Hello, friends (not Aweena)! It's me, your lovable adrenaline junky FF, back from waging fake-war. You'll be happy to know I didn't fake-die even once, though i did find myself in a situation that was eerily similar to that helicopter scene at the end of Red Dawn, and that I fake-killed a metric butt-ton of people.
I'm currently riding on a bus back home and I'm gonna take the 14 some hours or will take to get there to catch up on all the happenings. So ahhh... yeah, what's up? What'd I miss? What's the hot gossip?
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Most Recent Posts
Hopefully I'll be able to throw up one more post before I leave (which has been postponed two days. Hooray!) and leave Cassie in some kind of crazy cliffhanger just to spite you guys for no apparent reason. Regardless if I end up posting or not, I'll be PM'ing our lovely GMs about stuff and thangs. Not right now, but... soon.
And now I shall read.
And now I shall read.
Shone said And if you're FF and are way out in the nowheres... We need to get you a posting partner!
Hey, FF likes being in the nowheres; it's her natural habitat. Besides that, since I'm not going to be here almost the entire month of March (I've totally mentioned that, right? Yeah, I have. I leave on Tuesday.) I wouldn't even begin to worry about finding a posting buddy until then. It would suck huge... potato... to have to wait on me for a month to post. When I get back I can just pretty much pop up wherever I want and be all like "Oh hey, look at that. Magic." and eventually explain how she got there through a series of flashback posts.
Fallenreaper said
Hider, there's no spoilers...
SHHHH... Fallen! I totally figured it out once I posted (oh I miss previewing posts) and nobody else would have known if you hadn't said anything. You... You ruiner of making me look like I know how to computer. *shakes fist* Man, that took you like five freaking seconds flat to reply too.
Posted. Finally. Geez, Free Faller, way to be a slacker. What a butthole... My short excuse is that I was busy. My long excuse is in the hider and should be read at your own risk.
But as for the dice rolly, one person thingy... Totally rolled a one. Even giving Cassie bonus points for completely arbitrary reasons in my head I still figured her screwed. I thought a dunk in freezing water and loosing her backpack was a reasonable consequence, but please correct me if I'm totally off.
I also came to the realization that, as I am nearing the point where I will start swapping the POV of posts with Cassie and the NPCs from Mackinac, I'm going to have a super hard time not writing in goofy "Cassie style" and adopting what might be considered a normal or more traditional writing tone for the others. I haven't done that in like, forever. 0.o
But as for the dice rolly, one person thingy... Totally rolled a one. Even giving Cassie bonus points for completely arbitrary reasons in my head I still figured her screwed. I thought a dunk in freezing water and loosing her backpack was a reasonable consequence, but please correct me if I'm totally off.
I also came to the realization that, as I am nearing the point where I will start swapping the POV of posts with Cassie and the NPCs from Mackinac, I'm going to have a super hard time not writing in goofy "Cassie style" and adopting what might be considered a normal or more traditional writing tone for the others. I haven't done that in like, forever. 0.o
So, as it turns out, boats weren’t all that difficult to find in a state dominated by lakes. Weird. Finding a boat that was functional and would feasibly work with her ill-conceived plan… That was a bit tougher for Cassie. After mulling over the selections in a small marina, she finally decided on a wave runner for simplicity’s sake; she was just going to ignore the whole splashy wetness thing they had going on. As luck would have it, the marina had one of the little personal watercraft that fit the bill and was easily dropped from its boat lift into the bed of her truck. She tightly lashed her most important possessions onto it, namely her parachute and M4 carbine, so the chance that they were lost lessened greatly; Wave runners could be tippy little mothers. She smiled at her handiwork and at the stupid idea in her head that was becoming more real. Phase one of her three phased operation was complete.
Phase two was stupid simple. The woman drove herself to the coast near where she knew Mackinac was just a few mile jog across the lake. Being so close to Horde Season as it was, the snowy beaches were lousy with the undead that had been steadily seeping in throughout the year attracted by the mass of fleshy things gathered off the coast. Cassie decided to make her run a bit further down the beach from where the main horde was congregated, not being that insane, and stopped in the thin wood line that skirted the mainland side’s edge of sand. She already had a sizable gaggle-fuck of deaders headed her way from the deep rumble of her diesel and her using the blunt side of her hatchet to shatter the back window out probably didn’t help. To be honest, she could have totally broke the window before when she had been loading her sea-doo, but it was freaking cold outside. The ten minutes of uncomfortable driving would not have been worth a few less zeds gnawing on the sides of her truck; that was for sure. For the last portion of the easy stuff, Cass flipped the toggle to bring the snowplow up off of the ground as high as it could manage. Phase three where was all the fun shit happened; she liked phase three.
Now, Cassie had a flair for the dramatic. She had worked in Hollywood before the end of the world, after all, and it had kind of been her job as a stuntwoman. Pairing that with her normal eccentric, live-life-on-the-edge personality, nobody who had met the woman for more than a few minutes would really be surprised at what she did next.
She gunned the shit out of that truck. Straight towards Lake Huron without an iota of hesitation. The woman would have loved to have been blasting some Bohemian Rhapsody, specifically the rock part where Wayne, Garth, and their cohorts head-banged it out like champs in their rusted out AMC Pacer, but apocalyptic scavengers couldn’t be too picky and someone logical may have argued that it would have just caused her to garnish more unnecessary attention.
Waves of zombies cascaded from the sides of her snowplow as she tore through their ranks unceremoniously. The few that snuck beneath her tires were no match for her behemoth and the fewer still that made it over the top didn’t have enough oomph to do anything more than crack the windshield before sliding off. Cassie had just enough time to think that the sound of decaying man-flesh trying to gain purchase on the smooth glass was awfully similar to that of squeegeeing a window clean before the truck hit the iced over lake. She realized just how cold the winter had been already when it took a good several hundred feet before the weight of the Ford was too much for the ice to handle. The plow on front didn’t help. Not when it came to the jarring halt as the metal blade hit the stubbornly immobile water, not in slowing down the whole sinking process. You would have thought Cassie would have learned about driving trucks into bodies of freezing cold water from her last little escapade with Simon but hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The slender woman threw off her seat beat and lunged for the back window even before the water had time to hit the front grill of the truck. Just as quickly the backpack with her meager supplies and tools was slung over her shoulders as she scrambled to straddle the seat of the wave runner as its confinement sunk beneath water. Walkers belly flopped into the water around her as the machine gurgled to life.
She gunned the shit out of that sea-doo. The little patch of open water that had been created by her truck’s nosedive would hopefully allow her to build up enough momentum so that she could slide across the remaining ice to open water. Or at least get her close.
It did… Kind of. The craft started slowing dangerously close to zed-amble speed about a hundred feet from her goal. Cassie groaned and slipped off the back to start pushing. Undead were already converging on her again, so she opted for one hand to push and one to brandish her pistol. “Shitshitshitshitshitshit…” The worlds just kept rolling off her tongue as she ran, gaining volume and pitch in accordance to the how close each deader she dashed by got. Adding in a few yelped “fucks” every time she was forced to fire on one that almost got the best of her, Cassie had an interesting cacophony of swear words going as she and her mini-herd of zombies made it to the edge of the ice.
She gave one last push before throwing herself onto her escape, but she wasn’t the only thing. One particularly tenacious little bitter latched a hand onto her backpack, throwing off her carefully balanced feng shui. As soon as they hit the water the zombie’s lower half acted like an anchor and peeled the both of them off the back of the wave runner.
Fully submerged in the water, the coldness of it hitting her all at once, felt like she had been sucker punched in the solar plexus by Chuck Norris. Every muscle in her body constricted into tiny knots simultaneously and she felt like she was going to just keel over right then and there. But then some kind of biological failsafe snapped and everything loosed, including her breath in a storm of bubbles, and she had enough sense to detangle herself from the bag and zombie that was dragging her further into the depths. Her jacket went quickly after as she struggled to make it back to the surface. Other zombies starting sinking and swirling around in the undertow around her stretching feebly towards her, like some kind of fucked up snow globe or something, and she was mindful enough to give them enough berth as she ascended.
The first gulp of air she took into her burning lungs after she breached the surface was glorious. So much so that she almost forgot she was bobbing in ice water filled with both sinking and floating zeds. Crap. At least her sea-doo hadn’t gotten too far away; she was lucky the things had an emergency kill switch that tethered to their riders in case they fell off. Thank you baby Jesus, she thought as she paddled over and dragged herself back into the seat. She replaced the kill switch with already quaking hands and powered the thing back on before giving the horde behind her the bird and speeding off towards the island.
God damn, she was so cold though. The wind and the wet and the freaking temperature to begin with had her believing she had never been so cold in her entire life. Ever. If she didn’t die from hypothermia or have all her appendages fall off or something from this, Cassie vowed to never go near anything cold ever again. Not even frosty beverages. At least it was good motivation to get to the island in a hurry, the whole impending death or being permanently maimed thing, and she redlined the watercraft the entire way there.
The harbor guards didn’t even stop her to ask their normal security questions despite the fact that she had an assault rifle slung across her front. They just gave her wide eyed looks of concern and asked if she needed help. That’s how pitiful she looked. She just chattered out that her family lived in the Hotel Iroquois and they let her go on her soggy way. Luckily, Hotel Iroquois, like the vast majority of the hotels that had been built on the island, was butted right up against the harbor so her walk was only a few agonizing minutes long.
Two flights of stairs later and a little jaunt down a hallway brought her in front of her family’s home. Her family, of both blood and bond, that had avoided the initial outbreak by pure luck and coincidence and that had survived the following years together. She smiled despite her bluing lips and thumped soundly on the door. It didn’t take long for her to hear a loud gasp followed by several latches being undone hurriedly. Cassie had forgotten about the peephole. Surprise ruined.
The door flung open on its hinges and her mother half hugged and half dragged her quickly inside the room. “Cassandra Marie!” she exclaimed, the joyful tears in her eyes not able to squash the tinge of motherly disapproval by calling Cass by her first and middle name. “You’re half frozen through! I’m the only one home, strip down and get by the fire. I’ll get you dry clothes.”
Cassie complied, a goofy look of fondness cracking through her coldness as her mother berated her, like she always did. “Hi, Mom. I missed you too.”
Samantha Shannahan, matriarch of what was left of her clan and mother of who had to be the most frustrating child in existence, swept back into the room and threw a heap of clothes and furs next to her daughter. “It seems you still haven’t found a lick of sense in all your wondering,” she chastised and grabbed up a towel to help Cass dry off. “Leila took Bri with her to the market and they’ll probably be back any time now. I don’t want my granddaughter seeing her mother look half dead. At least your uncle and Jason won’t be back from work for a few hours yet.”
“It was really awesome, though,” Cassie smirked as she started to pull on the newly provided clothes.
“I’m sure,” her mother replied after an exasperated sigh. Her face softened as she wrapped an animal pelt around Cassie and planted a firm kiss on the top of her head, then she sank down to the ground next to her to embrace her in a one armed hug. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you again.”
Phase two was stupid simple. The woman drove herself to the coast near where she knew Mackinac was just a few mile jog across the lake. Being so close to Horde Season as it was, the snowy beaches were lousy with the undead that had been steadily seeping in throughout the year attracted by the mass of fleshy things gathered off the coast. Cassie decided to make her run a bit further down the beach from where the main horde was congregated, not being that insane, and stopped in the thin wood line that skirted the mainland side’s edge of sand. She already had a sizable gaggle-fuck of deaders headed her way from the deep rumble of her diesel and her using the blunt side of her hatchet to shatter the back window out probably didn’t help. To be honest, she could have totally broke the window before when she had been loading her sea-doo, but it was freaking cold outside. The ten minutes of uncomfortable driving would not have been worth a few less zeds gnawing on the sides of her truck; that was for sure. For the last portion of the easy stuff, Cass flipped the toggle to bring the snowplow up off of the ground as high as it could manage. Phase three where was all the fun shit happened; she liked phase three.
Now, Cassie had a flair for the dramatic. She had worked in Hollywood before the end of the world, after all, and it had kind of been her job as a stuntwoman. Pairing that with her normal eccentric, live-life-on-the-edge personality, nobody who had met the woman for more than a few minutes would really be surprised at what she did next.
She gunned the shit out of that truck. Straight towards Lake Huron without an iota of hesitation. The woman would have loved to have been blasting some Bohemian Rhapsody, specifically the rock part where Wayne, Garth, and their cohorts head-banged it out like champs in their rusted out AMC Pacer, but apocalyptic scavengers couldn’t be too picky and someone logical may have argued that it would have just caused her to garnish more unnecessary attention.
Waves of zombies cascaded from the sides of her snowplow as she tore through their ranks unceremoniously. The few that snuck beneath her tires were no match for her behemoth and the fewer still that made it over the top didn’t have enough oomph to do anything more than crack the windshield before sliding off. Cassie had just enough time to think that the sound of decaying man-flesh trying to gain purchase on the smooth glass was awfully similar to that of squeegeeing a window clean before the truck hit the iced over lake. She realized just how cold the winter had been already when it took a good several hundred feet before the weight of the Ford was too much for the ice to handle. The plow on front didn’t help. Not when it came to the jarring halt as the metal blade hit the stubbornly immobile water, not in slowing down the whole sinking process. You would have thought Cassie would have learned about driving trucks into bodies of freezing cold water from her last little escapade with Simon but hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The slender woman threw off her seat beat and lunged for the back window even before the water had time to hit the front grill of the truck. Just as quickly the backpack with her meager supplies and tools was slung over her shoulders as she scrambled to straddle the seat of the wave runner as its confinement sunk beneath water. Walkers belly flopped into the water around her as the machine gurgled to life.
She gunned the shit out of that sea-doo. The little patch of open water that had been created by her truck’s nosedive would hopefully allow her to build up enough momentum so that she could slide across the remaining ice to open water. Or at least get her close.
It did… Kind of. The craft started slowing dangerously close to zed-amble speed about a hundred feet from her goal. Cassie groaned and slipped off the back to start pushing. Undead were already converging on her again, so she opted for one hand to push and one to brandish her pistol. “Shitshitshitshitshitshit…” The worlds just kept rolling off her tongue as she ran, gaining volume and pitch in accordance to the how close each deader she dashed by got. Adding in a few yelped “fucks” every time she was forced to fire on one that almost got the best of her, Cassie had an interesting cacophony of swear words going as she and her mini-herd of zombies made it to the edge of the ice.
She gave one last push before throwing herself onto her escape, but she wasn’t the only thing. One particularly tenacious little bitter latched a hand onto her backpack, throwing off her carefully balanced feng shui. As soon as they hit the water the zombie’s lower half acted like an anchor and peeled the both of them off the back of the wave runner.
Fully submerged in the water, the coldness of it hitting her all at once, felt like she had been sucker punched in the solar plexus by Chuck Norris. Every muscle in her body constricted into tiny knots simultaneously and she felt like she was going to just keel over right then and there. But then some kind of biological failsafe snapped and everything loosed, including her breath in a storm of bubbles, and she had enough sense to detangle herself from the bag and zombie that was dragging her further into the depths. Her jacket went quickly after as she struggled to make it back to the surface. Other zombies starting sinking and swirling around in the undertow around her stretching feebly towards her, like some kind of fucked up snow globe or something, and she was mindful enough to give them enough berth as she ascended.
The first gulp of air she took into her burning lungs after she breached the surface was glorious. So much so that she almost forgot she was bobbing in ice water filled with both sinking and floating zeds. Crap. At least her sea-doo hadn’t gotten too far away; she was lucky the things had an emergency kill switch that tethered to their riders in case they fell off. Thank you baby Jesus, she thought as she paddled over and dragged herself back into the seat. She replaced the kill switch with already quaking hands and powered the thing back on before giving the horde behind her the bird and speeding off towards the island.
God damn, she was so cold though. The wind and the wet and the freaking temperature to begin with had her believing she had never been so cold in her entire life. Ever. If she didn’t die from hypothermia or have all her appendages fall off or something from this, Cassie vowed to never go near anything cold ever again. Not even frosty beverages. At least it was good motivation to get to the island in a hurry, the whole impending death or being permanently maimed thing, and she redlined the watercraft the entire way there.
The harbor guards didn’t even stop her to ask their normal security questions despite the fact that she had an assault rifle slung across her front. They just gave her wide eyed looks of concern and asked if she needed help. That’s how pitiful she looked. She just chattered out that her family lived in the Hotel Iroquois and they let her go on her soggy way. Luckily, Hotel Iroquois, like the vast majority of the hotels that had been built on the island, was butted right up against the harbor so her walk was only a few agonizing minutes long.
Two flights of stairs later and a little jaunt down a hallway brought her in front of her family’s home. Her family, of both blood and bond, that had avoided the initial outbreak by pure luck and coincidence and that had survived the following years together. She smiled despite her bluing lips and thumped soundly on the door. It didn’t take long for her to hear a loud gasp followed by several latches being undone hurriedly. Cassie had forgotten about the peephole. Surprise ruined.
The door flung open on its hinges and her mother half hugged and half dragged her quickly inside the room. “Cassandra Marie!” she exclaimed, the joyful tears in her eyes not able to squash the tinge of motherly disapproval by calling Cass by her first and middle name. “You’re half frozen through! I’m the only one home, strip down and get by the fire. I’ll get you dry clothes.”
Cassie complied, a goofy look of fondness cracking through her coldness as her mother berated her, like she always did. “Hi, Mom. I missed you too.”
Samantha Shannahan, matriarch of what was left of her clan and mother of who had to be the most frustrating child in existence, swept back into the room and threw a heap of clothes and furs next to her daughter. “It seems you still haven’t found a lick of sense in all your wondering,” she chastised and grabbed up a towel to help Cass dry off. “Leila took Bri with her to the market and they’ll probably be back any time now. I don’t want my granddaughter seeing her mother look half dead. At least your uncle and Jason won’t be back from work for a few hours yet.”
“It was really awesome, though,” Cassie smirked as she started to pull on the newly provided clothes.
“I’m sure,” her mother replied after an exasperated sigh. Her face softened as she wrapped an animal pelt around Cassie and planted a firm kiss on the top of her head, then she sank down to the ground next to her to embrace her in a one armed hug. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you again.”
Prom said Can I come play with you guys?
*Le gasp* Mom! Dad! Can we keep him? Please?!? I'll feed him and give him water and play with him and clean up after him... You won't have to do anything, promise! (I really need to stop writing responses after taking large amounts of caffeine)
Prom said I've written stuff up for Acacia over the past couple of days, pretty isolated, but fun. At the time of me writing this, she's currently been bitten by a walker, is almost entirely naked, and is completely lost. Good stuff.
But... but how are she and Cassie supposed to have naked mud wrestling if she's dead? And who is Cass supposed to annoy into homicidal rages now?!? You freaking boob.
I will probably start writing up my new post tonight... Maybe. And if I do then I'll throw it up into the doc and OOC'ly roll to see how screwed I am. You know, just to make sure I've gotten it figured out properly. Cassie gets +20 defense for having the Armor of the Sky God equipped though, right?
Shon said @FreeFall: Working on a Standard Model for situations where GMs aren't required. Had an idea before, but reworked it for simplicity's sake and might have something! Fallen will be posting using the model for the situation we're in (testing it for 2+ Players) and you'll get the honour of testing it for a solo situation. To be clear, things might change as we develop the model... but we're trying to make something easy and simple first for the normal conflicts. I'll send you the model and we can talk a bit about it (I know you just posted, so we have time ;]).
I make a super good guinea pig; Real talk. Though if Cassie ends up getting eaten and I have to develop an entirely new character within two posts, I will straight up throat punch you through the internet. Just, you know, preemptive warning.
Aweena said I've never heard that Hellfish song before, but it's somehow stuck in my head.
Well, if it helps get it stuck in your head more, you should know that everything but the last verse is sung to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it." The last part kinda goes off and does its own thing. Feel blessed that you now know one of sacred hymns of the Flying Hellfish and have gotten to glimpse into the society of the awesome.
Got my post up, which may or may not include the lyrics to the best song in the history of songs (note: explicit content, too many mentions of boobies and manly bits for childrens). I'm also going to need to be trying out this new dice rolling... thingy... right quick. Because zombies.
Glorious leaders of New Apocalyptica, Aweena and Shon, are taking applications via the super cool, down and dirty diary-like version that can be seen on Shon's portion of the OP under the "People of Apoc" section, which explains what they're looking for.
The Imagination said
I was in the process of joining this roleplay prior to the Fall of The Guild, so I feel it's only right if I check it out again and see if I can't try and get back into it.
Glorious leaders of New Apocalyptica, Aweena and Shon, are taking applications via the super cool, down and dirty diary-like version that can be seen on Shon's portion of the OP under the "People of Apoc" section, which explains what they're looking for.
Cassie sighed and swung her feet back and forth idly as she took in what was left of the Detroit cityscape from her high perch. From the roof of the skyscraper she’d claimed for herself, she could see the complete and utter desolation that the city had been thrown into. Buildings were decrepit and generally crawling with the undead, the more easily accessible places having been ransacked years ago, and in the northwest corner of the city was an impact area from one of the many meteors that had crashed into the States. Barely anything remained standing in that section of the city, except for the odd little shop that huge crater and quake resulting from the hit had spared and some FEMA tents and equipment and tents from when the world was still trying to staunch the bleeding. Didn't work out too well in their favor.
Actually, the woman admitted to herself with a little smirk, nothing had really changed much since the apocalypse; the city had been a pretty shitty place for years before. Not even the generous covering of virgin snow could trick someone into thinking this place had ever been pure. Even so, she still got a pang of nostalgia looking over the city. She remembered driving to it with her parents to see the Red Wings play hockey at the Joe since she had been in pigtails, going to one of the many venues with her friends to see their favorite bands when she was a teen, and even BASE jumping for the first time off the top of the very building she sat on now. Her and her dad, together… despite her mother’s protest that their daughter’s first BASE jump not be an illegal one.
The memories prompted her to look down at the photo clutched in her gloved hands for the first time since she entered the city. A group photo with all the divers from her drop zone sprawled around or on their plane, blue skies above them and summer fields behind. The family she grew up with. All sixty-something of them smiling and laughing while they sang the song of the skydiving team in which they all belonged. And sitting in the door of that plane was a young Cass sitting between her parents, her arms wrapped around their necks in a one-armed hug as they sang with the rest. She could still hear them all bellowing the bawdy song of the Flying Hellfish as they swayed with the rhythm and she sang along in her head now.
You can tell a Hellfish by his dick
By his dick!
You can tell a Hellfish by his dick
By his dick!
‘Coz it’s twenty inches thick
And it’s always in a chick
You can tell a Hellfish by his dick
You can tell a Hellfish by her tits
By her tits!
You can tell a Hellfish by her tits
By her tits!
‘Coz they’re really nice to squeeze
And they’re always flappin’ in the breeze
You can tell a Hellfish by her tits
Oh glorious! Victorious!
One keg of beer for the four of us
Lucky there’s no more of us
‘Coz it’s barely just enough for us
Damn near!
Pass the beer!
To the rear!
Of the plane!
HELLFISH!
Cassie giggled to herself, the sound of it getting caught up in the swirling winter winds rushing through the city. She was glad she decided to grab this picture off the wall covered in a menagerie of similar ones when she’d stopped by the drop zone on her way to Mackinac, just like she always did. Not only had she made it a place for respite during her travels where she could reminisce and be at home, but she also wanted to bring a little something of her dad to show Brianna every time she came to visit. Cassie’s daughter would never get to meet her grandpa, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t get to know the great man that he was. Though, she admitted to herself, she'd probably wait a few years before teaching her little Squish the lyrics to the Hellfish song; three was a bit young for that special brand of nonsense.
Despite her want to linger a bit longer on her ledge, the increased pounding on the door to access the roof told her that the time for dawdling had passed. She’d done what she came to do her in the first place anyway, having found a path she could drive through to safely make it from the city from her superior height, so there was really nothing but her own procrastination keeping her where she was. So she stuffed the photo down several layers of clothing and into her bra for safe keeping and hopped up to her newly booted feet and faced back towards the only entrance to the roof. She waited impatiently for the few minutes it took the zeds she’d attracted to bust down the door and stumble their way towards her. “Wow, I expected a little bit more of a crowd than this,” she told them with a sigh, “Must be getting too damn sneaky for my own good.”
Her lopsided smirk grew as more poured through the door to fill up the roof space. That opening may very well have been the only entrance, but it most certainly wasn’t the only exit. At least, that is, for Cassie. With a cackle she grabbed the lead zombie by the shoulders and pulled him backwards off the ledge with her, the two back flipping into the open air while the rest ambled off the edge after them. Cass pushed the zed away from her and as soon as she heard that sweet rush of air fill her ears she threw her parachute open. She steered herself towards the truck she had parked a bit down the road even while she allowed herself the satisfaction of looking back to watch dozens of zombies careen off the two hundred and seventy-two story hotel to their second, much more permanent death. Best part of the zombie apocalypse? That.
She landed softly next to the Ford diesel truck -with attached plow for additional snow and zombie slaying capabilities- she had commandeered and quickly stripped off her rig and threw it and herself in the front seat. The engine was still warm, so it started up quickly for the woman and she started to follow the path she had created in her head to escape the confines of the Motor City. Cassie was still about three hundred miles away from Mackinac Haven itself, but she planned to make it there in one straight shot. After all the help Petey and the Sentinels had given her to get her this far, she would be damned if she let all their sacrifice go to waste. The haven needed to know that their safety was at risk and that they may very well be in the 1007th’s sights now. She planned to make sure they had the most time possible to build up their defense. The only problem she really foresaw was physically getting onto the island without a boat. Well that, and she supposed the horde of zombies she knew would be waiting off the coastline for the water between them and the haven to freeze over. But, you know, mostly the boat thing. Joining the polar bear club was currently not high on her list of things to do, nor did she think her cold-intolerant, crotchety body really would appreciate it.
Actually, the woman admitted to herself with a little smirk, nothing had really changed much since the apocalypse; the city had been a pretty shitty place for years before. Not even the generous covering of virgin snow could trick someone into thinking this place had ever been pure. Even so, she still got a pang of nostalgia looking over the city. She remembered driving to it with her parents to see the Red Wings play hockey at the Joe since she had been in pigtails, going to one of the many venues with her friends to see their favorite bands when she was a teen, and even BASE jumping for the first time off the top of the very building she sat on now. Her and her dad, together… despite her mother’s protest that their daughter’s first BASE jump not be an illegal one.
The memories prompted her to look down at the photo clutched in her gloved hands for the first time since she entered the city. A group photo with all the divers from her drop zone sprawled around or on their plane, blue skies above them and summer fields behind. The family she grew up with. All sixty-something of them smiling and laughing while they sang the song of the skydiving team in which they all belonged. And sitting in the door of that plane was a young Cass sitting between her parents, her arms wrapped around their necks in a one-armed hug as they sang with the rest. She could still hear them all bellowing the bawdy song of the Flying Hellfish as they swayed with the rhythm and she sang along in her head now.
You can tell a Hellfish by his dick
By his dick!
You can tell a Hellfish by his dick
By his dick!
‘Coz it’s twenty inches thick
And it’s always in a chick
You can tell a Hellfish by his dick
You can tell a Hellfish by her tits
By her tits!
You can tell a Hellfish by her tits
By her tits!
‘Coz they’re really nice to squeeze
And they’re always flappin’ in the breeze
You can tell a Hellfish by her tits
Oh glorious! Victorious!
One keg of beer for the four of us
Lucky there’s no more of us
‘Coz it’s barely just enough for us
Damn near!
Pass the beer!
To the rear!
Of the plane!
HELLFISH!
Cassie giggled to herself, the sound of it getting caught up in the swirling winter winds rushing through the city. She was glad she decided to grab this picture off the wall covered in a menagerie of similar ones when she’d stopped by the drop zone on her way to Mackinac, just like she always did. Not only had she made it a place for respite during her travels where she could reminisce and be at home, but she also wanted to bring a little something of her dad to show Brianna every time she came to visit. Cassie’s daughter would never get to meet her grandpa, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t get to know the great man that he was. Though, she admitted to herself, she'd probably wait a few years before teaching her little Squish the lyrics to the Hellfish song; three was a bit young for that special brand of nonsense.
Despite her want to linger a bit longer on her ledge, the increased pounding on the door to access the roof told her that the time for dawdling had passed. She’d done what she came to do her in the first place anyway, having found a path she could drive through to safely make it from the city from her superior height, so there was really nothing but her own procrastination keeping her where she was. So she stuffed the photo down several layers of clothing and into her bra for safe keeping and hopped up to her newly booted feet and faced back towards the only entrance to the roof. She waited impatiently for the few minutes it took the zeds she’d attracted to bust down the door and stumble their way towards her. “Wow, I expected a little bit more of a crowd than this,” she told them with a sigh, “Must be getting too damn sneaky for my own good.”
Her lopsided smirk grew as more poured through the door to fill up the roof space. That opening may very well have been the only entrance, but it most certainly wasn’t the only exit. At least, that is, for Cassie. With a cackle she grabbed the lead zombie by the shoulders and pulled him backwards off the ledge with her, the two back flipping into the open air while the rest ambled off the edge after them. Cass pushed the zed away from her and as soon as she heard that sweet rush of air fill her ears she threw her parachute open. She steered herself towards the truck she had parked a bit down the road even while she allowed herself the satisfaction of looking back to watch dozens of zombies careen off the two hundred and seventy-two story hotel to their second, much more permanent death. Best part of the zombie apocalypse? That.
She landed softly next to the Ford diesel truck -with attached plow for additional snow and zombie slaying capabilities- she had commandeered and quickly stripped off her rig and threw it and herself in the front seat. The engine was still warm, so it started up quickly for the woman and she started to follow the path she had created in her head to escape the confines of the Motor City. Cassie was still about three hundred miles away from Mackinac Haven itself, but she planned to make it there in one straight shot. After all the help Petey and the Sentinels had given her to get her this far, she would be damned if she let all their sacrifice go to waste. The haven needed to know that their safety was at risk and that they may very well be in the 1007th’s sights now. She planned to make sure they had the most time possible to build up their defense. The only problem she really foresaw was physically getting onto the island without a boat. Well that, and she supposed the horde of zombies she knew would be waiting off the coastline for the water between them and the haven to freeze over. But, you know, mostly the boat thing. Joining the polar bear club was currently not high on her list of things to do, nor did she think her cold-intolerant, crotchety body really would appreciate it.
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