[center][color=#ffdead][b]W I N N I E   S P A R L I N G[/b][/color][/center][indent][sub][color=#FFDEAD][b]Location:[/b][/color] [i]Backyard, Sparling Home[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#ffdead][b]Timeframe:[/b][/color] [i]Early Afternoon[/i][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][indent][sub][color=#ffdead][b]Interaction(s):[/b][/color] [i]Jason Sparling, Lila Sparling[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#ffdead][b]Previously:[/b][/color] [i][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5436697]Group Playthrough[/url][/i][/right][/sup][/indent]
Winnie didn't recognize him, but she still felt weirdly bad for the man. Maybe a tourist? Maybe someone who'd just been passing through or visiting family? He twitched and staggered, bereft of all humanity, and she put the binoculars down. There was another one like him, she knew, at the opposite end of the street. Jason had called them a 'Damocles Sword' hanging over everyone's head, but Winnie liked to think of them as more of a reminder. Not since that first terrifying day when she had run from school as fast as her legs could carry her, when she'd watched people laugh as their teacher had spasmed and contorted, thinking it was an April Fools' joke before realizing otherwise too late, had she encountered a zombie. Some were calling them 'creeps' now, because 'zombie' seemed too unreal, but it [i]was[/i] real. These were zombies. That was that. They weren't funny anymore. They weren't something to watch in movies or kill in videogames. They weren't a 'critical reflection of our yearning to escape the mundane', as Mr. Carlos had been so fond of saying. They were things that could bite your face off now: things you could [i]become[/i]. The pair bookending Mulberry street were a constant reminder that, even when they weren't in front of you, they were [i]there[/i]. They were death waiting for you at any moment.

Could they climb trees, though? Winnie had often wondered that. She'd made plans around it, even. It was, to some extent, why she was up in a tree now, straddling a branch and swinging her feet idly - [i]nervously[/i] - back and forth. She'd always felt safer up in high places, even as her parents had done everything within their power to keep her on the ground, including the destruction of the treehouse that Grandpa had built. Winnie wasn't Lila, though. She wouldn't fall and break her back. 

It was at that precise moment that she noticed her sister, coming around the side of the house with... [color=ffdead]"Why's there a [i]pitchfork[/i] tied to your wheelchair!?"[/color]

Lila swept some hair from her eyes - it was a bit of a breezy day - and squinted up at her. [color=bc8dbf]"My own sense of self-defense,"[/color] came the reply.

Jason was right behind her. [color=7ea7d8]"I had to retrieve her from the garage because she couldn't turn in a small space."[/color]

[color=bc8dbf]"On the plus side, if there are any kings that need overthrowing, I'm your girl."[/color]

Sometimes, Winnie decided, it was hard being eleven and already the smartest one in your family.

[color=bc8dbf]"Don't worry. It'll be a chainsaw instead once we have more gas."[/color]

Winnie's dangling feet swung back and forth. [color=ffdead]"A gun would probably be more effective. Think we can borrow Zia Carina's?"[/color]

Jason shook his head. [color=7ea7d8]"Won't let us touch it on pain of death,"[/color] he grumbled, [color=7ea7d8]"but I've got my swords."[/color]

Lila visibly grimaced, but Winnie thought that she didn't really have a leg to stand on here. She was sporting a pitchfork, for the love of God. [color=bc8dbf]"Now come on, Buggy,"[/color] her older sister prodded, and the girl was already swinging herself off of her current branch. [color=bc8dbf]"We've gotta go. We're meeting up at the gazebo."[/color] 

[color=7ea7d8]"Yeah, it's time this street started organizing or we're all zombie chow."[/color]

[hr][hr]
[center][color=#ec008c][b]C A R I N A   Z A N E T T I[/b][/color][/center][indent][sub][color=#ec008c][b]Location:[/b][/color] [i]Backyard, Sparling Home[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#ec008c][b]Timeframe:[/b][/color] [i]Early Afternoon[/i][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][indent][sub][color=#ec008c][b]Interaction(s):[/b][/color] [i]Alana Sparling[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#ec008c][b]Previously:[/b][/color] [i]none[/i][/right][/sup][/indent]
The children were up to something. Carina could sense it. There'd been a flurry of text messages and that was never a good sign. It was not a good sign because, when kids did something without telling the adults, it meant that they were doing something stupid. Stupid things got people killed and, right now, Mulberry street needed people. [color=ec008c]"Coming up on your eight."[/color] Carrying a stack of pots, she passed Alana in the yard, where the (former) psychologist was working on planting more vegetables. Normally, Carina would have been horrified. She'd have mobilized the HOA, but this was the end of the world and things needed to be rethought and she was stuck with it. Ideally, the whole street would be turned into a series of heavily fortified farms, self-sufficient, with one 'hub' providing electricity as needed.

To this end, she spent the entire first half of the day digging and planting and following a mix of the guides Lila had printed and what her parents had taught her. A good half of their backyard, growing up, had been a fruit and vegetable garden and vivid were her memories of chasing Adrian and Devon through rows of Cucuzza trellises. It would take at least a couple of years for this yard to reach that sort of production, but then they'd have food security. The problem was that Carina doubted they'd make it that far. Devon was missing and she'd been trying not to think about it. Alana was a psychologist, Winnie was a child, and Lila was... a liability. It pained her to see her niece like that. She'd been thriving before Hollywood monsters had made themselves real. Now she was helpless and doomed and she knew it. Brave girl, though: she'd hardly said a word to anyone. She'd just made herself useful. That was all she could do. All [i]any[/i] of them could do.

Carina went inside and made herself a late lunch: the last of their cold cuts save the smoked and salted hams in the pantry. The bread was all bad anyhow and had to be toasted. She stalked outside after putting everything away, sandwich in one hand and pliers in the other, intent on tightening some of their warning wires. That was when she noticed Jason and Lila moving together with purpose towards the backyard, the former with a pair of those cheap Japanese-style swords he'd bought online strapped across his back and the latter with a...pitchfork strapped to her wheelchair. It was an effort not to call them out then and there, but more would be gained via eavesdropping. Carina continued eating, but she kept her ears open and made her way right to the edge of the yard, not quite comically peering around the corner. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum met up with Winnie and, before she knew it, she could hear the Three Stooges planning some sort of secret meeting, just as she'd earlier suspected.

[color=ec008c][i]Gazebo, two o'clock.[/i][/color] She went inside to tell Alana.