[sub][color=646D7E][b]T E D   B R A D Y :[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent][indent][sub][color=646D7E][b]Z O N E   B[/b][/color][/sub][/indent][/indent][hr]

The JLTV tussled briefly over the terrain, but Ted made no notice.  He was more concerned about things like whipping that fucking Raleigh Safety Shelter into its place. Authorities had one fucking job, and yet, here he was — leaving the old fort of D.C. for some half-witted shit command job because people — humans — couldn’t do their one fucking job.  He wasn’t surprised, but he was more than peeved.  On a good day, he was generally peeved, but on a day like this, he was furious.  Anyone could have seen it in his eyes.  The sternness that lingered across his weathered face calloused further as a small transmission emitted over his communication device.  The line was fuzzy, but it was what it was.  

His lower jaw moved unevenly to the side as he drew in a rugged breath.  The phone piece was gripped tightly in his hand and shoved between his cheek and his shoulder.  Gruff words woven with some blunt cursing spoke from his mouth.  He had a lot of things to worry about, right now.  Adding to the list was just going to piss him off, even more.  Unfortunately, Ted was always pissed.  Therefore, sometimes, people just didn’t care if they were going to piss him off even more.

The Raleigh Safety Shelter of Zone B was giving the authorities some hell — in more than one or two ways.  God, if he could just kill them all — gun them down — that stiff muscle in his left shoulder might stop bothering him when he slept at night for once.  His wife, Anne, would massage a stiff muscle back in the day, but she was dead, now.  Lurkers, irresponsible people. It made him more irate the more he thought about it, and People thought positions of power were easy like stealing candy from a baby.  Well, fuck, yeah, there was a lot of easy corruption and white collar crimes.  Hell, there were even red collar crimes, but shit if that lifestyle didn’t have it’s own backlash.  Karma’s a bitch, Ted supposed even if he didn’t really believe in such a thing.  To Ted, life, in general, was a bitch, and if life was going to be a fucking bitch, he’d get what he could out of it.

Greasers had been ransacking cargo units.  It pissed Ted off.  Well, what didn’t piss him off, at this point, any how? Cigarettes.  Those damn butts were a blessing from the God that didn’t even exist.  Whatever.  If Greasers wanted the American luxury so much, why didn’t they just live on the dumb fuck Safety Shelters?  Sure, the ‘Survivors’ looked like pig swine compared to how Ted was living, which if he was honest, wasn’t really fucking shit much at all, but damnit, the Greasers were like that itch that kept coming back no matter how hard you fought it.  Ted and some others had an idea.  War with the Greasers was bound to happen. Just fucking exterminate those little shits off the face of the garbage hole of a planet.  The little ball in outer space was fucked up enough.  The last thing it needed was little Grease Monkeys trying to litter it more with their petty animal shit.  

It was at this thought that Ted took out a cigarette and lit it with a match.  His thin lips drew in a huge drag, and the nicotine burned the back of his throat.  There was something depressing about not having menthol with his nicotine.  Sure, the health risks, rat poison, whatever.  Maybe, he secretly just wanted to die. No, he just didn’t fucking care.  Pleasure was still an option, and Ted was going to get it one way or another.  It usually came in blood cold manners, but the heat of a tobacco tar had its perks, like some of those desperate Safety Shelter whores.  Abortion should have been mandatory back before the Outbreak.   Fucking women and not worrying about some ugly, mistake aftermath shit would have made life so much easier. Yeah, he could have paid some money for a bitch to terminate that lump of cells infecting the inside of her body.  Maybe he wouldn’t have been so annoyed with Anne’s death if he cheated on her a bit more.

Another large inhale coursed into Ted’s lungs.  Today wasn’t a day for playing.  Ha, was any day really for playing? His tired eyes glanced out of the window at the ugly, gray scenery.  It was cold outside, but it’d be getting warmer as the clouds dispersed and the sun bitched her way to the earth.  He’d made this trip many times in the past eight years, and he was beginning to recognize the landscape.  They were getting close to the Safety Shelter.  He hated the fact he was traveling in a shabby shit job of a cargo unit.  He wanted something more personal, more protected, more powerful — all wishful thinking.  There was no fuel for that shit. There was nothing.  At least, there would be nothing, soon, and that’s why he was making his appearance to the Raleigh Safety Shelter in Zone B.

As the JLTV came to a stop, it pushed forwards and then backwards.  The driver exchanged a small briefing with the guards working the gate of the Shelter.  Suddenly, the engine rumbled once more, and the vehicle proceeded into the Shelter.  Ted rolled his eyes at the site.  It was always filthy to him.  He knew he wasn’t much, but he really questioned how these ragged humans lived, sometimes.  In fact, he thought about it often, which was why the others and he came to the decision they had.

Ted snuffed his cigarette and tossed it on the flooring of the JLTV.  If any sucker wanted the rest of that shit, it was theirs for the taking.  Germs and all. His body flexed as he opened the door and nudged his strong body from the unit.  His narrow eyes scanned the faces of the Safety Shelter.  They all looked the same to him, and he really had no business to do with any of them.  It was the head of the shit joint he wanted to meet.

The other transport vehicles came to a halt, and Ted could see the eyes of the hungry open widely.  His own lips pressed together and formed a small, disgusted frown.  They were all swine.  Every single one of them.  His nose wrinkled as he took a step forward and pulled out his gun, shifting his body through the grounds and making his way towards the swines’ leader.  He was feeling his cheeks heat from the fact that he had not been greeted.  No wonder this place was falling to shit. No one could do their bloody fucking job, and he always had to be the mother fucking janitor.  It was degrading, and he had better things to do with his time than clean up everyone’s mess. But, if they wanted Mr. Brady to clean up their shit, urine, and vomit, cleaning he would do — whether they liked his methods or not.

 
[sub][color=C9BE62][b]T H E O D O R E   L A W S O N :[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent][indent][sub][color=C9BE62][b]R A L E I G H   S A F E T Y   S H E L T E R[/b][/color][/sub][/indent][/indent][hr]

Theodore’s upper body sprang forward from the brown night sack his body was resting on. His face was flushed, and his body was covered in sweat despite the coolness of the early morning. For several long seconds the darkness that normally blinded his vision had disappeared, and his mind was pupeteering a grotesque play of the afternoon that the Outbreak became… became what it had become; the afternoon he killed his first human; the afternoon he killed his younger sister, Isabella. His dry, dirty hands cupped over his face. He wasn’t going to forget it happened. How could he? It was all around him. 

His breaths were heavy and ragged, and he tried to keep them calm.  He was thankful his stomach was knotted in pain from lack of food, again; the physical pain helped muffle the overly cliché mental anguish.  He preferred the days when he was numb and emotionless. The tightness clawing at his chest, twisting the muscles, and pulling his heart in-and-out of time was sometimes unbearable. If he could forget the past he would, but he had also grown friendly towards the jaded sense of trust.  Abandoning it seemed disloyal and dishonest. 

Letting his bony hands, now with damp palms, collapse onto the makeshift bedding beside him. His shoulders slumped while the darkness continued taking over his sight. His breaths were smaller, but his heart was still pounding against his chest. Theodore’s eyes shifted to the right as his face turned in the same direction. Next to him was another sleeping being, his mother. A small involuntary movement of his mouth crossed over his emotions. He was unsure whether he was relieved she was sleeping next to him or not. Immaturely and selfishly, he wanted to elaborate on the pity he felt for himself, but in all, he could never shake the calmness he innately felt towards knowing his mother was okay – even if he exhibited an inner and sometimes outward animosity towards her. 

A dry bit of saliva croaked down his throat, and Theodore closed his eyes. They were burning from a lack of sleep. Even as someone who never truly understood what a proper amount of sleep felt like, the past eight or whatever years had been truly torturous. His thin body collapsed painfully into the brown bedding. The faint smell of dust lingered in his senses as he fell back to sleep until the morning siren cried through the Shelter.

And it wasn’t until the sun was beating down on his neck did he truly awaken from that zombified state.  Even through the hassle of some big pig government official waltzing into town, Theodore’s attention had gone into auto-pilot.  There were some paranoid folk ruffling everyone’s tail feathers over the guy’s arrival.  He even had some armed possy tailing his every move.  They seemed smug or something, but God, Theodore could be a pushover sometimes. If they barked at him, he most likely complied.  Sometimes it was annoying, but Theodore had never found any use in senseless martyrdom.  

Besides, someone had to mind his mother.

Maybe she could care for herself without him, but Theodore doubted it. She spiraled in and out of depressive, catatonic states too much, and none of those guys she slept with would bother with her.  She was just a doll with a hole or two in it for them to fuck around with. Sometimes that’s how he saw her, too.  Sometimes he saw her as worse, but most of the time, he couldn’t help but care for her — even if it made him sick to the stomach, which was good sometimes, because he was usually starving. Not today, though.  The govvy pigs had come riding into the shelter on the food trucks.  Maybe today wasn’t a good day for stealing, but Theodore was willing to bet none of the authorities would be paying too much attention to the ‘commoners.’ The royalty needed treatment.

So, yeah, Theodore pocketed some of the goods selfishly. Survival was survival, and Amanda was so 'zoned out' she never noticed or took a hint.  It was actually the people on the receiving end who Theodore had to be more weary.  They didn't like their portions being distributed infairly, but Theodore was convinced everyone did it.  Thieves happened.  Stealing was common, but damn if you go caught things went to hell really fast.  Theodore hadn’t been caught, yet.  He was kind of friendly with a guy who had or so he thought.  Theodore felt nothing when the authority figures made the guy into a prime example as to why stealing was against the law.

In fact, in some ways, Theodore forgot it happened many of times as he stood there near Amanda — attempting to make a stupid joke to see if she would smile.  It was a game he made up.  He made Amanda smile maybe once or twice.  He didn’t care if he was bad at it because he didn’t think Amanda was too good at the game either.  Besides, a stupid, light-hearted challenge was always a good way to escape reality, and in the off-chance Amanda did smile, she kind of looked pretty — not that he was one to talk.

 
[sub][color=FF8040][b]H U N T E R : [/b][/color][/sub]
[indent][indent][sub][color=FF8040][b]G R E A S E R   G R O U N D S[/b][/color][/sub][/indent][/indent][hr]
[center][sup]Response to: [@SilentWriter83][/sup][/center]

Lizards were like the coolest thing to Hunter.  Well, not really.  Hunter thought a lot of things were cool — a lot cooler than this stupid fucking weather, and the sun dripping hot rays of weird shit kiss sunburns on his skin.  His cheeks were baren with forced freckles from all the heat beating and scavenger digging he’d done in his eight years of living.  But, right now, lizards were cool as shit, but not really.  He wasn’t sure why that — ‘Cool as shit’ — was even a saying.  Shit was usually kind of hot — or maybe warm; whatever; definitely not cool.  Well, maybe after a bit of time during the winter when left out in the open, but today, shit was hot. For real.

Small, tanned fingers pinched harder against the squirming thing trying to twist its captured reptilia body free from it’s capturer. The body wiggled as a strange noise emitted from the thing’s open mouth.  Dark eyes studied the helpless thing; several blinks of eyelashes stroked against sunburnt cheeks in the process. A small nose crinkled against the tan and burned face.  Hunter’s lips puckered inward as his brows furrowed mischievously. Slowly his mouth opened as the lizard was brought closer to his face.  For several seconds, his lips opened and closed, producing a suction sound, complete with cheeks bulging with each vibration drumming against his dry lips when suddenly, the lizard wiggled correctly and nipped his nose.

[color=FF8040]“Fffff—!”[/color] Hunter’s hand whipped the lizard from his skin in a swift and startled manner, swinging the thing viciously as the annoyance of the attack settled.  As the seconds passed, and Hunter calmed his childish mind, his eyes met his now steady hand. The lizard was gone, but the tail was not.  A quick frown beset the boy’s face as the words, [color=FF8040]"Fuck!”[/color] hissed from his mouth. His fingers offensively flicked the tail onto the dry, heated ground on which he was squatting.  His arm rested, and he turned his head to comb the surrounding area for his escaped prisoner.

It was so cold and windy this morning, but this afternoon had turned into a tortuous desert standstill.  Hunter believed if he was quiet enough, he’d hear the invisible footsteps of his prey, and so he drew in a large breath, puffing out his cheeks again and listening intently for any pitter patters of scurrying.  It was only another several seconds of his time when he heard some sort of vibrations pressing itself into the ground.  His eyes perked at the sound.  He knew that sound all too well. It was Antonio.

His head slowly turned to get a better listen on the whereabouts of Antonio's direction.  His childish mind quickly began noting dates and times — Antonio’s turn to be on guard was today, now, soon, anyways. His little body tucked and rolled behind a rusted, fallen shaft of metal.  The shadow it provided over his lithe body wasn’t much protection from the heat emitting from the boiling ground, but it did provide some sort of shelter from being detected. Hunter so badly wanted to keep the stoicism on his face as he silently lurked in hiding, but his dry lips, now slightly moist with excitement, pressed apart into a crooked toothed smile, growing slowly wider with every foot step that approached closer and closer.

Sure, Hunter was just a kid, but he was pretty tough and cunning and, of course, the typical trope of a mischievous annoyance who popped up unannounced on dangerous voyages quite frequently.  He was kind of like a fungus; he’d grow on a person until he was finally accepted and eventually cherished. Maybe it was desperate times for companionship that the immature boy took to understanding for his own personal development, but whatever the case, as unruly as his mouth and mind were, his eight year old charm didn’t go unnoticed.

It was unfortunate he knew about his charm, though, and his rascally demeanor didn’t help any when he was being chastised. There was something brute and beautiful about getting a good beating after almost getting away with something. However, the feeling of actually getting away with something was even better.  It was better than the first and last time he ever had a Coca-Cola.  His dad said it was ‘Flat,’ but Hunter didn’t care.  He never minded a woman with a flat chest, and the Coca-Cola was helluh fuckin’ delicious.  He dreamed about it, sometimes — and not just at night.  It was that good.

With a flick of his toes inside the worn-out tennis shoes that were slightly too tight around his growing feet, Hunter flicks the dry dirt beneath him and leapt through the air onto Antonio. His monkey-like reflexes swung through the air as he began screaming a loud roar from his small vocals. He could feel the rush of adrenalin that he might actually get away with it.  It came in more than just a flushing heart beat and the still air finally moving across his chapped lips and dirty hair.  Hunter also liked Antonio, and seeing their shadows merge into one was an earnestly guilty pleasure of his.