Lincoln Myles - Part 1 

Linc hefted his carbine a little as he made his way down the alleyway. Trash and debris had piled up in places, carried by day and night breezes, and the refuse of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing, fighting, and forgetting possessions, trash, and belongings. There were a few corpses in the alley as well. He kicked a couple lightly testing to see if there was any sort of unlife in them. There had been no reaction, so he moved on. 

Now, ahead was the mouth of the alley with a street.There was a line of lush green vegetation, about knee high on the other side. Behind that was a short retaining wall and an iron bar fence, and what looked like perimeter fence a few yards behind that. That could be a decently safe place he supposed. Coming up to the mouth of the alley, he took cover at the corner of a building with stucco walls, that was an off white color, putting it on his right. He peered down the street to his left seeing grey asphalt, and an abandoned car. Another car was down a couple blocks more. There were palm trees in a few places, and a few more corpses, but nothing too heavy.

Peering around the corner of the corner of the building he was kneeling behind he frowned, finding a red SUV sitting there, blocking most of his immediate view. Moving in a crouch he eased up to the vehicle, then peered over the hood, then stood up, rifle held ready, sweeping the area. There were two women shuffling along the street. One was dressed in a pair of cargo shorts and a pink bikini top which had seen better days. Blonde hair had been pulled up into a tight bun and it had seen better days as well. The hair was grimy and filthy with wind-blown strings of hair fluttering in the wind. Linc could tell she was thin, underfed, sure. The one next to her was older, about the age of a Miami 'early bird'. She was dressed in a button down shirt, in an aqua tone. A little heavier set, she also had what looked like a sarong around her waist. She was missing a sandal. The wind gave a soft billow and the waft of decay hit him in the nose. 

Softly, he whistled, sharp enough to get their attention. Both of them stopped, then slowly turned in his direction. The girl in the bikini had several chunks of flesh missing along her ribs, nose missing, and deep gouges of flesh torn from her face. The woman seemed mostly okay,e xcept for what was left of her intestines dangled from her abdominal cavity. Linc shuddered as they moaned and headed his way. Gunfire was a bad idea, so he sighed and reached back to pull out his fireaxe. 

Moving carefully he readied for his first strike and swung, aiming for the neck. The shock of impact barely registered in his arms as the axe head sheered through rotted flesh like a knife through butter. It traveled on striking bikini girl across the cheekbone laying part of her face even more widely open and spinning her around, and sending her reeling, almost sprawling. The severed head dropped to the ground with a macabre popping sound, bouncing once before laying still. 

The remaining one turned back and he waited, setting himself again and she reached for him, clawing in his direction, but he swept the end of his handle out, knocking her hands away. Continuing with the sweeping motion of his axe, he brought it back around to slam into the side of her head. The neck snapped with sicking crunch, and she fell over. Linc watched as she started to clamber to her feet again, head canting at a horrid angle, dangling almost by the muscles. Before she could rise he kicked her in the shoulder, knocking her over and onto her back, then brought his axe down until it hit asphalt, her head severed as well. 

Quickly he rifled through their pockets and found nothing but lint in bikini girl's pockets. The older retireee had a calculator, a notepad, pen, and a sharpie in her pocket. Linc relieved her of them, putting them in one of his own pockets, then took a sip of water from his camelbak, getting almost nothing but air. He was out of water now. Standing up he eyed the fence for a moment when he noticed a pile of burned out bodies, which looked like someone had been disposing of infected corpses. 

Deciding he didn't want to try to make it over those barriers just yet, he began heading down the street to the left, where he came to the corner of the fences after about a block. It was then that he heard the gunfire, two shots then a third. "Fuuuck," he groaned. People, sure... but noisy and loud guns. They might as well have run the dinner bell. He swept his gaze around then noticed the appearance of a couple biters.. then a few more. Time to think and act. These things acted a lot like a tide, and he didn't want to get caught by them, raised by the noise. 

Reaching back he pulled his hooligan tool off and set the tines in the bottom of the first fence. Backing up, he got a running start, then stepped up, still in a run onto the bar and leaped, catching the top bars while planting his feet on the brick, pusing with his legs, while pulling on the iron to keep him up, hauling himself higher until he got a knee on the flat top of one of the crenelations, then slipped off the other side. He landed with a huff and retrieved his tool. 

Looking up at the perimeter fence he sighed. He'd lost his multi-tool days ago and hadn't been able to retrieve it. So cutting through wasn't really an option. Climbing it wasn't tooo much of a problem. Chain link could be done. The barbed wire at the top concerned him some. Stripping off his pack and weapons, except for the pistol, he tossed them over the fencing, then peeled off his dark bunker jacket and tossed it over the barbed wire. It was pretty much puncture proof. He just wanted it to keep himself safe in general. 

Backing up he got a small running start then jumped part way up, and began climbing hand over hand, holding onto the support pole of one section while his boots put counter pressure on the fence to lock him in as he worked his way up, to the barbed wire. carefully he latched on, avoiding the barbs, then with a grunt of effort pulled himself up to chest height, then pushed his bodyweight up. Bringing one leg over he set his foot on the top support bar running the length of the fence, then began transferring his weight onto it. It seemed sturdy enough to hold his weight, so he balanced carefully up there. Making sure of the distance to the ground, he leaped beyond the second run of wire. The ground rushed up fast to meet him and his stomach rose up inside, but he made sure to stay relaxed, and bent his legs, but not too much, hitting on the balls of his feet. The shock brought his heels down and sent a reverberation of kinetic energy up through his legs while his upper body tilted forward at high speed. He raised one arm and touched the grass, which turned into a nifty forward roll, transferring the energy across his back and shoulders to his opposite hip, bringing him right back to his feet and spreading out all the shock and force so that he felt little of it. It wasn't any different from an ukemi break fall technique, or too much different than what he'd learned in the military about taking falls, and even some training with the civilian fire department. There wasn't much call for it for most of them, but it was helping protect his joints and stave off injury. 
Retrieving his things, he headed around for the back side of the property. If he remembered right, it was a psychiatric hospital, which could be good or really bad. From somewhere inside he heard a deep thud. Another gunshot? 

Making his way around toward where he heard the shot he encountered a young female... walker, wearing a blue bathrobe and what looked like patient pajamas from the hospital. He saw her in time before she saw him and planed his stroke on the run, giving a mighty swing, burying the head of his axe into the occipital lobe region of her head. With a grunt he peeled his weapon out the back of her skull and kept moving.