|
|
Post by Cole Peyton on Feb 27, 2013 11:21:39 GMT -8
He'd always heard stories of this place. Back in the day when the California natives would visit his hometown for boating getaways, many of them he talked to always mentioned Venice Beach, and what a wonderful place it was. Well, he finally found the time to get there, and he had the place to himself, he hoped anyway. He sat there laying on the hood of his truck with his M4 by his right side and a Corona by the other side. He was certain the beach looked a lot better than it did now, the waters close to the shore were bloody, like people had dumped unwanted bodies somewhere near the coastline, which would make perfect sense as he noted the remains of some as well as whole persons themselves being washed up like dead fish. For once he wished the smell was only that of dead fish.
Admittedly, Cole was still trying to think of the good reason he came to Los Angeles. There really wasn't any, other than maybe he had some unwarrented thought in the back of his head that this place was different than where he was from. No, the reason he left was to get away from what he knew had become the skeleton of his hometown, he didn't want to be part of witnessing that.
But there was no room for second guessing now, he was there, so he had to make the best of it. Though everywhere he went he was reminded of the ultimate doom everyone left on the world would eventually face. It was inevitable, military overrun, capital cities have become graveyards, and the remaining few survivors now killing each other for so little as a bottle of water. That was the final dagger in society. As well as the reason he would never join any camp of any kind, it was suicide, that he was certain of. He was best doing what he'd been doing, been the lone ranger avoiding contact with both the living and the dead, though it was impossible at times. But, he made out just fine to this point adopting that strategy. He was well supplied, had a practically new truck, still had his sanity (barely), and was more than capable of self defense, which he proved to himself time and time again. Yet the same question haunted him, why did he even bother? Why not just end this misery now and hope for an afterlife? He knew many had done just that, but he also viewed that as a way of quitting, and his competitive nature always drove him to go beyond the consideration of quitting. Maybe there was an end to this, maybe it would be just him in the end, but maybe there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that flickering thought kept him pushing on.
Word count: 483
|
|
|
|
Post by Elizabeth Davies on Feb 27, 2013 12:16:15 GMT -8
It had been a nice sunny day. LA was always nice. If she had any feelings toward weather, she probably would have preferred the heat to the rains in England. She was whistling. Whistling. Now, that was very uncharacteristic of Effy, but she had had a good day, and despite having complete emotional control she couldn't truly help herself. See, today, she had narrowly escaped being the plaything of a raider when she had attempted to join their ranks earlier that day.. but most raiders weren't welcoming of new people, even if they swayed in the same immoral direction they did. She was now pushing a wheelbarrow with lots of bloody chopped up body parts in it once belonging to the raider. To most people, that would sound like a bad day... to Effy it was a very good one. Even if she were the brunt of someone's immorality she still loved to be a part of it. Sporting a nasty black eye, she thought that only to be a trophy.
Wheeling it down the walkway at Venice Beach she stopped and stared at a mural that looked like a swirly Van Gogh painting. She sighed. How could anyone think that attractive? she wondered, disgusted with the way things used to be. She turned onto the beach and started pulling the wheelbarrow toward the water where she had been dumping most of her bodies. Sure, she could leave them, but that just didn't seem cruel enough for her. Making them disappear off the face of the earth, so no one could ever find them or confirm their death, seemed much less dignified. Plus, throwing a severed arm as far as you could into the ocean became a fun new game for her. That only served her purpose to be as disrespectful to these people as possible.
So when she had finally dragged the wheelbarrow out to the edge of the water (which, trust me, was difficult, through sand) she began taking the smaller parts and tossing them in the ocean. It took her almost half the body to realize that there was a car on the beach she had never seen before. On top of it was something that looked like a person. Effy didn't hesitate, pulled her gun from her holster and fired in the direction of the person. She assumed they were dead, honestly, and did not wish to take any chances. Sadly, however, she was too far away and her shot missed by a good couple of feet.
|
|
|
|
Post by Cole Peyton on Feb 27, 2013 12:46:19 GMT -8
He wasn't really in a trance, because he found that impossible in this world, but he was as close to a trance-like state as you could be. However, a faint squeaking wheel was heard by him in the distance. He almost thought it was a shopping kart being blown around by the wind or something, but being the observational person he was, turned his head in the direction of the noise and spotted a very strange but ominous sight. A girl, couldn't be a whole lot older than his age, wheelbarrowing parts of something that was organic...he couldn't really tell what from that distance.
Soon enough though, he got his answer, as well as a reference to previous assumption of why the waters had a reddish color to them. She was through pieces of a person, probably an infected person, into the ocean. "A bit extreme I'll say." He mumbled to himself as he finished of his corona and tossed the bottle on the ground, watching her from a comfortable distance. He tried to think of why the hell she would bother cutting someone up and throwing them in the ocean where they just wash up anyway, but people were crazy these days, so he just left it at that and kept a careful eye on her, as well as taking a look around to make sure she was alone.
Without warning though, she suddenly swung around in his direction and shot a bullet towards him. Instinctively he threw himself off the hood of the truck, grabbing his rifle, and fell behind the cover of the big vehicle, hitting the ground with a pretty solid thud. That was a pistol round, he was pretty sure of, so she wouldn't have any accuracy at this range. He picked up his M4 and eased past the door of the truck so he had a view of her over the fender, keeping himself low in the process. He raised his rifle and looked down sights directly at her. He was ready to end her existence right then and there, he didn't have much sympathy for people who shot at him, but he was feeling semi generous, so instead fired a burst at the wheelbarrow she was next to, obliterating the thing and the remains in it as it had no chance against a high powered assault rifle. "That'll be you if you don't back the fuck off!" He called out over the distance, keeping her well within his sights.
|
|
|
|
Post by Elizabeth Davies on Feb 28, 2013 10:58:58 GMT -8
Effy really had thought the man on the car was dead. Most people were these days, after all, and despite the car being new site at the beach, she knew that the odds of someone being alive when just sitting still were slimmer than those of him being a zombie. So when the body moved off the car and took cover - something a zombie would never do - she felt something akin to regret. She had not put herself in the best situation, and she wasn't stupid.. she knew that out here on the beach she had little to no cover, and getting into a skirmish would probably not end well in her favour. This thought was only confirmed when a couple of shots were fired into the wheelbarrow next to her. She was a good shot, but not good enough to hit him before he hit her. As much as she would enjoy the brief chaos brought on by a gun fight, she was not delusional, and decided that she'd rather take the high road.
So when he called to her; "That'll be you if you don't back the fuck off!"[/color] she decided that being somewhat friendly and docile might do her a lot better in this situation than her normal demeanor. She cleared her throat, getting rid of the scratchiness she felt from barely ever speaking, and yelled in a rather trademark accent back: "You looked dead!"[/color] Though she hated making excuses (since she'd probably have tried to shoot him even if she knew he were alive) she decided that that was the smart course to go. Hell, if she could put on the impression that she was a sane and lovely individual she might even get something out of the situation. She decided that was the course to go, even if it was sickeningly fake (though always undetectably so). She held her hands and her gun up in the air, indicating to the man that she was no threat.
"Please,"[/color] she cried to him as she began taking timid steps toward him, her gun still held skyward. "Can we talk, instead of firing at each other? I haven't seen a person in weeks,"[/color] she lied, she lied. But the advantage of most likely being a confirmed psychopath was that while you may not have emotions, you understood them to the point where faking them was just as easy as feeling them. She would not put her gun on the ground or unload it, she was certain he'd understand, since you never knew when zombies could come around the corner. [/sub]
|
|
|
|
Post by Cole Peyton on Mar 3, 2013 17:54:18 GMT -8
Cole half expected her to start running, actually, he didn't really know what to expect since he didn't know how'd he react in her shoes...but then again he wouldn't have been stupid enough to put himself in her situation. No matter, at least he was on the right side of the confrontation. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as she tried to explain the shot. If he looked dead, then why would she bother wasting a bullet? He figured she meant 'dead' as in 'infected,' so he gave her the benefit of the doubt...for now. To say he was skeptical though would be an understatement.
He relaxed his vision down the sights of the M4, but wasn't satisfied with where that gun in her hand was. "Drop it." He said like he would to a dog with a bone in it's mouth. If she truly meant for peace then she would comply, he knew there was a lot he had right there, a lot she could take if he was dead, so there was no room for chance taking. She appeared harmless enough however, though the sight of that wheelbarrow was a little disturbing, and proved to him that she certainly wasn't an innocent little girl trapped in an evil world, not to mention that painfully obvious black eye she was sporting. "Well, you're the one who's been firing, so you wouldn't need to ask me that." He said with a bit of a laugh, though maintaining the rifle in her direction. "You a Brit?" He asked referring to her accent, basically already knowing the answer to that.
|
|
|
|
Post by Elizabeth Davies on Mar 11, 2013 17:59:40 GMT -8
She did not stop in her tracks toward the man by the car, but moved closer at the same slow rate, hoping he wouldn't see her as a threat. But when she came closer to the car he had said she should drop it. That was when she stopped, not far from the car. She thought him shockingly unreasonable, and though she would never have let that surprise show on her face normally, she thought it only proper in a situation where she had decided to seem perfectly normal. So she frowned, an innocent look of confusion on her face, and she spoke "you would deprive a woman of her only weapon, in the face of possible death? has gallantry been lost on you?"[/color] while her voice sounded more pleading than anything else, she felt more at ease with him, really.. A man who would do such a thing, surely, wouldn't meet the moral standards of the old world. That kind of thinking she really did appreciate. But she let it not show, knowing her ruse would quickly end if she did.
She approached the car again, put her gun on its hood, still within her reach. "I'll keep it where you can see it,"[/color] she said innocently with something akin to a smile gracing her lips. She would have hated herself for seeming so docile if it weren't for the fact that she knew there was a purpose to it. So when he said something that seemed like a friendly inquiry, she smiled a tad wider, knowing her ruse was unscathed... not that she had ever been caught in the act before.
She nodded to his question, words fighting to find a way out of her mouth. Not used to speaking, and especially speaking in such nice terms, she found that she had to think extra hard about what she wanted to say to people. But it only took her a second to then say what she thought any normal person might say: "Bristol,"[/color] she explained feigning pride at her heritage, "came over to be a big movie star. Ended up starring in a fantastic production of 'the zombie apocalypse'"[/color]
Her hands at her side, she lifted one of them and wiped the sweat she had accumulated on her forehead after dragging the wheelbarrow through the sand with the back of her hand, never once thinking the stranger might be curious as to why she was doing it in the first place. But she was quick on her feet, and was rarely surprised by people questioning her odd behaviour, she had always thought somewhat reassuringly.[/sub]
|
|
