The night-journey across the rail-cut was with fraught-nerves and tense muscles as her cautiously led the horse and carriage alongside the rails; he knew better than to order the horse to walk blindly down the trail, even though its large eyes could see quite well in the dark, it very much did not like the place it was being led through. At every twig snapping, the pair of heads jerked in this or that direction, straining their eyes to make-out the cause, listening and feeling for any reaction from their partner to cue a fight or flight...

Beyond the dangerous-ground came an intersection, upon which sat an old but still functional feed-mill and granary with a good collection of garage-bays for in-house maintenance. Taking shelter inside one as it started to rain seemed prudent, and William went through the tired but completely necessary motions of checking the interior out.

Aside from the squatter's camp at the airfield, Cleveland appeared to be largely deserted. A FEMA-tag on the granary's door indicated they forced the evacuation of five living individuals over six months ago; tools laid where they were from the time of evacuation, suggesting raiders had largely overlooked this place. So the grain-silos were likely still pretty full...

After a slightly better slumber for horse and rider in some old hay, William loaded about six sacks of feed and oats into the carriage and decided to travel a bit further into town, maybe find a boat.

The daylight stroll further up north along the rails was somewhat more casual, as the trail opened-up a bit as it passed near the international airport, and didn't really see any signs of chaos until he came near the Olmstead Falls Fire Department, where he saw a pile-up on the Ohio-Turnpike and could smell the stench of a late-stage police-roadblock doing its thing to make a stand and slow the spread of infected with what was on-hand... many rotters lay here... some not so dead as William would've liked, but for the most part so badly crippled to be a non-threat.

Up further ahead came the source of the early mob... the commercial district... He took a detour at Bagley-street to check-over a CVS Pharmacy... nothing much worth taking besides some prescription beta-blockers with warning-labels indicating things like an increased likelihood of sudden cardiac/respiratory failure and erectile dysfunction, the sort of things people who didn't need the drug probably would step away from without looking back. He knew that risking his neck for such drugs was a gamble of a gamble, that even if he won would only hold him over for a few more months... but nearly any alternative was better than letting himself become a liability in this world. He put two drops into each of his eyes without hesitation and continued back towards the safety of the now-uncongested rail-lines that created the border between suburbia and Cleveland's largest airport. A quick glance down each street he came to confirmed these places were evacuated, just some stray rovers and mounds of cripples to look-out for...

[h3]It's when the FEMA-tags [i]stop[/i] he had to get worried...[/h3]

That happened under the interstate-71 overpass, where he heard something thrashing in the nearby creek... rotters usually go dormant when left alone, so that meant something bumped past this poor sod not too long ago. Likely someone driving a big loud truck on the freeway trying to get around the traffic-congestion. This meant the rotters were now actively searching for prey, but also that he was unlikely to get spooked by any sleepers anymore.

He hopped into the carriage and fetched the Mosin, making sure to top-off the 5th round, but not closing the bolt. Lack of a definite easy-to-use safety either meant he would run with 4 in the mag and an empty (closed) chamber, or 5 in the mag and an open chamber.

Then he heard shots fired up ahead, about one or two miles, several different calibers, but he knew he was walking straight for it, whatever it was. The horse was now getting twitchy... [url=https://www.google.com/maps/@41.4564089,-81.7479876,15z]Thankfully, there was an indoor bike-park to hide his equine companion-inside while daddy took care of some business up the rails a bit.[/url] A quick check by yelling at the interior of the building confirmed that nobody in their right mind bothered to hold-out here. He failed to notice [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/81208-theyre-coming-walking-dead-rp/char#post-2683416]a bike was missing[/url].

On his belt was about 60 rounds of ammunition (45 rds on stripper-clips), his buttstock held 10, and 5 in the mag plus a loose stripper-clip in his pocket.