Bounty hunters of the apocalypse

"I think most of the others ran off," Dale said. "I know I saw Eve and Red hauling ass just a moment ago."

"Then we go," Og agreed. "Perhaps Eve and Red will join us. Now come on!"

He went down the steps and jogged down the stairs, heading for the eastern gate. Hopefully, with Dale not too far behind. The run cleared his head a little bit and Og could see the gate start to open while a pair of cops trained their weapons outwards. He tried not to reflexively bow his head.

edited 14th Nov '12 11:11:19 PM by mantlemask

Steph heard Dale and Og jogging up behind her as she approached the gate, "I'm guessing the two of you are about as clueless as I am right now."

With a shrug, Dale took off after Og, lightly jogging a small distance behind him, trying not to tire himself out too soon. A few seconds after he arrived at the gate, he decided he wanted to see what was going on, so he stepped onto the hood of an old Suburban, then up to the roof, and looked over the fence at what was going on.

Tank wakes up with a start. "GUNFIRE? WHERE?" He shouts towards the ceiling as he gets out of bed and scrambles to gather all his gear. As he steps outside he notices the sunset and runs towards the gate.

"Gunshots do mean company," grunted Og, with a particular emphasis on the word 'company'. He turned his shaggy head upward and called at the officers. "What have we got, sirs?" He called up to them.

One of the two officers, the one who seemed to be perpetually nervous, was already down on the ground level just to the side of the gate when the other bounty hunters started to arrive, trying to get the gate open. "There's a lady just outside the gate. She shot something with her shotgun and that set off a runner coming towards her. We dealt with it already but we're trying to get her in here before anything else shows up" the policeman said, speaking really fast.

The other policeman, up on the roof still with the rifle, heard Red's shout and looked at the walker again. "That thing's no trouble" he called down; indeed, the walker was still about fifty feet away from Lisa. He looked around at the fields, and focused on something else he spotted. "Those might be though" he added, seeing evidence of two things quickly moving through the fields in the brush in Lisa's direction, "KEN! GET THAT DAMN GATE OPEN!" He aimed his rifle and fired again, but the shot either missed or hardly did anything as whatever he was shooting at kept coming. Currently, Lisa was the only one with anything resembling a good line of sight on the things in the field besides the policeman on the roof.

"I'm working on it!" The policeman on the ground yelled back, this particular gate working via a sort of hand-crank system. He glanced at the bounty hunters that had arrived, and addressed them as he kept working on getting the gate open. "Alright, plan. I'm gonna get this gate open just enough for the lady. Get her inside, then make sure nothing else comes in after her, right?" he said, serious and focused for once. Down at the other end of the street, Shevon came running around the corner, heading towards the gate to see what the gunshots were about.

Eve huffed and ran forward, pulling out her staff. She took the girl's left side. Facing the monster head-on would only be trouble; it seemed to work best if she caught them off guard.

edited 15th Nov '12 3:50:37 AM by Serendipital

"That doesn't look good."

Lisa jammed her hand down to cock the shotgun, then let loose a round of buckshot into the brush. Not waiting to check for effect, she pushed the lever again and fired another round, trying to keep one eye for the opening to widen. She'd spent too long out in the hot sun and she couldn't handle too much of a fight right now. Even at the best of times she avoided fights where she could.

Cramston showed up, barechested, having been woken up out of a sound sleep, and carrying pistol and knife while muttering something about "amateur idiots".

Og slipped his revolver into his paw-like hand. "Should have brought my shovel," he grunted as he took a marksman's stance; down on one knee, pistol braced in both hands with his trigger finger resting over the trigger, sighting down the barrel to aim at the widening gate.

edited 15th Nov '12 10:41:31 PM by mantlemask

Dale propped his elbows on the fence and leveled his gun, but kept the safety on and his finger off the trigger. He didn't want to risk shooting Eve or the other woman trying to hit the walker, but he wanted to be ready in case the situation changed. "Why does everyone try to get close to these things?" he said, more to himself than asking anyone in particular.

"Beats me," Cranston said. "but at least they're using weapons."

Jerry followed the others to the cafe ate a hearty meal of protein and grain than nodded a thanks to the man in the apron and went back to his room, he checked his heater which sputtered and sparked and gave off a horrible odor, he turned it off shrugged, he opened a window to let the room air out. "I didn't grow up in Nebraska to whine about the cold now." He said sitting on his bed and putting in the ear buds of his MP 3 and hitting play with The Offspring's Your Gonna Go Far Kid blaring in his ears. And there he sat, reading his bible for a couple hours while his favorite tunes played.

When finally the only thing to pierce the fantastic noise blocking power of his ear buds was the gunshots, he slammed shut the old bible, grabbed his M4 and dashed out the door. He ran a few steps and turned back around to lock his door, he turned again and dashed in the direction of the gunshots and saw the others at the gate, "Who, what, were, why?" He said rhetorically as saw the walker shambling towards then and flipped the safety on his M4 to Auto and crouched for a steadier position. Then heard the words of the officer opening the gate and grunted in reply.

Steph pulled out her HK and kept it in her hand, she reluctantly stood back and watched, something in the brush caught her attention and one of the officers must of seen it too as he sent a shot at it. She watched the creatures' movements and was ready to take a shot at them if need be.

Tank loads his shotgun, grabs his sledgehammer in his left hand and makes for the nearest rooftop.

Lisa's shot went into the brush, hitting one of the incoming monsters at least partially, as it let out a pained shriek. A kind of shriek that would be familiar to most bounty hunters, but especially this group, as some of them would still have similar shrieks fresh in their memory from the fight earlier this morning.

The second of the two giant rats dashed out of the field onto the road, once again taking the route of not moving in a straight line towards its target, but a curve to throw them off. Unfortunately for the rat, it didn't know it was running into the line of fire of no less than four bounty hunters aiming a crossfire in front of Lisa; though Dale was a little slow on the draw, since his weapon was still on safety.

The rat took multiple shots to the side, ending its charge as it jumped and twisted sideways in a reflexive reaction to the gunshots that helped it about as much as a blade of grass leaning a different direction would help it against a lawnmower. It hit the ground in a slump, one leg kicking at air for a moment before it finally expired and went completely limp.

Behind the group, Shevon had slowed her run down to a fast walk. "Ken! Situation?!" Shevon barked out with fierce authority.

"Some lady showed up outside the gate, Mel. She shot somethin' and a few things came running for dinner" the police officer who was opening the gate, now safely assumable to be Ken, responded.

"Looks all clear right now, just one more rat limpin' away" the police officer on the roof said, who was being joined by Tank about then, since there was a ladder up to the roof of the little two-story building that had once been a tourist shop. The other rat was indeed moving away from the gates now, though slower. The police officer aimed carefully, then fired his rifle; another shriek of pain erupted from the rat, and it stopped moving through the field.

Shevon stepped forward, moving past the bounty hunters at the gate without slowing down. She only stopped once finally out the gate, and looked at the walker in the distance. "There's a walker out there too" she hollered up to the rooftop policeman, without looking away from it.

"Gonna wait 'till it gets closer. Don't want to waste ammo" the policeman called back.

Shevon then switched her attention from the walker in the distance to Lisa, who was about three feet away from her now. "This is our newcomer right? We've gotta test her" Shevon said plainly.

"We figured that since she... Uh, never mind" Ken said, fishing something out of his left shirt pocket; a small iron cross.

"I got this" Shevon muttered, stepping towards Lisa. Lisa would soon find her arms pinned behind her back, just like someone under arrest. Shevon forcefully marched her through the gate and into a patch of sunlight that was still coming in over the buildings, and held her there. Her eyes narrowed a little at Lisa's apparent discomfort, but she let go after a few seconds. "No vampire here, we're good. Get everyone else in and close the gate" she called back. Ken nodded, put the cross away, then quickly ushered in any of the bounty hunters who had gone out the gates, and started to close them once they were all in.

"So ma'am, what brings you here so late? Don't you know it's risky still being outside at this hour?" Shevon asked Lisa, the authoritative tone not dropping much, despite the situation winding down.

edited 16th Nov '12 5:44:52 AM by FirockFinion

"Hey! Not so rough!" She protested as she was dragged back into the sunlight, trying to move up her hand to shield her eyes and trying to perhaps get loose of Shevon's grip, which did admittedly little to strengthen her case for being human. She'd frankly had enough of it, she'd been caught outside all day. She was exhausted. But once the woman in charge had correctly determined that Lisa wasn't a vampire, she felt she did at least owe an explanation.

"Made a couple of enemies a few towns over.... They ran me straight outta town. Been lookin' for a place..." She gestured towards the eastern road. "Followed the road. Got here." She moved back into the shade, the sun was really starting to make her feel uncomfortable by now.

edited 16th Nov '12 12:01:35 PM by Plumbum

Dale holstered his gun and stepped away from the fence, hopping off of the car, and went to get a better view of what was going on.

Shevon narrowed her eyes a little at Lisa's explanation. "What kind of enemies? Not the kind to be coming after you here, are they?" Shevon asked, glancing back at the closing gate and thinking it over.

She didn't have to think long, as she came to a decision before Lisa even had a real chance to respond. "Never mind, we'll talk about it in the morning. There's an abandoned motel with some free rooms, you can stay the night in one of those. Just follow those lot, they're staying there too" Shevon told Lisa, motioning to the group of bounty hunters.

Up on the little store roof, the policeman's rifle rang out again as he fired a shot. "Got it! Walker's dead, Mel" he called down. Shevon nodded in satisfaction about the situation, then started walking back towards the sheriff's office.

Red cursed himself for not acting quick enough to help but at least the girl was safe. He turned to Shevon.

"Do monsters normally wander this close to town?" he asked her.

"Probably not often."

Og ambled over to Red as he slipped his revolver back into the holster. "Rats are too full of themselves to let go, even when their prey gets close to civilization. The others," he shrugged his big shoulders. "Well, they're a different bushel of apples."

"We should try to find out why they chased her this far then," Cranston said.

"Well, I guess we'll find out tonight if our little raid's going to make the zombies go elsewhere," Dale said in response to the others. The sheriff had mentioned some focused zombie attacks, but if the barn was gone, he could always hope that would make them go elsewhere. And Cranston was right: It was curious that they were out before sunset this close to town.

"They used to wander pretty randomly, and the stupid ones would end up close all the time. Just in ones or twos, but once they started getting organized, we rarely see them this close unless it's a concentrated attack" Shevon answered, glancing back at Lisa. "Of course if they're after food, they'll come right up to the gates" she added, then started to head down the street back in the direction of the sheriff's office.

With the situation over, there wasn't much for the bounty hunters to do except go back to the motel. If she asked, Lisa would get the gist of the situation and the description of the job offer towards bounty hunters either from one of the other bounty hunters or one of the police. The night went quiet, and the hunters who hadn't bothered to check before hand would now be finding out whether or not their room heaters were working.

Regardless, eventually the night passed, and the early signs of sunrise were coming over the horizon. Whichever of the bounty hunters weren't already awake would be woken rather abruptly by the sound of someone jostling a metal spoon around in a pan loudly, while walking along the walkway in front of the second floor rooms. "All you bounty hunters who still want some work and pay better get out here to the parking lot! Got a couple a' jobs for you to do!" Shevon's voice came yelling along with the pan jostling, "you've got ten minutes!"

Once she had gone along the whole walkway, she finally stopped the racket and went down to the parking lot, where a couple other people looking like they were setting up to help with the briefing. To those who would recognize them, it looked to be Garnet and Doc.