Krieg

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

MST3K, you may want to react somehow to the chaos ensuing before your character. You did insist you were already at the well, after all.

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

We're pretty much exactly where we were before you left.

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

A calm fury hissed from Boyd's eyes, not only at the fact that he had been attacked, but that he had not reacted swiftly enough to avoid it entirely. Now, this pup, albeit an impressively snarling, teeth-gnashing pup, was barking out demands. The punch had left Boyd with a bit of blood-laced saliva swirling around his tongue and he had not been eager to remember the metallic taste any time soon. "How ‘bout your life?" Boyd spoke as he stared into Booker's eyes, straight past the cold metal barrel of the .45.

A soft nudge against his navel would make Booker aware to the magnum pressed against his lower abdomen. "Sure, you could take mine. I would go out nice and quick, like taking a shot of vodka that would let me rest for good.... But a gut shot." Boyd grinned, his slightly off-color teeth still managing to gleam in the sun. "Just knowing that you went out in more pain than me would be victory 'nuff for me."

Boyd, after all, was a gunfighter. If there was one useful thing Boyd III had taught his son, it was how to artfully and effectively use a revolver to not only intimidate and impress, but to also defend himself with the speed of a rattlesnake. His grin subsided for a moment but only to let words spill from his lips again: "So, you think your bullet's any faster 'n mine? Or you want we should remove iron from one another? Favor for a favor... and all that."

The steel in their hands were no match for that in their eyes as they stared for what felt like a minute before realization and reasoning were complete; Booker rose to his feet, as did Boyd. Rolling his revolver around his middle finger once before holstering his weapon, Boyd felt the situation noticeably defuse. Cocking his head slightly to the side and hawking out the blood-soaked loogie, Boyd began to speak: "You think we got business cards or somethin'?" The man dusted off his pants with both hands. "You don't become a Peacer. You just are one. You wake up one day and pick up a gun and that's it. What you do with it makes you one of us. There ain't exactly an official rulebook. But the password for the shitter is "Nancy", FYI."

---

Certain impatience was clearly visible on Amira's face. First this man insulted her, followed by the implication that she should leave her loot behind. It was enough to make her want to turn away from him and take her chances with the corpses. Sure, she had fought her way past multiple undead in the past, but never in such tight quarters. To top it all off, the man began barking orders at her as if he were the be-all, end-all himself.

With her teeth clenched painfully against one another and her tongue braced against the roof of her mouth, Amira silenced herself, spitefully stuffing the jewelry box into her shoulderbag and followed the man’s order in taking his arm within her grasp. With her other hand, she dug the claw end of the framing hammer into the edge of the concrete and pulled herself up as the two ascended into God knows where and what above.

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

Oh okay. I thought that when you said "headed to the well" you were intending for her to do something else between then and now, or make some kind of appearance at the well. I'll edit accordingly.

---

Edits made.

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

Alright, thanks for the heads up.

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

I have posted, sorry about the delay.

And yeah, Spade, feel free to put CS up. We can always find a way to squeeze your intro in somewhere.

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

Somewhere, half-cloaked by the loud shambling of the walking corpses, Amira heard the rapid, persistent steps of someone moving and moving quickly. Tucking the jewelry box under her left arm, the swift woman took her framing hammer in hand and moved for the door. It was just about the time that she had reached the portal that she sound of fleeting footfalls moved past the apartment door.

Having braced her feet for combat, rather than flight, Amira froze for a moment. It could just as well be a raider ploy to get her out in the open, to finally tie up the loose end that she assumed all raiders knew she was. With a twitch in her calves, Amira's instinct took over, shouting at her for being a paranoid fool. Even if it was raiders that had caused this, infected were infected and if she stayed here she would soon be counted among their ranks.'

Wrenching the door open with the claw end of her hammer, Amira dipped into the hallway as she tried to orientate herself with what was happening. The horde. It was to the left, which meant....

Amira bolted, not even allowing her eyes to catch up for a few moments and before she realized it, she was in the stairwell next to a man she didn't know. A man who could just as soon sink a knife into her gut as he could extend a hand for help. The hammer in her right hand rose about mid-level in a twitch reaction before she froze. She wanted to say something, anything to him, but instead she just stared like a frightened doe.

---

Boyd's form, in all of its swaggering, duster-wearing obnoxiousness had only just appeared on the scene when Booker showed up. He had not even had time to acknowledge Noella's and Ronnie's presence before he heard the jingling of a keyring being thrown in his direction. Snatching them out of the air at the last second before they would have pelted him in the face, Boyd paused a moment. The kid had came through for him. A smirk quickly faded to a dull pursing of the lips however once Boyd realized what vehicle they had just been given. "The Camino." Boyd inhaled sharply, his brow raising for a split second as if in surprise. It was essentially the bottom of the barrel. No weaponry. Un-armored. An interior that was more duct tape than upholstery. But at least it ran.

"That'll do, Perdue. That'll do." Boyd turned away from the man as he approached his two companions. "Camino." Was all he needed to say to them in order to get his distaste across. Boyd didn't exactly enjoy shrugging the new recruit off like so, but it would make for a lot less of a headache if he could shake him now. "Just ah-...." Boyd swung back around to face Booker. "Go back to the interview room and... Wait for the interviewer. The... other interviewer..." Boyd shrugged, twiddling the key between his fingers. "I'm going on break."

Now all they had to do was wait on Ronnie, and pray the new guy got the hint.

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

Finally got a post up for Amira. Marx, feel free to work off it to your advantage.

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

-Wednesday, January 12, 2058; 5:17 PM
-Altman Heights Apartment Complex, 5th Floor
-Franklin, Tennessee

A loud crack, followed by the groan of wood planks straining preceded a door bursting open, pieces of wood splintering and flying into the air. Through the door stepped a small-shouldered form heaving in air. Amira was exhausted, having tunneled her way through the massive apartment complex. Some hallways were impassable, their ceilings now like walls before her. Doorways collapsed in on themselves preventing her easy access to the treasures that were tucked away in a place like this. It was relatively safe, save for the structural integrity of the building. No marauders lived here, lest they would have came running when she shattered a window on the fire escape.

Now, she had managed to make it up to the fifth floor. It seemed untouched, evident by the fact that there were corpses that still had belongings on them. One such corpse lay face down on the carpet in the middle of the apartment's living room. Glancing down and to her left, Amira took hold of a small flower vase that sat upon an end table. Tossing it casually next to the corpse, she watched for any sign of movement. The possibility of the undead rising to greet her always haunted the depths of her mind, having had one too many spring to life before her in the past.

Amira breathed deep, hoping to clear her head and not think so recklessly and with sporadic caution. The apartment was like most others: peeling paint or wallpaper, boarded windows, inhabitants long dead and still clutching whatever was dearest to them. Sometimes it was money. Sometimes a gun. Sometimes a child....

The last one hurt Amira the most.

Focusing on the task at hand, the woman glided over the dead body, crouching on the opposite side where an outstretched hand grasped for something lustrous. A key, though not the type that went to any lock with any complexity. Maybe a footlocker, or a diary. No. Too large for a diary. Maybe a jewelry box. The thought caused Amira to rise to her feet and click on the flashlight mounted on her backpack's strap. The apartment now glowed with a cone of dim illumination. Scanning down the hallway opposite the kitchen, Amira took her framing hammer in hand and leaned into cautious steps.

With her right foot, she nudged each door open as she passed. One was a guest room converted into an office, the next was the bathroom. The site of a disposable razor on the edge of the sink caused Amira's hand to bolt inward and snatch it up as if it were made of solid gold. She put the shaving utensil into her front pocket for the moment as she continued on to the room at the end of the hall.

Pushing it open revealed a queen sized bed with a the corpse of a woman, just bones now, resting eternally in fancy dress clothes. This was probably the original occupant from decades ago. The man on the floor must have been living here sometime between then and now. She had not checked what stage of decomposition he had been to tell when, all she cared was that he didn't get back up off the floor with a groan.

Moving around the large bed in the semi circle of walking space, Amira bumped into the dresser, the swinging handles rattling noisily. Turning her shoulder so that light shined atop the piece of furniture, she tightened her face to avoid smiling. Smiling would only tempt fate to rob her off the prize: a small cherrywood jewelry box with a keyhole mounted on the front just about the size of the key.

Just about ready to slide the key into its home, she heard a rumbling noise. It was low and had a frequency that made her stomach churn. After listening for a moment longer, Amira realized that it was not a low frequency causing the rumbling, thumping sensation in the floor. It was footsteps, and lots of them. Not the brisk, measured footsteps of a raider or marauder. It was the rolling, dragging sound of a small horde of the undead. Something had stirred them to life somewhere in the building, and Amira was certain it had not been her.

Cleansed: Peace Keepers

Looking forward to it.