RedDusk

And the Dead Shall Rise

I like to take my time.

And the Dead Shall Rise

With the corpse fell to his feet, dead once more, Jagred had to take a short break to calm his breathing. That was a close call. Not the first time this month, but he knew it would leave a mark. You just didn’t play tag with death for so long and walked away sane. Squeezing his eyes shut, Jagred took another deep breath, then placed the ice axe back to where it was. He quickly retrieved the bolt and reloaded his weapon, all while eyeing the streets warily for any movement. Fortunately, nothing came up aside the lone corpse that he had struck down, so he decided to carry on with the plan before anything else went wrong. This woman better be worth it. But by the way she had been mowing down the dead with a baseball bat earlier, she might as well be. Competent company were hard to find before, even more so now that they had a full-on apocalypse on their hands.

The plan was a success after all. For a moment, he thought he had missed. Fortunately, the fallen corpse set off the alarm for him, and by the time they started crowding the streets, Jagred had got up onto one of the fire escapes on the apartment nearby. He was contented to watch for the time being, waiting for the dead to amass around the car before returning to the abandoned house. And that presented the next problem. He should find a way to leave, and be fast about it. Starved to death inside random apartment building for random chick wasn’t exactly how he wanted to go. Loading another bolt, he began making his way into the apartment through the window. He could try to climb down back to the street on the other side of this building, then make it back from there. If he was fast enough, the dead wouldn’t notice. They were too busy groping that car. He had scaled buildings before, that rope in his packback was there for a reason, he could do this just fine. Definitely. Probably. Hopefully.

And the Dead Shall Rise

Wow this thread is lively. I haven't posted twice in a day since my time in the Free section.

And the Dead Shall Rise

The plan was progressing just fine, right until the end, when Jagred got sloppy and screwed it up. He was just travelling down the empty streets, his steps light on the cracked sidewalk. The car he looking for was just about 10 yards ahead, if his memory served him right, which meant he could start looking for a vantage point right away. It was then, while his eyes were just too busy scanning the buildings above, a corpse took him by surprise. Acting purely out of his survival instincts, he leapt back and just fired the loaded crossbow, hoping for a hit. His reflexes had saved him many time before, hopefully it would one more time. In case that wasn't enough, once the bolt was gone, he reached for the ice axe at his belt, ready for the next round. His forte might not be fighting with meele weapons, but a man would do anything to survive. He would know.

If he remained unharmed by the end of the encounter, Jagred would proceed with the plan.

And the Dead Shall Rise

Lots of rolls in that one...Well, Jagred had a plan. Let's hope he's live to see it through.

And the Dead Shall Rise

His next shoot hit home though, returning a corpse to its rightful place. The girl got away then, and he watched through the scope of his weapon as she ran off into one of the abandoned houses in the area. She might have glanced in his directions for a few times, but he doubted she had seen him. People rarely looked up, and he could see now that even the apocalypse wasn’t going to change that. He loaded another bolt just in case, but lowered the crossbow and strapped it onto his backpack. From where he was, he could see the house with the help of his scope. However, the distance and the number of corpses made it less than ideal to take out one dead at a time. Therefore, Jagred thought he would try to lure them away from the house. He had gone this far to help the woman after all, might as well do it all the way.

One of his long-forgotten memories surfaced as Jagred was attempting to get from the container onto a bacony jutting out from the nearby house. There was a car not far from here where he used to stash food in. Its owner was executed by the VP long ago, leaving the poor thing stranded just North of here, flat-tired with the gas in the tank. The alarm still worked though, so he figured if he could fire a bolt on any part of the car, and soon enough, corpses would be all over it. But first, he would have to get there on foot, find a safe vantage point then successfully make the shoot from there. Hopefully he was up to the task. Afterward, if the plan was successful, he would return.

And the Dead Shall Rise

Hmm...isn't there still a horde of walkers right outside the door? Should something be done about that?

And the Dead Shall Rise

SOrry for the short post, there wasn't much to work with for now. And yeah, I was wondering the same thing with Loki? Do we have to go for the head?

And the Dead Shall Rise

His aim wasn’t exactly that bad, most of the time. Now didn’t seem to be one of those. After a brief pause to mourn the loss of a perfectly good bolt, Jagred loaded another one and took another shoot. He could back later for the bolts. One of the many things he loved about the crossbow was that they made little to no noise. Either way, the dead were less likely to notice him, and even if they did, he was ready to run. He might want to help the girl out a little bit, but no one was really worth dying for. She seemed to be capable of handling those corpses fine so far, still, she would be sitting duck on ground level. However, he didn’t try to get her attention by calling out whatsoever. Not with all these shambling corpses about. The risk was simply too high. The dead weren’t very good climber, with the rotting limbs and all, but he wouldn’t take the chance.

And the Dead Shall Rise

It was not a good time to be sane, Jagred had found. Not with all these madness surrounding him at the moment. For the last few months, his life had been turned completely inside out, and somehow, he still thought the worst had yet to come. Maybe it was just his pessimistic mind working in overdrive mode these days, but recent turns of events had given more than enough reasons to leave town. The most obvious one of them all was the fact that his supply was running low. He tried to hoard as much food as he could, but ever since he lost his pickup truck to some raiders in the previous town, things had been going downhill fast. Supply was scare down here on the Southern sides, with many competitions from various factions. He should know, the memories of a few last encounters still fresh in his mind. Most people here were desperate, with the strange Vice Patrol going around and taking all their things for minor flaws like the possession of alcohol, cigarettes, or any other substances that was deemed ‘detrimental to the continuing culture of mankind’. Even after weeks of observation, he still wasn’t sure what was up with those people. What was their purpose, besides from robbing their fellow survivor blind, or did they even have one? However, from what he had gathered so far, they were oddly organized, quite different from the unruly he had come across so far. That certainly wouldn’t do much good for what he currently had in mind.

The plan seemed quite simple, at least in his head it was. Find crazy gang’s truck, steal crazy gang’s truck, then escape with crazy gang’s truck. Seriously, how hard could it be? More than he had expected, apparently. For days he stalked their men from the rooftops, eyes pressed to the scope of his crossbow. He had remembered most of the cleared roads through the town, and more importantly, ones that led out to the highway. And still, he had yet to seen an opening. It was not the right time, he kept telling himself, but it didn’t take a genius to see that the situation was getting worse. Few supplies turned up, and the corpses had been even more agitated than usual. Jagred hadn’t dared to leave the safety of the rooftops for days.

Smoke rose in the distance, snapping Jagred out of his thoughts. He slowly got to his feet, squinting his eyes to make out the shapes below. It appeared to be a VP’s truck. Some poor sod must have been caught again. He pressed his lips together, contemplating his options. If there was an execution, there might still be some worthwhile loot, provided that he made it there on time. Wasting no more time, he quickly made his way across the rooftops, heading toward the commotion. Once he arrived, Jagred noticed some corpses below, which halted his steps. Maybe this was not a good time. Yet. That was then he saw someone that might not have been dead. The corpses didn’t use weapons, else he would have been shot ages ago. Which meant this one was a human…

Jagred watched the young woman swung a bat at one of the dead from the top of a rusty container, his finger twitchy on the trigger. In the end, he gave in, lifted the crossbow and fired a single bolt, attempting to hit one of the mob near the girl to get her attention. If it worked, he would beckon her over to his spot, not intending to get near any of those corpses anytime soon.