Bounty Hunters: Apocalypse

"Of course I can! It's only been five years. 'Sides, we won't be going that fast anyway" Ross replied to Blight, then turned to listen to Kintra's explanation. "Sounds like a real winner, that one" he muttered sarcastically.

"Well, when we get back be sure to give a good description of them to the guards. That way if they show up we'll be informed" Ross told her, then moved back towards the living room to grab another load of their scavenged items.

A few minutes later and the lot of it had been loaded onto the truck. The tricky part then was actually getting the garage door open without any power, but with some tinkering and group effort they got it open. To get the truck moving, they had to use some of the gas Dean found in the tool shed, but by Ross' estimation they'd still have some left over by the time they got back.

Just before they left, Ross made one last trip to the kitchen, to grab what food that hadn't gone bad. It mostly consisted of some homemade breads and jerky, plus a couple cans of food; Ross handed it out amongst the group, mentioning how it wasn't good to let food go to waste.

Shortly after that, they began their slow trek back to Saint Clair; every time there wasn't enough space in the road for the truck to pass, they had to stop and work together to move whatever obstruction enough to get around. The progress was so slow, that they had only just about gotten three fourths of the way there when the sun was starting to go down.

Ross glanced out at the setting sun between two buildings and cursed under his breath. "Alright, I think we're gonna have to find somewhere to hide this" Ross said, looking around for possible spots. The three buildings immediately near them were a barber shop, an electronics store, and a large cafe on the other side of the street. All of them had been busted into and raided of course; in fact the electronics store had the whole front display busted inwards.

"The electronics store looks good." Says Kintra helpfully. "I can sneak in and make sure it's got no new residents." She draws her m16 and makes her way to the front of the building.

Clark growled at Kintra. "You want to get killed? Wait for someone to support you." He said, unslinging his rifle and aiming it toward the store. "I find myself wondering if whatever put a hole in that display will be coming back."

"Clark's got a point. Stay cautious" Ross said, deciding to stay in the truck what with his injured arm and all.

The electronics store was, as expected, completely raided long ago. All that remained now was the shelves themselves and the front counter. There was a doorway that must have led to a back room once, but was caved in with rubble now.

That meant that now pretty much the entire store was visible from the front, and a quick check around the shelves and counter would prove it devoid of monsters.

"Doesn't seem like a good place to hide this thing." Clark said. "We need to either pile junk up in front to block the street view, or find somewhere else. Otherwise someone will spot it and loot it."

"Hmm..." Ross thought about that for a moment, looking at the store. "If we can move those shelves, that might work" he suggested, glancing up at the sky again.

"Whatever we do, we better do it fast" Ross added, trying to estimate how long they had until the monsters started coming out to prowl. It wouldn't be more than an hour now.

Dean had ridden along in the back of the truck, glad that for once they could take a break from walking. Now he stood outside the electronics store ready to prepare for the night, "Very well lets get started then, if we work fast enough we might have some time to search the other buildings and set up a proper camp for the night.", he said as he went inside to start moving the shelves, "Help me a bit a here, I don't want to drag this and make a lot of noise."

Clark proceeded to help Dean move shelves.

"I could booby-trap the truck, if you want." Blight told Ross, "Although it would probably lead to the would be theif's death."

Ross had to think about what Dean had said for a moment before he realized what the man had implied. "I was thinking that once we had the truck hidden we'd make a break for Saint Clair, but if we can hunker down well enough we could stay to watch the truck" Ross said, thinking about what Blight had said as well.

"What kind of trap could you set up? Something loud, or quiet?" Ross asked, turning to Blight. Setting up traps as a defense could actually be more important if they were going to stay here with the truck.

After patrolling the outside of the store Kintra makes her way back to the group.

"Anything I missed". She says.

"Not really. Blight here was just suggesting that he could set up a trap for the truck, and I was trying to figure out if we're going to stay here with the truck overnight or make a break for Saint Clair after hiding it" Ross told Kintra, glancing back at the progress Dean and Clark had made and decided now was a good time to move the truck into the building.

It took moving the truck forward then back a couple times to turn entirely, but Ross slowly rolled the truck into the store in less than a minute, then shut off the engine and got out. "Alright, let's get those shelves in place" Ross said, heading over to help do just that.

While Dean set up the shelves, with the help of Clark, he said to Ross, "I understand that you want to get to Saint Clair's as soon as possible, but with this many weapons and supplies I don't want to risk losing them. At least if we do get attacked, we have plenty of ammunition and spare weapons on hand to fight back with."

After they had finished setting everything up Dean took a seat on the fender of the pickup, resting for a bit but also taking the time to load a few shotguns. He was however a bit lost at how to load to the KSG, but after a few minutes of studying it he figured how to switch between the two tube magazines. "How much time do you think we have till it gets…unsafe to go out?", he asked Ross as he stood back up.

Ross put a hand to his chin and thought. "You know, you've got a point. Didn't think of that... Alright, we'll want to set up as much barricade and traps as we can, and sleep in shifts" Ross said, taking on that authoritative tone that seemed natural to him. "And Dean's got the right idea; get every weapon we have ammo for loaded up and ready to grab. We might save time on reloads that way" he continued, stepping outside to get an answer to Dean's question.

"We've got an hour before going outside is too risky, tops" Ross called through the front, squinting at the horizon.

edited 28th Jun '12 12:08:54 AM by FirockFinion

"Thats all we'll need I guess. I just want to take a look inside that cafe in case it might have some food. Sometimes people only take what they see, but they might've left out the cooler since they have locks on them. I'm not expecting alot, but at least we might find something that we can heat up for tonight.", as if predicting what he was about to say next, his stomach grumbled, "Besides…its been a few hours since we last ate."

Picking up the double barrel from the pile, he proceeded to go outside before saying, "Who wants to come along as support?"

"Caltrops,  Barbed wire traps, whatever I can make with the materials around here." Blight said, "Look for chicken wire, barbed wire, and whatever pointy crap is laying around, too." he told Dean.

"Sadly, the traps I can make in an hour'll only really be useful against people, animals, and zombies. And worse demons'll be able to easily get through 'em." Blight informed Ross, "But considering we'll be her anyway, it shouldn't be a problem. We can just shoot whatever gets through."

"I'll go with Dean for support." Clark said, then looked at the shotgun Dean had picked. "I hope you're not going to try and open a locked door with that. You could kill yourself."

"There was some barbed wire back at Fairfax but I didn't think to grab any. Too late to go back for it now. I wouldn't worry about demons too much; they're not common in this city" Ross said to Blight, then turned to Dean and Clark.

"Anything that's been sitting in a cooler with no power for five years probably won't be any good for eating anymore. We'd be hard pressed to find any food around here, but see if you can't at least grab some materials for traps" Ross told the two of them, then headed for the truck where they put all the stuff they took from Fairfax. "I'll work on loading weapons in the meantime" he added, and started doing just that.

The cafe across the street had a large dining area in the front, and the windows and doors were all broken. Most of the furniture was either broken or overturned. There were two separate doors inside that probably went to the back employee area; one over on the right behind the counter and another on the left, which was also near the doors that went to the bathrooms.

Except for the furniture itself, there was clearly nothing in the front area that could be easily taken, as scavengers must have already come and been in the last five years.

Kintra shrugs, "I'll load the guns." She's not too happy that she's staying out another night, but since she has no idea where this 'Saint Clair' place is, she has to stay.

Ross loaded a few of the guns while glancing across the street at where Dean and Clark had gone, thinking of something. Finally he set down the M1911 after loading it then stood up. "I've got an idea. Keep at this for now" Ross muttered, and walked across the street to the diner. He went over to the tables and chairs, taking a closer look at them. The tables were wood-topped with metal legs, while the chairs were wooden with a single cushion on each.

After a moment of looking, Ross grabbed a chair, laid it down on its back, and started stomping away at the legs. Once he broke off the legs of the chair, he continued the process with two more, then gathered up the pile of a dozen chair legs. He brought them back across the street and set them down on the floor, and sat cross legged next to them. Then he got out his hunting knife, and started carving away at the end of one of the chair legs, trying to sharpen it to a point. "Could come in handy if any vampires show up" Ross said idly to nobody in particular, not taking his attention away from his work.

Meanwhile, Clark and Dean would find the back rooms of the diner to be dark, what with the lights off and no windows. Despite this, it proved to be devoid of any life or unlife with the exception of some rats. There wasn't much to scavenge from the kitchen area; there was still some utensils and such, but all the obvious weapon choices such as anything with a sharp edge or heavy cast-iron frying pans were already taken.

As Dean had guessed, there was a large walk-in freezer that wouldn't open. It had an industrial looking bolt lock with a keyhole, with some scratches around it from apparent previous attempts to open it.

Clark immediately inspected the opposite side of the door, checking to see if the hinges were on that side.

The hinges were on that side of the door, meaning it opened outward. The door itself was also fairly large and metal, which would probably explain why nobody up to this point had simply bashed it down.

"Look for some WD-40 and either something to cut steel or a sturdy rod about the size of the hinge bolts." Clark said, doing so. "We might be able to open the hinges and pull the door off from that side."

edited 4th Jul '12 3:25:58 PM by Wysp

With another quick search around the cafe, Dean and Clark would not find anything to cut metal, but on a shelf in a little closet-like room containing the old water heater was a half empty can of WD-40.

Over at the dish-cleaning sinks were some metal rods just a bit smaller in diameter than the hinge bolts on the door. They didn't look particularly sturdy but there was about four of them, each roughly two and a half feet long.

Clark nodded, pleased. "Watch my back and make sure nothing jumps me." He said. Applying WD-40 to the hinges, he took the metal rods and began using them to tap on the hinges, attempting to slide the hinge bolts out of their sockets.