we have a German doctor, a mostly Irish guy, U.S. Soldiers, and an old guy from Texas, and a British air force pilot." He sighed. "Now about the apartment... I get it, you had a job, and personally I could give two craps about what you did before, you pull your weight here so who cares." He would go back to reading the map. "And most of us have had to do some bad things to survive."

He looked at the machine gun. "Now back to important issues, DO not play with the machine gun. I want to be able to trust I wont accidental get my head blown off if I put the firing mechanism back in. Also we may need to go on a scavenging run, we accidentally took a wrong road and we lost some time (Read the wrong map and is trying to correct it). We will be out of water in a few days, food shortly after that. There's a small town not far from here that we can check out, should have what we need to get going again."

[Chairman Stein]

Jackmier watched as Striker strolled up and leaned next to him, giving a crude remark on his less than redeemable partaking in morphine and ether. Jackmier was open about his drug and alcohol intake, there was no point in hiding it. However, despite his rising annoyance, he kept his cocky smirk. "Aye, a nice shot of morphine is something I haven't had in awhile, nor have you I take it." He shot back, giving a larger grin towards Striker before continuing. "And in my opinion, machines are just humans with oil for blood, if I can fix blood clots I can fix an engine."

He pushed himself off the Ambulance and began unbuttoning his grey pinstripe jacket, if he was going to work on the charred remains of the Ambulance's engine, he was certainly not scuffing up his attire. "If you all want to get to that little town, I highly recommend you start moving now while the sunlight is on our side. Plus maybe some quiet will give me the focus I need to fix this damned machine." He stated flatly as he removed his tie, placing it on the hood of the Ambulance with his jacket.

Upon looking into the innards of the Ambulance the charred rotting hand came right into view... It was beautiful, the ashy, jagged lines of destroyed flesh, the once separated fingers coming together through melting heat and fusing into a singular black entity. It was the inevitable decay of death, mixed with the fires of modern technology... Art forged in flame. He couldn't help but give a grin as he scanned the rest of the engine. "The engine itself is intact, it's mostly overheating due to the zed's hand taking in heat that would normally be leaving the engine. It'll take a few hours, but I can safely remove it and keep the engine together probably. Only issue is I'm not entirely sure if we even have a full toolbox at this point."

[Irisity]

Georgia moved closer towards the group after surrounding the engine once she heard something about heading towards the town. "Some of us could always start walking there early to scout out."

It was a shit suggestion, could possibly lead to them being split up, but it was better than just sitting, her nerves starting to become restless.

[datadogie]

@Remipa Awesome
Belle rolled her eyes and sighed. "Right. I understand. Us Brits are used to joking around on duty, unlike some people." She says apologetically. Well, I guess that answers that, she thinks, returning to her original duty of lookout. She wished she had a stick of gum to chew on, just to help her focus and add some flavour (quite literally).

Thoughts of Ray distracted her. She missed him, missed him a lot, and she began to tear up as she usually did. Though this time, it was more than tearing up. Talking about the apartment hadn't helped, had definitely not helped. She thought about it, thought about Ray, thought about the sight of the jet falling into the ground. "Oh god... Oh god.. Ray..." She whimpers, holding her head in her hands and sobbing into them.

[Shoe Thief]

@datadogie

Hunter climbed into the Humvee and attempted to comfort Belle. Which mostly was him awkwardly patting her on the shoulder. "It'll... Be okay, someday things... they will get better. When? I have no idea, if I knew that I'd say let go bunker down on an island for said amount of time and come back at the last minute, that is if I though we would all survive on an island with out killing each other or getting our selves killed." He stopped for a moment. "I'm sure Ray was an awesome person, I can imagine who ever he was he wouldn't want to see you like this, broken up over him. He would want you too keep fighting, he would want you to live a good life." He stopped and looked around thinking about his words. "Good for today's standards. I'm going to take a team into the town on the map, feel free to come if you want, if not feel free to keep playing with the machine gun until I fix the trigger mechanism."

@Irisity@Chairman Stein@The Undertaker@CoCoTina
Hunter stood up on top of the Humvee, and attempted to clear his throat. "Alright listen up people." You could tell he was nervous well he talked, public speaking was never a skill he was good at. "We are low on supplies, Everything from gas, to food, even water is at a rationing point." He looked at all the cars in the Convoy. "After this run we are going to ditch some of the cars, we don't have enough people for the cars we have and we could get around with less then half of these cars. Some we will keep because they are useful, others have outlived there usefulness." He took a deep breath, He was willing to get himself into conflict when ever the time called, but talking to a group of people scared the shit out of him. "I am going to take a team into a town near here that should have enough supplies to keep us going for a while. I don't plan to be gone over night but it may happen, it's happened in the past and we made the best of it." He looked as if he was about to pass out. "So... Who ever's going... Grab your weapons... Meet me by the tanker..." he stepped off the Humvee and grabbed his gear. After he grabbed it he started speed walking to the Tanker.

[Irisity]

@Remipa Awesome
Georgia collected her things and headed towards the tanker to meet Hunter.

Hunter seemed like an okay guy, a reliable leader, she thought to herself. It was gonna be tough for them when either this world or a zombie took him down.

"Hey, I'm going." She strapped the sheith of her father's knife around her waist and gripped the base of the bat. "Anything particular we looking for? Or are we just grabbing what we seem fit to be useful?"

[CoCoTina]

Samuel let out a short shrill whistle as he caught sight of the decayed hand Jackmier found. That man always got a bit too much pleasure in these situations but Sam thought him decent enough, he might even say he liked him – but Sam never was a good judge of character. Now, when people were a little too perfect, that’s when Samuel became uneasy.

He turned his attention to the chaos that was erupting as everyone exited their vehicles. Georgia was acting tough as always, Belle was jerking about with that unique sense of humor of her’s, Striker always seemed ready to throw a punch, Hunter was trying to keep everything under control. Belle’s behavior worried Sam however as she went from joking to crying in just a minute. He looked up at her briefly in a concerned fashion. Instability was a frightening thing these days – but at the same time, who could claim they weren’t unstable these days?

When hunter began to make his announcement, Samuel listened silently, wiping away the sweat that was collecting on his forehead. Afterwards, he turned slowly and made his way to the semi, hoisted his frame into the vehicle and grabbed his ax along with a couple of plastic Walmart bags that were lying on the passenger's side floorboard. The plastic rustled noisily as the bags were crammed together and tied around his belt loop where a brown leather belt held the old farmer’s jeans up.

When he made it to the tanker where Hunter was waiting he inquired, “I’m willin’ to head out unless you’d rather I stay back and watch the vehicles.” He stopped to take a breath and survey the surroundings, squinting slightly as he did so. “Also, is the ambulance one of the lost causes we’re leavin’ or should I try ‘n help Jackmier clean out that gunk?”

[The Undertaker]

@Remipa Awesome

Striker

Striker shook his head as he crossed his arms and watched the group start to assemble for the scavenging operation, honestly at this point he did not feel like he was going to even go. Striker did not mind Hunter, however when it came to leading he was a less then desirable choice. Striker had his share of ineffective leaders when this all started, Five star Generals barking out orders and the men dieing left and right trying to accomplish those orders. His team had been among those casualties, and he still got a sour taste in his mouth when he thought of the waste. An now he found himself with a rag tag bunch of survivors from every walk of life, a foreign doctor who is shifty at best, a bunch of children who were just barely grasping onto the situation, and old man who has one foot in the grave already, and an ex store clerk trying to keep them all together. Striker lifted his hand wiping the sweat from his brow, perhaps he was being way to critical here, to be fair they had survived this long and that was an indication right there that they are not going to just lay down and die. Maybe it wasn't the people but the world around him that was making him so sour, hell he barely spoke to any of the group, out of everyone he was probably the one they knew next to nothing about. Maybe he was just a bitter man coming of age, or maybe he was just sick and tired of trying to protect people when there was no more reason to be a soldier. Maybe... he just missed his family whom for all he knew were dead now. Striker leaned off the ambulance as he approached Hunter pack in hand, approaching the younger man he reached into the pack and removed and headset, one in which he had scavenged before he lost his team.

"I am going to stay behind and make sure the vehicles stay secured, were closer to the city now and it is possible we might find our share of marauders. I would rather not take a chance on losing what little we have to the sticky fingered bastards. Take this it has a decent charge left in it, I will have the other, if you run into trouble then contact me. Good luck as always Hunter."

Striker reached back down into his bag as he removed a second headset and put it in his ear, he then removed the gas mask just in case and wrapped it around his neck.

"I am going to set up a small perimeter, if anyone is staying behind feel free to lend a hand if you got one to spare."

[Shoe Thief]

@The Undertaker
Hunter took the head set. "I remember these, We had something similar when me and a few guys from the store got together for airsoft." he looked Striker in the eyes. "Thanks, We should be fine though, we have enough fire power to do some damage. And if not we can pull out." he stopped for a second. "If for any reason the Radios don't work there is a flaregun int he glovebox to the Humvee, If we see the flare we will come back. If we set off a flare gun from our end it means our radio isn't working and we can't get out on our own." He started walking to the truck. "Thanks for the radio though, it should help a lot more then a flare gun."

@Irisity
"We are primarily looking for water and food, if we find other useful things great. but food and water is our biggest concern." Hunter put his shotgun in the back of the larger pickup truck with the large storage on it. "I saw a small store on the map, it's a bit closer to the city limits then i'd like but it's close enough the looters should not have hit it too hard. That may be our best chance to find anything in this area."

The truck held 5 seats in it, Hunter climbed into the driver seat. "Alright, All aboard!" The kid in hunter enjoyed that. Once everyone that was going had there gear and weapons ready they went moving.

[Irisity]

@Remipa Awesome

Georgia climbed into rge car, a dangerous question stirring in her stomach.

"What about people?" The question spilled over her lips with no remorse.

With their lack of supplies and broken ambulance, she knew they couldn't take on any lost souls. But even then, they could just kill someone.

[Shoe Thief]

@Irisity
Hunter sighed as he heard the question. "People are... We are limited on supplies, If they try to fight us then we will have to fight back. If we do not then it's like us killing our own. Hopefully it doesn't come to that." Hunter started the truck and got it driving. The store was close, shouldn't take too long as long a the roads were relatively clear.