The Only Easy Day...was Yesterday

[Cole Peyton]

Cole really didn't think much of his stunt at the time, but the way Hannah reacted reminded him that he probably shouldn't be so careless. Nonetheless, it worked, and that was all he could've asked for on that deal. "I'm all good, I try to wear shirts that don't get penetrated easily, for obvious reasons." He grinned. Hannah's over-concern made him laugh, he had to remember that women tend think through all the bad scenerios of an idea more so than guys, and showed much greater concern after the fact. He appreciated it though, what person wouldn't?

As he turned to head back to retrieve the rest of the snacks, he got a question that he got all the time. Apparently his looks and maturity level didn't match. "Eighteen, but I haven't been keeping track of the days since this ordeal, so that's sort of a guess." He laughed, but seriously, he didn't even know what month it was, he thought it was probably November by now, but he truly had no idea. "How 'bout you?" He returned the question, he was guessing 19 or 20 maybe. But girls mature way faster than guys so he could've been way off on that.

He waited a second for Hannah to put her stuff in the cab and then walked back side by side with to get the next round. He also needed to figure out a way to get inside the drinks vender. Same tactic maybe? No, Hannah would probably tackle him again if he tested his luck a second time with that. Before he took his next batch of snacks from the first machine, he looked at the second one to see if there was any easier way, and spotted a broken lock on the ground. Quickly he hopped over to it to see if he was so lucky, and sure enough, he was. The lock to the glass door and previously been broken, but then who did it? And why didn't they get the contents inside? All this made Cole even more uneasy than he was before, things were not lining up. He slowly stood up and walked over to the opposite corner of the vending station, a place he had not seen yet, and was startled when the grizzly site revealed itself to his eyes. "Oh god..." There lay a 3/4ths eaten body of someone, and unlike the body stains, this was fresh...like 10 minutes ago fresh. It was a ridiculously hideous scene, and seemed to serve as a warning. He turned back to Hannah. "We gotta get out of here ASAP. Oh and uh..don't look over there."He warned and hastily opened the unlocked drink vender, piling everything up he could.

[Hannah Flatfield]

[/color] her mouth was upturned in an amused smile. Why were things working out all of a sudden? She wasn't about to question it. She was musing about how good her luck was turning out to be, when Cole's tone changes. That alone made her uneasy, and therefore curious.

"What is it?" her voice tainted with dread and her previous smile began to frown. Just the way it was, when told to not go somewhere, her body doesn't listen, and her legs take her to the spot instructed to avoid. She stepped over comfortably Cole, she felt safe as long as Cole was in between her and whatever danger faced them. He had handled himself all along, not discredit herself, she had become a pretty handy person to have around, she wasn't the best shooter, but she got creative. Cole was different though, he was hardened, she knew he would be surviving for a long time to come. Which was where she doubted her own ability.

She then saw what he had told her not to, the gagging came unvoluntarily, her eyes wattered, and the sight became too overwhelming, she took a few steps back and covered her mouth. She had seen dead people. She had seen living people be torn apart. But she was having a nice moment! Then this brought her back to reality. The new true reality. Once composed, she removed her hand from her mouth and with closed lips took a closer look.

She blinked a few times and then looked to Cole, "Why does that blood look so fresh?" she asked as he was filling his hands with drinks. She thought she knew the reason why. It was a fresh kill. She backed away quietly to the truck, looking around the seemily vacant rest stop.


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[Cole Peyton]

Cole was only half listening at first to Hannah's age until her response actually registered in his head. The odds of two 18 year olds running into each other (quite literally in fact) probably weren't too high, guess that meant that the younger generation was better off in this new world. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen too many survivors that looked older than 30. He was happy though that he finally found someone his age, not to mention a girl his age. He took note of her wide smile, as if her mood had been significantly lifted just because they were the same age. She must've found it as unusual as he did.

Predictably, Hannah did exactly what he said not to do, and trotted right up to his side. He gave her a little eye roll as the scene hit her full force. "I warned you." He said quietly with a little grin. Now was no time to be giving her a hard time though, this place suddenly was no where near as safe as he thought it was, and he was getting that feeling that they were standing on really thin ice. That guy apparently didn't even have time to escape before he was overwhelmed.

He grabbed the remaining water bottles out of the vender and piled them on his arms forklift style. "Because it is fresh, very fresh. In fact, the remains of that guy may come back as one of those things, be careful." He advised. Even though there was hardly anything left, he'd seen just heads of infected people still have motion in them. It seemed the only real way to kill one was to destroy its brain. Otherwise they could live in any condition, which Cole found impossible, but he had to accept.

Once he dumped the water bottles in the backseat, he went back to clear the rest of the drinks out, he got pretty much all the water, but a few gatorades as well wouldn't hurt. He was stopped in his tracks however, when he heard what he was pretty sure was a snarl coming from the area of the previous scene. Before he even had a moment to decide what to do, three ghouls charged around the corner and straight at him. He just about lost his balance as he whipped around to flee, but maintained it. He saw Hannah already by the truck, which was most definitely his destination at this point. "Get in! Hurry up!" He shouted as he did his best to gain distance on those fools behind him. Damn these things were fast sometimes, annoyingly, these several must've been track runners back when they were human.

[Hannah Flatfield]

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[Cole Peyton]

Cole figured that if he made it out alive in the scenario he was in about 10 minutes ago, then he could handle just a few strangler, except this time he didn't have any weapons on him and had to rely on his speed, which to be honest wasn't that fast. Fortunately, he didn't have far to run. That was another thing he needed to work on, his cardio wasn't spectacular either. It was decent and probably better than many teenagers who just sat on their ass and ate chips all day, but only because of the occasional endurance race he did in cars, and that was pretty limited training.

He wondered what the hell Hannah was doing when she got in, then got back out of the truck. He saw her reappear with a gun in her hand. Now it was time to see if she had been bluffing about her skills with guns or not. He heard, and saw, several shots fired off, but still heard those snarls behind him. Yeah, she needed a little work maybe, but he was quite grateful that she made an attempt to take the heat off of him, just that gesture alone heavily increased his trust of her.

He rounded the corner to the driver door of his truck and yanked on the door handle, sliding behind it and then swinging the heavy chunk of metal right at the attackers, knocking the lead one on its face and delaying the other two. With a bit of a grin he jumped up in the driver seat and then hit the button to lock all doors on the truck. Safe.

He casually drove off with the infected banging on the quarter panel, and lost them within a few seconds. "Thanks for that." He smiled at Hannah. "Lesson learned there, apparently any dormant place can suddenly erupt." He shook his head. Now where to go? At least they got some much needed snacks and water. He'd been craving some Doritos for quite some time now, and his water supply was always low.

He got back on the highway, which was still relatively clear, and began to think more and more of heading back to his hometown. Although he was almost scared to go back there, what would he find? The more he thought of it though the more he believed it was his only "smart" choice.

[Hannah Flatfield]

[/color] Hannah exclaimed, "Why do you think they didn't, come out to greet us?" she shrugged for lack of a better expression. Her mind flashed back to the corpses that was nearly torn in half laying only a few feet from the shattered glass vending machine. That could have been her if she had been alone. Eyes landing back on Cole, what would this be now? Twice he'd saved her in only the span of less than an hour.

They got back on the highway, she watched as the greenery from the rest stop that might have been a beautiful place at one point turned back into the desert of the Mohave. She was hesitant to say what she meaning too, but decided it would be for best, "Where are we heading now?" she asked. The word we seemed to come on too strong for her, she never was one to make herself at home where she wasn't already invited. But figuring they had just survived two close calls, couldn't they speed up and do without the formalities?


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[Cole Peyton]

A grin showed itself on Cole's face as he shifted up another gear and watched the infected trip on themselves in the mirror. As dangerous as it was, he sometimes enjoyed the feeling of barely escaping from a bunch of distorted cannibals. Call it the pride that arises from it, or even just the sense of accomplishment. Nonetheless, instances like those scared the hell out of him. In this world, every time you turn a corner you have to expect the unexpected. You almost had to anticipate these things, and living with that mindset day in and day out was terrifying.

Hannah was totally right, they came literally out of nowhere. No warning or anything, almost like they had a coordinated attack. "I guess they were out of sight and maybe heard the glass break. Guess that really was a bad idea." He did half an eye roll. At least there was a payoff though. They got what they had came for. "I hope these freaks aren't getting smarter, like actually putting strategy in their moves. They're fast enough as is." He took a sigh and sagged back in the seat. Stupid apocalypse, he had also been a guy of faith, but why was God allowing this to happen to them? Was this his idea of bringing the dead back? He thought God meant spiritually, not physically!

He heard a much anticipated question finally asked, and he was trying to decide himself. Apparently Hannah was willing to be submissive to his ideas judging by her tone, which was a little surprising. He would've guessed she would want to make the next call, given that the rest stop just about turned out deadly. Funny, back when the world was normal he remembered girls always ending up to be the ones at the head of the ship, whether it was just what they wanted or the simple fact that all their man wanted to do was play xbox all day, it was becoming the society standard it seemed. That's why he always avoided relationships, his lifestyle would've just been too conflicting. He wasn't a submissive type and his schedule mostly revolved around him, especially in racing. If he was honest with himself though, he would have to say he regretted isolating himself from love. How did he get on this train of thought? Oh right, the question, which had almost nothing to do with his thought train. "My hometown is about 4 hours from here, now that things have settled in this pattern, it may actually be a decent place to be. You on board with that?"

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[Hannah Flatfield]

[/i].

"They're relentless," she commented as they pulled out of their grabby hands' reach. She was able to feel secure once she was watching them trip over themselves in hopes of defeating the rolling vehicle. She mused about how that may be their saving grace. They could still operate man made items. Guns, cars, locks, and so on, however these monsters could only preform the most primitive tasks... for now. She bit her lip and face forward, looking back was something that wasn't worth her time.

The way they chased after the truck reminded her of the way dogs would try to chase cars; thinking their snarls, and teeth would be enough to pierce the metal skin and take down the enemy. They never lived to learn from their mistakes. But dogs weren't human, and weren't these things once were... wont they learn if they say half their pack get slaughtered by a moving vehicle. Guess they would have to find out.

His hometown? How could she oppose? She had no where else to go, and was already imposing as much as she felt comfortable with, "Of course," she nodded with a smile glancing over to Cole, "I'm comin' along for the ride." this brought out a teeth revealing grin. She then turned to face the front dash once more, keeping her eyes ahead of them. It wasn't long ago she was alone in this world. Now she had found someone to travel with and have her back as much as she would try to have his. Over all she considered this day a success- aside from nearly dying at the mouths of two separate hordes.

Four hours would be a while, she was parched, and her lips were drying and cracking from the hot and dry environment, not to mention the fact that she was severely dehydrated. Before positioning herself forward, she rotated her self to leaning into the back seat and grab a Gatorade, "Do you want anything?" she asked, as she sorted through their treasure.

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[Cole Peyton]

Relentless was nearly an understatement, these things were like an inevitable nightmare constantly invading your peace of mind, well, peace of mind was pretty much nonexistent these days. Their relentlessness meant a disrupted sleep, an elusive lifestyle, and quite possibly a horrific death. Yeah, not something he wanted to dwell on, he had to keep his mind off reality, and put it back into optimism. Reality said he, or well, they, would only come to the inevitable. Optimism told him to keep fighting, and that's what he had to live by.

He truly had no idea how she would respond to his proposition. He anticipated an answer that would indicate she wanted to stay around in the area in hopes her family was still somewhere. But nope, she was along for the ride, as she herself put it. Cole was mostly joyed about it, I mean what teenage guy wouldn't enjoy an attractive teenage girl tagging along with him through the end of the world? Nonetheless, he now had baggage, something he swore to himself he would avoid. But, he would just have to make an exception, what could go wrong anyway? Once she learns accuracy with a gun, she could be a real asset anyway. She proved that to him when she tried to take the heat off his back of few minutes ago.

"Great, if my house hasn't been ransacked by now, that place could be heaven." He smiled. One benefit about his place was that it was located up in a rather small mountain community, so hopefully the infected population wasn't too strong up there. The only problem was, there was only one way there, and one way out, which was threw the rural parts of the town.

"Gimme a water and a bag of doritos, pretty please." He seriously needed to satisfy his addiction to those chips, it had been months since he touched a bag of them. Not to mention they were decent energy, which he was also completely drained of.

He turned on an exit about a mile further up the road, and merged onto a small highway in the middle of the desert. A sign on the side of the road read "Lake Havasu City - 213 miles." Not exactly a Sunday drive, but he's done worse. "I guess speed limits are no longer enforced these days." He chuckled and brought the truck up to about 90. The road was perfectly clear, no one apparently thought to travel on an old beat up road during these times.

"So, did you ever possibly think this could happen?" He asked in a bit of a joking matter. "Sometimes I still think I'm just in a really long, bad dream, or I'm somehow in a coma right now and my brain is playing tricks with me." He laughed.

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[Hannah Flatfield]

[/color] she smiled and handed him his snacks. She twisted her own orange cap.

She took a long drink and thought her next question through. ”Are you scared to see your community... like that?” She asked softly, nodding her head back in the direction they had come from. Both knowing what she meant there was no need to call them whatever popular culture deemed them.

They accelerated and she had to smile, being from the big city there was rarely a time when traffic wasn't at a stand still, or a time that she would be out during. She watched the surroundings zoom past in a blur, it was making her dizzy so she was relieved when Cole spoke again, she took the opportunity to get another good look at him, he just looked so much older.

She was fascinated that two teenagers were out here surviving on their own. Well, not so much on their own any more. She capped the drink and then slipped it into her bag. Next to the gun, her eyes locked on the silver metal. Her gun. Next time Cole wouldn't have to run, she would get them all right off the bat... well depending when the next time was.

”Yes,” she nodded solemnly, ”I know exactly what you mean," She paused and she didn't want to pull a monologue, but it had been something she was thinking about. "I was thinking that too, when I saw my mom was dead...." How was she gonna stop at that, she lclapsed her hands in her lap and looked down to them, "She was kind of a control freak, hated when people had bad posture, even for just a moment. When I came back inside to see her, she was all slouched over." She looked forward again. How could she lose every single person she knew, and loved? How could she have gotten separated from Wes in those initial couple of hours. Next question is how could she be the one alive and he the one who's dead, "We were only gone for five minutes, and when we came back- I guess with hindsight being 20-20, I now know she had that fever for a while. Never mentioned it though." She felt like she had said too much and turned her gaze back out the window. But she wasn't hiding tear glazed eyes, she was hiding the lack of emotion the story brought on. She was disgusted with herself, that was her own mother and she couldn't conjure up some tears?

Wes would cry though, bet would if I brought it up, another thought danced around with that one, if he's even alive. If he was alive he would have found her by now. She'd been in that city waiting. Finally she had to give up and leave, one more night and she would have gone crazy. But the escape hadn't been all bad. Look what happened when she gave up- she found Cole. She looked back towards him, and hoped going home was the right choice for him, she wouldn't be able to kill her brother if he stumbled towards her ready to bite into her. She didn't doubt Cole's choice though, he seemed much wiser than the number of years he had. She knew he was better at this world than she was, she could tell by how in control he was. She would learn from him and be able to go through this world with confidence as well.


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[Cole Peyton]

"Thank you." He pulled the cap off the water and took a long sip. Water never tasted so good, even if it was a little warm. Then he found out how hard it was to open an excessively tightly sealed bag while trying to keep a huge truck on the road at 90 mph. He quickly gave up on that for obvious safety reasons.

Admittedly, he was a little afraid about what exactly he would see when they got there. Would it just be a massive inferno? Infected everywhere? What about when he got to his house, would he open the door to find an infected mom and dad? He had to take that thought out of his head, that was a little too much. "Maybe a little." He admitted after a long sigh, that was one time he'd every shown any weakness since the apocalypse.

His eyes remained down road as he let himself relax once again into the seat, they'd get there just maybe an hour before nightfall at this rate. Getting there ASAP would be important, as showing up in the dark with no lights in the house working would be quite dangerous. But hell, what wasn't dangerous these days? He caught Hannah glancing at him once more and inwardly grinned. He didn't know exactly why she took as many looks at him as she did, but regardless it made him feel good for some reason.

He scrunched his brows a little when Hannah talked about her mom's final moments. At least he was on his own during this and didn't have to watch close family members suddenly turn into something lethal towards them. He couldn't imagine what that must've been like. At the posture part of her story, he consciously made an effort to make sure he was at least fairly upright in his seat. His back injury made it hard for him to develop a habit of always being straight. "Sorry 'bout your mom." He said quietly. "I've always wondered why some, well most, people came down with the infection and we somehow didn't. Makes no sense." He pondered. "So how did you escape?" His eyes drifted towards her, that maybe was a very hard question to answer, cause God knows there were no pretty ways of escaping. Some survivors probably never called it an escape, just a postponement of the inevitable. Speaking of which, how inevitable was death? On paper, odds were ridiculously against you. But in the real world, he managed to get this far, but maybe it was just giving him a false hope of a returned civilization.

[Hannah Flatfield]

[/i] the hospital. If there was time we would have warned them it wasn't prettier in there..."[/color] she blew her hair out of her face as she remembered the scared faces running past her, she didn't know what she would do differently if taken back to that moment of time, "There was an evacuation taking place, the streets were so crowded, I got separated from my brother, and I was waiting for him to come find me, after- however long it's been, I decided I needed to get out of the city. It was too hard to be there." She held the bottle of Gatorade, and looked down into the colored liquid, she refreshed her mouth, not pausing for dramatic effect, just making sure her voice didn't crack with an uncontrollable sob. She did miss her brother, and didn't admit it to herself, she couldn't stop and think he was dead, for she would break down and that wouldn't do anyone any good.

"What about you?" she asked recapping the drink and putting it back down by her feet. She ran a hand through her hair, it was so tangled and filthy. She hadn't cared about how dirty she was... until she ran into Cole. She hoped the direction they were heading had running water, but most of all she hoped they didn't run into anything that would be considered painful to Cole.

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ooc: sorry for the lameness, next will be better. Promise!
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[Cole Peyton]

Her story was rough to say the least. Parents gone, then split up from the one family member you have left in this world. He was impressed how composed she seemed after all that. Many young girls probably would've just mentally shut down after all that, but she didn't. His ordeal was horrific enough in a relatively small city, that could've been only multiplied in a city like Los Angeles.

"Well, I'm happy you made it through that. Many wouldn't have in your situation. Your brother sounds like a sturdy individual, I bet he's still around." He said with as much optimism as he could. He knew very well that odds were he wasn't, but if it was any source of comfort, she probably needed it. And who knows, maybe he was still out there.

"I was home alone, just hanging out. Then I heard this emergency broadcast about some mass flu that was spreading through the air. It told everyone to stay in. About an hour later, the news talked about the widespread death from the virus, and then a few minutes later, it said the infected dead bodies were reanimating and attacking those not infected." Cole slowly shook his head at the eerie memory of it. "I seriously thought I was dreaming or something. I went out to the garage to do some work to get my mind off of it, and then there was this unsteady pounding on the garage door. I checked it out and it was this hideous thing with half its face missing. I knew what was actually happening at that point, even though I didn't believe it. I got in my car and just hauled ass out of the town." He hated reliving that day, worst day ever for sure. Not that they were getting much better though.

"Crazy how much you take for granted in this world, any of us would do just about anything for things to go back to the normal grind." He had to grin a little at that. Late homework nights and final exams suddenly didn't seem too bad anymore compared to this.

OOC: What lameness?? lol. Time jump to Lake Havasu?

[Hannah Flatfield]

[/color] she rethought it and tried again, "You and me, we aren't infected," she shook her head as she spoke and then turned back to Cole, "We're not the only ones who aren't, when are they going to come together and start fighting back?" She knew people were scattered now, but how long until they regrouped and started reviving civilization.


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ooc: yes! Very excited!!! Lead the way
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[Cole Peyton]

He could tell she had a bit of a mental struggle with the fate of her brother, who wouldn't in her shoes. Cole didn't actually watch any of his personal family die, he was alone when all this happened, not to mention he was in only child. That's what made him a little nervous about returning home, what was he going to find? Time would only tell, he could only hope he wouldn't find his old home in total shambles or even the entire city burned to the ground.

He pondered Hannah's words for a bit, sometimes he wondered just how many there actually were left, and how long they'd still be around. He wasn't overly optimistic that there were many left, simply because he hadn't seen many survivors, and the ones he did meet were just hostile morons who will probably turn on each other in a matter of days.

"I suppose they're off trying to create their own camps." He shrugged. "I don't think many have made it to this point." He answered honestly. "Besides, most survivors are just out for themselves, they'll kill others just to take their water bottle. Personally, I want nothing to do with them." He shook his head. "Humanity was already on the brink of chaos before this happened, I'm not holding my breathe for us to get smart and actually work with each other. Greed will be our downfall." He felt a little down in the dumps after his own sermon, but it was completely true. People like Hannah were a dying breed in this world. Humanity needed more like her, and hell maybe even him, to keep pressing through.

OOC: Short post, but it was meant to finish the thread. Will post new thread tomorrow