Road Stop

[Dave Rowlins]

The handshake did a lot to assuage Dave’s fears (and it wasn’t just because Noah had the decency to wipe the blood off his hand first). Holding down the urge to turn to Tom and yell ‘HA! What now? I can befriend psychopaths better than you!’, he settled for mimicking the little bow that Noah had. He assumed it was a monk thing.

And then all that sunk down the drain as Noah went back to the body. Unfortunately and unwisely letting his guard down a moment, Dave’s eyes flickered back to the tarp and the still-slowly-spreading puddle of blood. By now it had reached out to a puny oil spill, poking and mingling with the rainbow-reflected oil. He focused on the mini-rainbows while Noah lifted the entire body (Head and all? Hopefully so) and lugged it away.

Once Noah returned, things seemed to revert to whatever twisted ‘normal’ they’d come to find. Noah settled down, Tom went back to his stupid barricades (didn’t he realize they would have to leave eventually? The mechanic’s wasn’t exactly well-supplied), and Dave was left standing as the blood and oil danced at his feet.

“Hey,” he said, dragging the word out a bit while he chose his phrases. “Maybe we should go a little further in the garage?” Her paused, scrambling for some sort of excuse besides the visions of the decapitated man’s dying expression for them to put some distance between themselves and the blood. “To, uh…Find a back door? So we can actually leave this place without messin’ with Tommy’s barricade?” (He deserved to be Tommy a bit. Freakin’ introducing everyone like Dave was some sort of three-year-old.)

[noah]

If Thomas was willing to apologize for his rudeness, then Noah supposed that it was harmless. After all, his own introduction was rather...Sloppy, to say the least.

"All is forgiven, Thomas Greene. Given the times, your reaction is understandable." Offering a small bow similar to the one he had given to Dave, he was reminded of the hick's prescence when the young man suggested that they find a back door. Considering that nothing else was happening, it seemed like a logical decision.

Nodding towards the young man, he began to move towards the indicated direction, subconciously preparing to draw his weapon if needed be.

"A fine idea, Dave. It won't hurt to have a fall-back, and the hordes are keen to pick up scents. Staying here too long would be unwise."

[Thomas Greene]

It was good to see that Noah forgiven his rudeness. Though Thomas was still uncomfortable with working with this 'psychopath', at least their numbers were at three as suppose to two. This should up their chances in surviving this hell hole.

Upon his work in securing the front, Dave rudely pointed out there was a back door. Besides the fact that he needed to get over that, Thomas forgotten that there was a back way entrance. How stupid could he be? There was a those zombies could get them. However, it seemed Noah mentioned the door could be used as a mean of escape.

Escape?

It was then he realized his barricade was merely built in vain. They didn't have any food or water, no real good weapons, or any realible transport. Locking themselves in this building was merely locking themselves in a tomb. He realized his instints have been getting the best of him and needed to start thinking logically.

"So, are there any useful supplies we could use?"

[Dave Rowlins]

Dave grinned. ‘A fine idea’ Noah had called it. When had been the last time someone had said an idea of his had been ‘fine’? Content with his success, Dave practically bounced to the other side of the garage, putting a huge, broken-down pickup between himself and the blood. As a further comfort, he hopped up to take a seat on a dresser, similar to the one in Tom’s barricade, and recollected his monkey wrench from its holster, tucked between his belt and his jeans. Absently, he fiddled with the adjuster.

Tom mentioned supplies, so Dave answered: “I ain’t spent much time here, he said, “but I know I seen a big-ass mall ‘round here. We can check it out. An’ if we wanna get around, I can see what I can do about gettin’ us a ride. Bound to be some gas ‘round here, and I can hotwire any sucker’s car outta the parkin’ lot.”

[noah]

"Then we have a plan." Noah concluded, slowly looking around the room. "Since you seem to have seen where the mall is, Dave, would you care to lead the way?" Although his face gave away nothing, he held a degree of finality in his voice. "You will be adequetly guarded, I assure you."

Speaking of guarded...

A good number of clashes and bangings began to sound in the garage, the mindless gibberish of the infected reaching through the din.

"As I feared. This is no haven, they will break in soon." He grimly noted, reaching for his blade. "The back door, anyone?" As he spoke, he dared to peer into the other parts of the auto shop, noting that the infected seemed focused on the front of the building, rather than surrounding it. Good.

A smashing of glass. Growling.

"Another demon..." Muttering more to himself than actually talking to his companions, he hoped that they had the sense to begin leaving as he drew the katana, taking a tenative step forward before hearing the tell-tale cry. The hooded infected was suddenly in the air, claws outstreached, ready to tear him apart.

"Die!" Was all he yelled in reply, lunging forward himself before bringing the sword down in a wide arc. The cold steel met flesh, the Hunter yelping in surprise and pain as it was suddenly brought back to the ground, it's face and chest practically slashed open. A swift decapitation followed, the monk's eyes filled with a strange sort of glee. Or perhaps malice?

[Thomas Greene]

Dave's plan sounded like something out of a zombie movie; goto a mall in the hope to find supplies only to possibly get torn apart by a horde of the undead. No matter how cliche' the plan was, it was better than holding out in this pile of shit. And hey, he might be able to pick up a new pair of clothes.

However, their safety was invaded crash of a window. Shit, they're coming in. While it sounded like it was just one zombie, it didn't stop his axenity attack. Why didn't I board the windows? This place is falling apart, what's the point

Luckily, Noah was like a hunter and knew what he was doing. As the creature leaped towards the monk, Noah delieved a perfect slice, killing the hooded demon. Thomas hoped that was the only invaded, but it wasn't. Outside, he could hear a whizzing noise, like something was coughing.

Just then a tall tenticle-like creature appeared in front of the broken window. The broker drew his pistol to kill the smoker, but he was no quick draw. The monster entangled Thomas's shooting hand, causing him to discharge his handgun and resulting in the stray bullet in hitting the damaged car. While the vehicle didn't work, it's car alarm did causing a causdo effect, alerting the undead army of the survivors' position.

"Shit!" screamed Thomas who was down getting dragged towards the smoker, "Somebody help me!"

[Dave Rowlins]

The next few seconds were a bit blurry. Dave knew for sure that there were zombies around, Noah had gone right to work with that sword of his, and Tom was getting choked. Wait...

Dave’s eyes widened. His first instinct was to reach for his shotgun, but he hesitated; he’d sent just as many bullets into Tom as the Smoker with that thing. Instead, he reached slightly further out, snatching a simple steel wrench. He slipped off the counter, wound his arm back, and hurled it at the thing.

The wrench whirled in a perfect spiral; had it been a football, it could’ve gone at least fifty yards or so. However, it busied itself burying its handle into the Smoker’s good eye.

The creature reeled back, snapping its jaws on the tongue and severing it. Moving quickly, Dave snatched his shotgun, rushed forward, and leaned out the window (and damn did zombies know how to get out the party invites) to maul the rest of its face with lead.

He reached out to offer Tom a hand, but instead checked the back door. If his ears weren’t lying, most of them were at the front. “Back door it is!” he yelled, practically dragging poor Tommy to the back and motioning for Noah to follow. “The mall’s like ‘round the corner and a street down!”

[noah]

Noah was lucky. Had Dave not shouted, he wouldn't have left with them. But the voice snapped him back to reality and he was soon after the two, checking over his shoulder every so often for infected that may have followed them.

The infected, so occupied thinking that the humans were still in the building, didn't notice their escape. Or at least, not right away. One happened to turn it's head in their direction, howled in anger, and the others followed suit, tearing after the humans.

A flash of steel on Noah's part and the fastest of the infected were on the ground, blood spurting out of their neck stumps ad heads rolling away.

"Like flies to carrion, and like sheep to slaughter." Noah darkly noted, catching up with his companions again. "Is nowhere on this earth safe from their plauge?"

One of the laughing Imps came leaping towards them, a Jockey, as he remembered some called it. Not particularly dangerous on it's own, but they were prone to steering victims to danger.

With a cackle, the short infected lunged for Dave and Thomas (He wasn't particularly sure which of the two it was aiming for. Or why it would go for two people close together rather than the one lone man, but then again, they sounded rather out of their wits.). With his own yell, he met the Jockey in mid leap, his sandled foot meeting it's chest. Much like the Hunter, it too met it's end with the blade relieving it of it's head.

However, this led to a problem. A shrill shreik sounded from not too far away, followed by a glob of green, sizzling goop landing right on Noah's feet. Literally.

Crying out, partly from pain and mostly surprise from the attack, the monk leapt away from the puddle, his feet now burning from the acidic spit.

[Thomas Greene]

Thomas was relived that Dave came to his rescue. Though, maybe getting dragged to the back was unneeded, for the smoker didn't choke him that hard. He was able shout out for help. Still, the plan has been established and it looks like they were going to the mall.

While Noah was handling himself well pretty, he didn't expect to across the hellfire spit of a spitter. The monk swiftly leaped out of the pubble of green shit that was eating away at his feet. The guy should of worn shoes. Still, they didn't to take out the long neck bitch. Thomas could see the bright green liquid that was coming out it's mouth. Still glad that he had his pistol, he drew to aim, and with careful precision, shot the mutant into a puddle.

[Dave Rowlins]

Dave just kept running, letting Tom do the same on his own. Noah said something about sheep and flies, but hell if he could work out a meaning with a crapload of zombies behind them. He heard laughing, but by the time he’d turned around, Noah had curb-stomped and beheaded it. Tom held his own as well, gunning down a Smoker with surprising precision.

Dave stuck to the zombies ahead of him, cracking a few skulls with his wrench and saving some ammo. He skidded around the corner and continued down the street, dodging any zombies too stupefied to notice him.

“That’s the mall!” he yelled, pointing at the enormous building ahead. The outside was a mess, as in, it was absolutely packed with zombies. A few heads stood out on the crowd; some of the taller special infected. Fortunately, none of them looked like a Tank. Sighing as though at another of Keith’s folleys, he reached for his shotgun and replaced the one spent shell while glancing back at his teammate. “Y’all up for a brawl?”

[noah]

Silently brushing past his two companions, the monk offered one glance at them. "We cannot hope to take them all on, we lack the numbers or the supplies. At best, we can only carve a path through the horde into the building. Hopefully a Safe haven is there." He paused, some of the infected from the auto shop beginning to catch up. "Stay close to one another."

With that, Noah began forward towards the mall, glare intensifying as the infected demons began to pick up the human scent, the crowd becoming agitated before erupting in a bloodthirsty howl.

"They come for us now! Swallow your fear and press on!" Noah shouted, blade flashing as the first few infected were felled, heads rolling. The man pushed forward to the mall, hoping that his two companions would provide suitable cover.

[Thomas Greene]

They were able to escape the zombie infested mechanic shop and were close to the mall. However, it seemed their haven was blocked by an army of the undead. Dave seemed he wanted to have a full out brawl, however that wasn't a wise choice to go into a hornet's nest without the proper equipment. Noah's idea, or what Thomas could interpete, was a bit more practical, and that is to rush through crowd as quickly as possible, only killing anything that got in the way. However, why couldn't they just find a way around that had a less chance of resistance or switch tail and find another place to hide. Either way, the choice was to continue onward.

Switching out his pistol for his bat, the businessman hoped to conserve ammo while going for silent take downs. He charged down with the monk, sluggin' any infected that got in his way. At first, the fighting was light, but things got expedinately worse as they continued their dash for safety. Soon enough, the horde was swarming the group like flies devouring a dead corpse.

[noah]

The Horde is overwhelming us...

Try as they might to push to the mall, the infected seemed to form an inpenetrable wall of plauge bearing flesh. Perhaps they should have tried to find an alternate route...

No. Now was not the time to accept a failure.

Slashing away several more infected, the monk withdrew a medium sized jar of oil. Highly flammable oil. With a grunt, he lit a match he had taped to the side, ripped off a bit of his robe, lit it, and with his makeshift molotov oil-jar, hurled it in front of the survivours.

As he hoped, the jar burst in a spray of fire, igniting a good number of infected and, in turn, making a firey path to the mall. Sure, it'd burn a bit, but small burns were insubstantial when safety from death was just ahead.

"Hurry! Take advantage of the fire and get into the building!" He shouted, shoving aside a burning zombie. "Go!" With that shouted, the monk began to run through the flames, wincing at the burning and heat, but pressing on nontheless.

[Dave Rowlins]

Dave had worked his way through the crowd a little less frantically than Noah or Tommy. (The shotgun definitely helped his confidence.) He kept working his way through, clearing his way along the path with a good amount of lead.

He hesitated a moment before the sudden inferno; running through the fire and flames was not on his list of things he wanted to do. However, a roar from the horde urged him forward. He made his strides long and quick, speeding through and letting his thick-soled boots pound on the pavement. It felt like hours, but in just three seconds he was through, standing behind the shattered automatic doors of the mall.

“Hot damn,” he whistled, checking his clothes to make sure they hadn’t caught fire. “Keith’s gonna flip the hell OUT when he hears this one!”

[Thomas Greene]

Thomas pulled out his pistol, for there was no use in swinging his bat at the swarm of corpses. It seemed like they were going to be overruned by the infected. However in quick desperation, Noah got a flaming barrel and rolled it down to create a path for the survivors. While it was crazy and stupid, it was crazy and stupid enough to work.

With this short breathing space, Thomas made the dash to the mall's doors. He made it through the enterance with success. He was going to have buy a new pair of shoes for that crazy son of a monk.