[b]  Finn Loughty / Nicole Brenn - Food Court - Nathalie Soltero [@wolverbells] [/b]
 
    Finn kept one eye on Nicole and the other on Nathalie and his ears out for any groans that made their way too close to them as they snuck their way through the eerie mall to the food court. His fingers tightened on his machete as he began to have doubts about coming here. This place was a hub, crawling with walkers and survivors. Finn observed Nathalie as she strolled on ahead of them. He was intrigued by her kindness to them. How trusting she was despite his own distrust. He shook his head, trying to push her out of his thoughts. This was not the time to think about this. A few moments later as they walked on, he almost halted at the sight of the broken chains hanging off the rusty food court doors.  
 
  [b]“Don’t worry, these chains were broken by the community after the outbreak. We broke in to get food before the cops came. Keep your eyes open though. Not everyone made it out.”[/b]
  
   Finn anchored his attention on her, wondering how she knew all of this. He stepped forward to help her with the door. As they padded in, their quiet footsteps were the only thing heard in the wide, haunting room. It was quiet. A little too quiet for his liking. 

“If you want, we can meet back here when we’re done. Good luck, Nathalie.” The corners of his Lincoln green eyes crinkled as he returned her warm smile.

“Call for help if something happens. Please. We don’t want anything to happen to you.” Nicole added in after him with a hopeful smile of her own. She didn’t care if her brother trusted her or not, she had decided she liked Nathalie.

    Finn’s penetrating gaze probed their surroundings as he assessed the situation. Where to? They began to search through a couple of fast-food restaurants closest to them and there was nothing. Nada. They had taken everything. A little bit frustrated but not surprised, he caught sight of what seemed like a high-end restaurant to the far right side. Maybe if they went in the back, they would have some stored food in the back in the pantry or freezer. 
   “Come on, Nic,” he said, motioning for her to follow him. Jumping over the counter, he paused to see if he could hear any walkers. Nothing. He opened the back room door with the tip of his machete. There were rusting appliances and the whole place was crawling with roaches. 
   “Hey Finn, take a look at this,” he heard Nicole call him from further into the restaurant. Following her voice, he ended up staring at a large walk-in the pantry. The steel door was bolted with what seemed like unpentratable locks. It was obvious that there had been several unsuccessful attempts to break into the pantry. From bullet holes, sharp and heavy dents, it didn’t budge. There it remained, awaiting it’s next opponent.

  “It must be loaded with food. Who knows what could be in there?” 

  “Well, we’re out of bullets and unless you can figure out a way to get in, we can forget about it Finn. If we make one loud bang, we’re dead. Besides, there are other places to search through.” 

 “And we don’t get food, we’re dead too, Nicole,” he sighed, glancing at his feet before his eyes met hers once more. “Look, those other places here are probably empty and if this our only opportunity to find food in a while, I’m going to try.”

   “Okay, let’s try,” Nicole reluctantly gave in with a sigh.   

   Finn began to run his hands over the edges of the door, trying to find an alternative way other than to hack away at the locks, which he knew was next to impossible. First, he thought of maybe breaking in the pantry through the ceiling. No, he didn’t have the right tools for that. He put his focus back on the door. Perhaps he could find a way to remove the hinges off of it. He dug into his pack and found a couple of screwdrivers he kept with him from his old construction days. With that, he began working at it. He installed doors before. He could disinstall them if he wanted to too. It had passed about ten minutes of him working on it before he realized that Nicole hadn’t said anything up till now. He glanced behind him and noticed she was nowhere in sight.

“Nicole?” he said out loud. Silence. “Damn it. I hate it when she does this.”

Nicole always disappeared to go off to do her own thing in the most inappropriate times. Torn between finishing what he was doing and going after her, he put his screwdrivers down and he glanced at the hinges he had managed to loosen a little. At this rate,this would take at least half an hour. Suddenly getting an idea, he got out his shotgun and held it backwards so that the butt of it was facing forward. He slammed the butt of his shotgun on the hinges as hard as he could. It made a loud bang. At first, it didn’t budge. He continued to launch his gun at the door. He knew the risks of making noise but at this point he didn’t care. The hinges were beginning to fall part. After about five minutes, he managed to break the two hinges off the door. Finn used his machete to pry the door open. It was open! He gingerly moved the door to the side.  
   

   After making sure there were no walkers in the pantry, he managed to feel through the shelves. Grinning to himself, he realized he had hit the motherload. The place was loaded with cans, bags of rice and bags of other dry foods he couldn’t identify. But just as he had begun to fill his pack, he began to hear groanings too close for comfort. The loud banging he had produced earlier had reached their ears. He hastily began to stuff his pack with food. He would have to come back. After filling it to the brim, he booked it.

   Just as he was about to jump over the counter and back into the food court, there were four walkers coming straight at him. Nicole was nowhere in sight. Dropping his pack and grabbing his machete, he began to distract one of them to the side. He managed to kill it swiftly, but the other three were right on his tail. 

   “Hey, you!” Nicole shouted from about fifteen yards away. A walker turned around at the sound of her voice and stared at her.  “Yeah, you! Over here!” The disgusting creature plodded over to her.

  Finn immediately heard her, and cried out for her to stop, knowing what she was doing. Furious, he charged at one of the walkers and kicked it to the dirty floor. He managed to slice its head off and then nimbly plunge his machete into the other one’s head. 

  Nicole had her knife in her hands as the creature began to inch closer to her. Standing at only 5’2, the walker towered over her menacingly. She noticed her hands were trembling. [i]Come on, Nicole. You can do this.[/i] Failing to encourage herself, she began to step backwards, leading it around the food court. The walker’s hands were almost touching her now. She spotted a chair and knew that if she managed to stand on it she would be able to kill it. Before she could attempt her plan, like a flash before her eyes, it’s head fell off its body and it fell on the ground. She moved away just in time so that she didn’t fall under it. Her fearful eyes stared at her brother in surprise. 
   
   "Are you alright?" she heard him say, pratically out of breath.

   She managed a weak, "Yeah. Thanks."

  She observed him go and hoist his much heavier pack on his back and motioned for her to follow him. "Come on. Let's go find Nat," he sighed, running his fingers through his hair. He was exhausted from the limited amount of food and water. The physical exertion he had just done had taken a toll on him. "I managed to open that pantry. She needs some food as well."