Five-Finger Discount!

[Mason Breaker]

Mason merely slapped himself in the face at Keith's ridiculous desire to be in the front of the van. But he really couldn't change his mind now, could he? No, no he couldn't, and they really didn't have the time. Now, Mason didn't hate Keith. Nowhere near that. It was just his antics often gave Mason a bit of a headache. That, and his tendancy to tell the most outrageous of tales. Mason himself was a man of honesty, only lying when he felt it was absolutaly necessary. He tried to avoid such situations.

Climbing into the driver's seat, he shut the door, buckled in, and did a double check to make sure everyone was there. Devon, Moro, Keith, Tara, Roy, and of course, himself.

"Alright lads and lasses! Hold on tight to, whatever! Once we get back to the mall, grab whatever you can and head to the safe room!"

"And Keith, I need you as my extra set of eyes! Especially watch for Tanks and Boomers!" Mason knew all to well the reprecussions of hitting a Boomer. It would not end well for them.....

Facing the front again, he backed the van out of the store, into the parking lot, and down the road, striking several Common Infected as the van took off towards the mall.

[Roy Bivenmeijer]

Roy, breathless at Keith's daredevil driving antica, had been searching the back before an unconcious Tara had been thrown back. The jar of her entering the back of the van jarred loose a box and revealed to him what he'd been searching for.

Bungee cords.

After securing most of the weapons so they'd not fall and knock someone else out. With the remaining two cords, the longest of the cords he could find, he secured the left side of the back door before kicking it out. After the initial wind gust and a quick payer that nobody would be dumb enough to fall out, Roy picked up a civilian model AK-47 (A/N: They do exist, my father owns one) and loaded it up before going sentry at the door. "Anything comes this way, they're dead Grizzly..."

Aside from the tactical advantage this presented them as a gunnery position, it also allowed for quick boarding by fallen survivors (though some might also argue zombies, with Roy there, none were likely to board without killing him first). "Let's get goin', tear it up Mase." He laughed, shooting the last of the zombies that were wandering the parking lot, grinning at the carnage the weapon caused. "They say one of these can tear a man in half y'know..."

[Keith the Great]

“Tanks were the big guys, right?” Keith confirmed. Without even waiting for an answer, he simply nodded and set his eyes to the road. That lasted all of two seconds before he decided that sticking his head out a window and enjoying the breeze would be just as effective, and more fun.

He paused for a moment when he felt a breeze from behind him as well as the window, and leaned around to stare at the open back door. “You have fun there!” he hollered. “Jus’ make sure Tarrie don’t fall out or nothin’. Or if she does, remember whose fault it was so she doesn’ kill me.”

His message given, Keith happily stuck his head out the window and watched the end of his scarf trail in the wind. (Oh, and every once in a while he took a look-around for the big zombies.) While the wind was definitely refreshing and the scenery was tranquil, Keith soon found himself bored. What was the fun in car rides if you didn’t get to drive?

Retracting his head back into the car for a moment, Keith turned to Mason and felt the ever-important and always-annoying question bubble up: “Hey, Mase? We there yet?”

[Tara Luketic]

Tara had vaguely felt her body colliding once more with the supplies in the back of the van, though it didn't quite register in her current state of unconscience. She merely curled up into a ball against the back of the seats, content to continue sleeping until they were making their way through the parking lot. It was then that her body decided to finally wake up, and with a loud yawn she stretched as much as possible in the crowded back. Rubbing at her eyes, Tara sat up and instantly winced as the dull ache of bruises and being sore washed back over her body. "Oh yeah. Keith. Crazy driving. Bunch of cargo," she muttered tightly.

She also remembered the promise she'd made before passing out, and quickly took in her surroundings. They appeared to be driving, with Mason in the driver's seat and Keith in the passenger seat. Devon, Moro, Roy, and herself were all piled in the back, and Roy had taken up a post at the van's back doors as a sentry of sorts. Of course, she made sure that Keith wasn't doing anything vitally important before she rose up behind him like Hunter about to pounce. "Oh, Keith~. If you're bored, I know what'll entertain ya!" she sang maliciously.

Without another word, Tara's small hands found their way to Keith's scarf-covered neck from behind. She instantly began throttling him, though it really wasn't too bad seeing as she had little to no upper body strength. "I gave ya fair warning before I passed out, so I don't want to hear nothin' about foul play! You deserve this! If you ever get into the driver's seat of anything again, I swear I'll tie you to the fender myself and go zombie bowling!! UNDERSTAND?!"

It was one of those rare moments where Tara's fierce temper became evident.

[Keith the Great]

At the sound of the horrifically familiar and sickeningly saccharine voice, Keith felt the unburned parts of his face pale. Before he could duck away and escape the danger (probably by jumping out of the van, or maybe grabbing the steering wheel and turning the car to shake her off), Keith felt two sets of vengeful fingers wrap around his throat.

Granted, his scarf helped with the pressure a little bit, and Tara probably didn’t want to seriously kill him (yet), and the girl was definitely not a body-builder. Nevertheless, the moment he felt those hands tighten around his neck, Keith panicked. And of course, his past-based mind system managed to drag out a good memory to terrify him further.

Thankfully, Tara was like his third ex-girlfriend: she wasn’t strong enough to actually kill him. (His third ex got damn close, but that was only because he hadn’t needed the scarf at the time.) However, that didn’t stop Keith from taking a few seconds to suck in all the air his crushed windpipe would allow and screaming his lungs out.

Granted, it wasn’t loud as it could have been. Had he had the freedom of air passage, Keith could have beat out Devon’s late rival easily. Nevertheless, his high-pitched shriek was enough to ring throughout the van, and painfully so.

“HEEEELLLPPPP!!!” he hollered, already wriggling and trying to escape Tara’s death-grip. “I’m too young t’ die! Girls ain’t s’posed t’ do this ‘till th’ second date!” After a few seconds of wriggling, the daredevil’s panicked mind decided it was about the right time to take desperate measures.

Through speed fueled by adrenaline, Keith slipped his hands behind his scarf, wincing as he brushed over burn wounds and one of many mower-blade scars. Before Tara could react, he pushed out against her grip and slipped through his scarf, losing his hat but managing to slide out from the stranglehold and roll down into the space underneath the dashboard. Taking a risk, he sprung back up and snatched away his hat, tugging that over his head before trying to yank his scarf back as well, though he feared Tara’s throttling attempts had closed her fingers around the cloth too quickly for him to retrieve it.

[Mason Breaker]

"Grizzley? Roy, if yer' gonna be callin' me a bear, yeah better do it right!" He shouted back to Roy. "I'm an Irish Grizzley!"

Mason wasted no time getting on the road and making a beeline to the mall. And this sure beat the hell out of walking! The infected that ran in front of the van were simply plowed over, save for Chargers, Tanks, and of course, Boomers. He knew what would happen if he hit a Boomer......

Daddy? What's going on? What happened to Mommy? Where did all these scary people come from?

Dahlia, please, I'll answer the best I can when we're safe, okay? I need you to be strong for me.

Okay Daddy......

What the heck is th-*boom**SPLAT*AUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!!!!!

DADDY!

*CRASH!*

The irishman shook his head, trying to dispel that awful memory. If he had been more careful, if he had reacted faster.....

Luckily, Tara and Keith's little sqabble drew him out of his stupor. Shaking his head one more time, he turned his head slightly to get a better view of the two.

"Tara! Keith! Save it for later! Keith, get back in your seat! Tara, save the strangling for later!" His tone of voice projected the feeling that he really wasn't in the mood for them screwing around in a moving vehicle.

Looking out on the road, he saw one of the street signs. Mall; 2 miles.

"We're almost back! And Keith, if you ask 'are we there yet', I'll......" He let the warning hang over the hobo's head.

[Moro Ashford]

<sub>From her seat in the far back, Moro leaned forward and set a gently but firm hand on Tara's shoulder, unable to repress her smile.

"Cheer up Tara," she chirped. "We're finally getting out of this."

Her spirits were, for the first time in seeming ages, through the roof- the odds of finding a car in this condition elated her. The roads were pretty much clear, and they could siphon gas from other vehicles along the way.

Things are going to be alright.

Trusting Tara had calmed enough to have a grip on herself, Moro leaned over Mason's seat. "Hey, does the radio work?"</sub>

[Tara Luketic]

Tara would have face-palmed at Keith's screaming had her hands not already been occupied, so instead she rolled her eyes. "What kind of girls have you been dating??" she muttered. However, his next actions caught her by surprise, and she yelped as he slipped out of her grip. Tara growled fiercely as her hands held the scarf in an iron grip, glaring pure death at the Southern boy as they began a tug-of-war game. Neither seemed to be winning, and one could just hear the sound of the stitching beginning to tear when Mason spoke.

She always had listened to her elders and followed the rules, and seeing as her prey had clearly escaped, she did as Mason ordered with a huff. "Fine. I'll kill him later, when we're back in the safe room. Bashing his face into the steel door repeatedly sounds like a better method, anyway," Tara stated, releasing the scarf with a snap so that Keith would jerk back against the underside of the dashboard. She looked over at Moro when she felt the hand on her shoulder, and smiled a little. The woman had a point.

"Yeah. I guess you're right. But I'm still going to kill him," Tara replied with a nod as she sat down on what little empty floor there was left in the back of the van. "Even if the radio does work, there won't be any stations. Meaning no music.... or even crappy talk shows," she piped up through a sigh of dismay. Reaching into a pocket of her purse, she pulled out her white, i-Pod Shuffle and popped the headphones in. Within seconds, the soothing screams of Linkin Park were filtering past her eardrums.

[Keith the Great]

Keith seemed to shrink backwards at Tara’s stare, and only pure determination (along with a slight, chilly draft) kept his grip on the scarf. He nearly panicked when he heard his scarf’s cries of pain. Fortunately, Mason happened to be fatherly enough (or just downright annoyed enough) to break things up.

At the release of his scarf, Keith was elated; however, he would have been more cheery had the snap-back of the previous tug-of-war not sent him smacking into the floor of the van. For a moment, stars twinkled in the sky (a.k.a. the van’s roof), and he blinked himself back to reality in time to remember that Mason had demanded him back in the seat.

Since his scarf came as a priority, Keith hastily swung the sky-blue scarf back in place before literally dragging himself back into his seat. (He did take care to sit a little further forward this time, and spent more time glancing back over his shoulder than he did checking the road.)

Keith almost asked “Are we almost there yet, but decided against it and settled for stammering, “H-how close are we? Should I start writin’ m’ will now or do I got a minute?”

[Mason Breaker]

Mason only grunted at Tara's paln to kill Keith once they got back to the safe room. He really doubted that she would even cause bleeding. But the hobo wouldn't be walking away unscathed. No, Tara would deliver her vengence one way or another, even if Mason got the two of them seperated, on opposite sides of the safe room.

Moro, however, came to save the day with some encouragement to Tara, followed by a request to try out the radio. Tara had her doubts about it working, and frankly, so did Mason. Odds were there weren't even any stations. But it wouldn't hurt to try, right?

"Well alrighty Moro..... Here goes nothing! Really."

With that, he turned it on, static greeting their ears. Next station? Static. The next one; static again. The following one was different though. There wasn't ANY sound.

Turning off the pointless radio, he decided to answer Keith's question.

"Keith, I'd start now lad. You have...... Five minutes at the most."

The mall was in sight, they were almost back!

"Alright everyone! Once I park this thing in the mall, grab whatever you can get and go to the safe room!"

[Keith the Great]

Keith barely heard the radio’s static. Instead, he focused on his will. Granted, he didn’t have paper, but maybe if he just told someone about it that would work too. He’d want his scarf to go to Ellis, and Dave could have his hat, and Dave could have his jacket, too, because Dave had a cooler motercycle and he’d need a kickin’ jacket like that. He’d just leave his guns to his new travel partners.

The hobo blinked, realizing that his will wasn’t a very complicated document. “Aw, t’ hell with it,” he groaned, leaning back in his seat with a slight thump. “I ain’t got much t’ go in a will.” Figuring that he’d rather enjoy his last minutes of life instead of focusing on material possessions, Keith went right back to sticking his head out the window and enjoying the breeze.

Unfortunately, enjoying the breeze reminded him that he might not live to enjoy the breeze another day. “Goddamnit!” he pouted, leaning back into the vehicle and resting his chin on the dashboard. “If I’d know I was gonna die t’day, I woulda stayed in bed an’ napped.”

At Mason’s instructions to run, Keith merely glared off into the distance. “Wha’s th’ rush?” he complained. “I mean, it ain’t like we got a crapload a’ zombies after us.”

[Tara Luketic]

Tara didn't hear any of what Keith had been saying, and almost nothing of what Mason had said. All she could hear was her favorite band, only the sound of Mason's directions cutting through the screaming guitar and blaring drums. "Right! Got it!" she replied louder than needed. Pulling off her hat, Tara set it on top of the seat backs to fix her ponytail after all of the action that had happened. However, the wind from Keith's open window made it fall into the center seat up front, and she rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"I swear, just when I'm getting comfortable..." she muttered, getting to her knees. Tara reached over the seats and snatched up her hat, carelessly glancing out of Keith's abandoned, open window as she slipped it on. Instantly, her eyes widened and her heart practically leaped out of her chest. Was that a- "HOLY-!! MASON!! BOOMER!!!" It was no surprise that neither Mason nor Keith had seen it; neither were looking out of Keith's window at the moment and the Boomer was running across the street after coming out from behind an overturned semi.

[Mason Breaker]

Mason had been diligently watching his window and the road in front of him when Tara suddenly shouted "HOLY-!! MASON!! BOOMER!!!"

In a moment that was unusual for him, he panicked, swinging his head around wildly trying to find it. And he did.

Right in front of them.

There was no time to react or avoid it, and with a loud *BOOMF-SPLAT*, the windshield was totally covered in bile and gore, obstructing view. The van spun out of control, tires screeching, finally coming to a stop. If Mason would have looked, he would have noticed that they were in front of the Mall. But he didn't, he couldn't.

He merely stared at the steering wheel, face pale and body trembling. He had done it. Again. Gone and hit a damn Boomer, almost crashed the van.....

"I-I.........It.... It just......M-my god....."

[Roy Bivenmeijer]

Roy definately should have seen the Boomer coming. It was such an obvious thing for one to do, too... Unfortunately, Roy had been much too preoccupied shooting whatever zombies were attracted by the van's engine revving and Tara and Keith screaming.

In another unfortunate turn of events, the impact of the boomer caused such a rattle within the van that Roy dropped the tightly gripped AK, to his dismay. Not releasing his hold on the bungee cords, he leaned back, examining the rest of the weaponry for a suitable replacement. The closest thing he came across was an old, beat up looking, second hand SCAR. "Hey, if it works..."

Loading it up along with a second clip, he prepared for the wordt. In the process of preparing, the worst hit in the form of an almost keening 'moo' sound. "Shit, Terra, stay down! Your boyfriends back, and we're gonna be in trouble!" He unloaded the full clip into the chargers chest before the giant hand gripped his chest and removed him from the van. "Hell no-o-o-o" His voice vibrated more intensely then he knew it could as his back repeatedly slammed against the ground (unlike SOME survivers, he had the sense to keep his head up).

[Keith the Great]

Keith had been about to continue pouting when Tara’s shriek broke through. In the second or two it took the Southerner to notice the Boomer on the road, the car slid straight into the puffy zombie. Similarly to the mower-bomb in the mall, the car was coated in puke, bile, vomit, and a few scatterings of blood in between.

Before Keith could even question what the hell had just happened, the van was sent spinning, swirling in three-sixties like flushed toilet water (an appropriate analogy considering all the puke). Sheer luck gave him the vice-like grip on the seat of his chair that kept him from flying straight through the windshield.

He blinked slowly for a moment after the ordeal, realizing that the car had stopped just in front of the mall. After a quick check for broken bones or glass shards wedged into his arms, the hobo couldn’t hold back a grin.

“Hell YES!” he laughed, obviously cheered up. “Now THA’S m kind of drivin’!”

Even as the sound of Roy’s yelling reached his ears, Keith continued his grin. “I got it!” Without a second thought to it, he tumbled into the back of the van, taking a moment to snatch a quality-looking shotgun out of a nearby crate before hopping out of the van and running straight for the big one-arm thing. Knowing that his aim would likely drop after the first shot, the hobo made sure there were only three feet between himself and his target before taking aim and pulling the trigger.

The blast of the shotgun was stronger than expected: instead of simply throwing off his aim, the kick-back knocked Keith over entirely, sending the Southerner stumbling back and down to the ground. The creature howled, pausing in its pounding. From the pavement, Keith seized his opportunity to take aim once more with the (thankfully not-pump-requiring) shotgun. The second volley of bullets took down the beast, as it gave one last roar before loosening it’s grip, staggering a few steps, then collapsing backwards.

Throughout everything, the hobo continued to smile. “Yeah!” he hollered upon victory, punching the air. “Goddamnit, that was almost as fun as fallin’ off the Screamin’ Oak and runnin’ the tracks!”