Spencer wakes up, blinking his eyes, and grabs the baton as he hears the shuffling. "You think it's one of those things?" he whispers, trying to shift to his feet without making noise.
Tom wakes up quickly and stands up just as quickly with the H&K PSG-1 in his hands. He quickly moves to the window of the commotion, checks the roof tops around as he approaches the window for other snipers. Then looks down on the commotion.
What does Tom see?
He sees a strange character who is shuffling through material in the destroyed car.
Tom's eyes widen as he sees the humanoid shuffling through the car. [/i]"Is this a crazy, a raider, or a potential friend?"[/i]
Tom remains calm and places the stranger in his sights. In a low voice, "Hey Manny and Spence, I think we have a live one outside rummaging through the cars. Should I take him or are you going to make contact?
"I can check it out." Spencer grabs his baton and moves to the window, attempting to quietly step out and climb down the piled path.
Once he gets to the ground, Spencer continues to move as close to the man as he can, the baton readied to strike if necessary. Once he gets close enough to smell that it's a human--or if the figure turns around--Spencer raises the baton in a two-handed grip and raises his eyebrows. "Hey there, stranger," he says.
Just as Spencer greets the figure and the figure falls down in writhing pain as a wound in his arm seems to be growing a dark sickly green around the edges.
"Sh*te!" Spencer hisses as the figure drops to the ground, his arm strange. Realizing what should be done, he raises the baton again and brings it down with a grunt.
Tom tries to get a better sight picture of the crazy being beaten in order to help mitigate hitting Spence in the process. In the process, he also looks around for other targets high and low. Tom wants to shout down to Spence to see if he is "OK" but that will probably either draw more crazies or bandit snipers similar to who they met prior to entering the police station.
You start to hear distant moans in the morning and probably get a feeling that it might be time to move on as spencer finishes a messy bludgeoning to the head of the zombie.
Spencer clambers back up into the station. "It's probably best if we get moving; I heard some noises out there. Where do we want to go?"
Tom looks around, "What happened to Manny?"
As the heroes search for Manny they soon find nothing but evidence of him taking supplies and running off into the night. As the heroes are looking for Manny they come across a wide alley going which looks to become more and more rural.
Tom stays side by side with Spence and does not say much on the road making sure not to attract "crazies" and signaling Spence when he spots trouble. Tom currently has the PSG-1 at the ready and every where he looks, the PSG's muzzle follows except of course towards Spence since Tom is quite sure Spence does not want the muzzle of a 7.62x51mm NATO weapon pointed at him. Tom will only engage targets that are an immediate threat. The rifle is actually more for the living than the undead because of the rifle's rapport. Like everyone us, Tom may not be an expert on the ZPOC, survivors have surely learned that gun fire attracts crazies.
As the party heads down the road they see what looks to be a suburban area with houses boarded up and large amounts of messages left by the insane. The houses look pretty much the same. As you continue farther down you start to come across more houses with more and more accessibility I terms of to get in.
"So..." Spencer says, breaking the near-silence in which the pair's been walking. "What did you do before... before all this? You look like you know how to use that." He gestures to the gun with his baton, extended and at the ready.
In a whisper, Tom responds to Spence, "Sssh, not so loud or you may bring the crazies to us. I was actually an architect and not not an architect of destruction." ... Tom smiles ... "I was a building architect hired by a large Atlanta firm and our projects were not focused in one type of building. We designed anything from skyscrapers, to hardened houses, and even communities for the unfortunate. As for my marksmanship skills, it is an old hobby of mine instigated by the pre-apocalypse criminal element."
"Huh." Spencer responds in a hushed voice, just loud enough for Tom to hear. "Architecture, huh? Dunno much about that, but I did a bit of mechanic work with my dad from time to time, mostly when I was younger."
Tom responds in the same low voice, "I always wanted to learn how to fix cars up and repair them. I never had the time to learn since sports and architecture took up most of my time. If we ever find some down time in this hell hole, can you teach me how to be a mechanic?"
Spence lets out a low chuckle. "I don't honestly remember much, so I'm not sure how much I can teach you. But I'd be happy to help with what I can. What sports did you do?"
Tom smirks while being alert, then replies still keeping the volume down, "Well if you remember, I am eager to learn. As for what sports I played, I was an American Football Wide Receiver in high school and college."
"Ah, football! Makes sense now how you ran when I tackled you." Spencer grins, remembering his own days playing before focusing on boxing. "I'm a boxer myself, training for the Olympics. Was, anyway." He looks around, wary, and grips the metal baton a little tighter.
Ignoring the tackled remarked because Spence was lucky in Tom's mind, "You were a boxer?! After I was mugged a while back, I was thinkin' of taking Krav Maga but instead I decided to get into marksmanship or shootin' Too bad boxin' does not work too well with the "Crazies"."
Tom hears something that has attracted his nervous attention and he takes out his long crowbar, What was that?!
"Yeah, not the best idea. They don't seem to mind a few jabs to the face. That's why I grabbed this." Spencer again lifts the baton. At Tom's exclamation, Spencer grips the metal in both hands and crouches, looking around. "What?"
"Do you hear those slow moving foot steps?!" ... Tom looks into the direction of the foot steps.
"Yeah. Scraping... shuffling. Not good." Spencer also looks in the direction of the sounds. "What do you think? Deal with it, or run?"
Looking slighting uneasy, "I think we should save our strength for a more threatening encounter and we can not tell how many there are. What do you think?"
"Agreed." Spencer nods forward. "You wanna move a little faster, or keep this pace? So far it seems like they're not too fast."
Tom nods while still looking in the same direction as the noise and then faces Spence to answer his question in a low voice, "Let's pick up the pace! Have you noticed that some of them are beginning to slow down? Although, some are still quite quick. I wonder why that is? ... Tom does a quick security check the area especially where the noise is originating from, then adds ... We need to get out of the city into the country before night fall. If we can find a vehicle or horses to ride, we may be better off?
Spencer nods, too. "Moving quicker and quietly would be great. Even a bike would be nice to have."
Tom picks up the pace, maybe a little quicker than it should be because of Tom's anxiety and endurance, "I'll watch the left and you the right for any sort of transportation and of course crazies." Tom looks back to see a small group of zombies come out from some bushes. The zombies notice Tom and Spence, and take chase at full rotting Zombie pace moaning the dinner bell moan. At this time, a normal walk will out pace this small group. Tom taps Spence on the shoulder to alert him of the contact while continuing the walk briskly.
Spencer looks around and swallows. "Yeah, let's get out of here." He speeds up a little, keeping pace with Tom despite the faster-than-necessary rate.
Tom and Spence make it pass the suburbs and into the country side surrounding Atlanta without further incident as the sun begins to set. Both of them are very hungry, thirsty, and tired. Up ahead, both can see an economy car with tinted windows pulled off to the side. Country houses can be seen off into the distance but nothing close by.
Tom looks at the car, then Spence while pointing at the car "What do you think?"
As you are looking at the car you see specific markings not possibly made by zombie or by an animal its a distinct marking a skull with wings behind it as well as a gun on one side and a knife crossing each other.
Then both Spencer and Tom both feel the sensation of cool metal pressed against the back of their skull and a voice saying "If you are fond of living you should drop your weapons and state your clan" A rather slender man with glasses steps out from the other side of the car looking quite dignified and pleased with himself. He motions to Tom who looks reluctant to speak and possibly having paranoia mixed with fear gripping him.....
Unused to having a gun against his head, Spencer just complies with the man's request, bringing his hands down and dropping the baton. "Clan? I'm a Collin, from Ireland originally, but lived here for most of my life." He stands still. "I don't know what you mean, but I think we should all stick together and be quiet, don't you?"
The man seems disbelieving and motions to the man behind spencer who eagerly pulls the hammer back on his revolver. The slender man walks towards spencer and says "I think your a spy for the cultists"
"Therefore I will execute you both here now...."
Tom tries to keep from going crazy and getting shot, "WHOA WHOA, we are not cultist, we just walked out of Atlanta where the crazies are everywhere! Don't you think we should band together as humans since we now have a larger foe and that is the crazies?! Power is in force of numbers and they have the numbers!"
The man looks at Tom and says "That is true however.... why should I other than the fact you are fellow humans you could just say we are friends and kill our clan in their sleep and steal our supplies....."
The man behind Spencer looks down as a trickle of liquid runs down Spencer's leg and the man guffaws "HAHA... the boy's dun pissed himsef!" The man has a notable country accent.
As the humans are debating and quarreling a man comes up to the slender one and says "We do need some help with the cultist they are attacking the trading parties coming into our settlement" . "They still doesn't mean we should trust them..." he responds. "Well at the very least give these poor souls some supplies we can't just leave them we then would be as dead inside as the crazies..." . The leader thinks for a second and finally says "You can come with us but you must sleep on the outskirts of the settlement until further noted and must participate in every scavenge and/or raid. You must also defend our settlement as if it was your own and then maybe you may have our trust, however if you make me even doubt your intentions Ill have make your insides become your outsides'. He makes a belly slit gesture to empower what he said.
Spencer looks down at his leg and groans a little. Great. Can go toe-to-toe with bigger fighters, can even brain a crazy walker, but put a gun to my head for a few seconds...
He shakes his head and picks up the baton--slowly--before nodding and falling into step behind the group.
Tom ignores Spence's bladder release since he would have himself if his his bladder was full. He agrees (for now anyway to stay alive), "Yes sir, I can do that for you since you are showing us hospitality.", and also follows. Tom will wait until he can talk to Spence without so many prying eyes and ears.
The man gets into the car and starts it and motions for the rest of the group to get in as you get in you notice the basic broke down car is actually a big piece of cardboard with what you saw painted on the front of and as you pass to look at the other side to get in you see it has no top just the body and wheels on the trunk there is a heavy machine gun and on the wheels there is swords sticking out the insides like a chariot. As Spencer and Tom look on the epic sight of the zombie killing vehicle you are interrupted by the voice of the man who was behind Spencer "Get in the damn car!"
When you arrive at the settlement the slender man turns to both Spencer and Tom and seeths " You will sleep over there"He motions to a shed inside the town walls. " We have a bar, a church, a jail, and have a guard tower that contains the armory...I will not show you any you must find them yourself "
As you walk inside the walls you find a strange sight as there is no humans not doing something they have fields and doctors office they have schools and children attending them......A gentle looking farming eyes your weapons and says " Welcome to New Hope's Village....its a nice place when you think about whats out there and by the way try to keep your weapons in your house because its frowned upon to keep them out and during the night they'll kill you for a cultist" He walks away happily whistling a tune.