Dead USA (DrTrollinski and Elwin)

[DrTrollinski]

".. Well... It's kinda' dark out, so I don't know if there's anything that we can do outside." He said, scratching his chin. ".. I saw my brother and Jacob playing cards, so we could go and join them if you want." He suggested with a shrug as he looked towards the exit of the kitchen.


".. Well, sweetheart, take a look at me. You've done somethin' - You had a kid, yeah, things didn't go the way you wanted 'em too. So-fuckin'-what? The boy ate, got dressed, cleaned, that's the main fuckin' thing - I never had kids, but you can tell just by lookin' at most parents that they stopped caring about 'emselves a long time ago. Look at Greg - Yeah, he was a big and mighty surgeon, but I ain't once heard him say that it ain't worth kickin' on for any more." He sighed and angrily tossed his cigarette onto the lawn. "My home life ain't relevant, but I can guarantee, just by lookin' at Coden, I can see that he ain't been through half of the horrible shit that I have." He stepped up onto the porch and shoved the door open.


"Just remember, next time it could be a lot worse - When you're a mother, you don't get to say that you ain't cut for it. Yeah, he didn't have a father for Christ-knows-how-long, and that's bound to make him somewhat troublesome. Hell, what he needs is people to stop brushing him off and show a bit of respect. Yeah, I ain't done the best at that, but my harshness is all for good reason." He stepped into the house and pulled the door shut before walking off into the living room and collapsing back onto the couch, sighing as he rubbed his forehead.

 

[Elwin]

Beth groaned. As if he had given her such an earful over her own son. She thought it was selfish of him to compare himself to Coden at all, he knew nothing of what their life was like. She stomped up the porch and walked into the house in frustration, blanking Phil as she walked past the living room. She went upstairs and settled in one of the spare rooms, shutting the door and climbing into a single bed. There was another bed in the room, but she hoped nobody took it.


Coden smiled at Clayton. "That sounds okay to me. We can do something better tomorrow." He said and followed behind him, feeling content.


A few hours rolled by and eventually everyone settled for the night. The first night was a peaceful one. They all managed to keep dim light, only using a few candles dotted around. The sun rose early, seeping through the cracks between the curtains.


Luna woke with a yawn, stretching out her arms. She pushed herself up with her elbows and blinked at the sunlight. It was a beautiful morning.

 

[DrTrollinski]

Greg had awoken only shortly before her and had woke both Clayton and Coden up, alongside a fully loaded silenced rifle. He took them downstairs and out into the back yard where he had set up at least a dozen pots on the fence at the back of the garden.


"So, which one of you's going to shoot first?" He asked with a smile, looking between them both. Clayton was tired, and he wouldn't have been surprised if Coden was as well - He decided to share a room with him last night and they spent a lot of the night talking and laughing about some stuff, but that only went on for an extra couple of hours.


--


Phil woke up and instantly went up to the bathroom and locked himself inside, spending a few minutes to freshen up. Due to the lack of room, he slept on the couch, while Greg shared the double bed with Luna, and Jacob shared a room with Jackson.

 

[Elwin]

Luna got into her cargo pants and headed downstairs. She rummaged through the clothing bag and found a clean t shirt to put on, after she had ruined the sweater. Once she had finished getting dressed she headed back upstairs to wake up Beth. Luna knocked on the door, gently and made her way inside. "Beth?" She said softly, poking her head through. "You up?" Beth was sat on her bed, puffing a cigarette. Luna paused and looked at her packet, wondering where she had got them from without her stuff but decided to let it go. Beth scowled at her. "Clearly I am up.." She said taking a puff of her cigarette. Luna bit her lip. She seemed to be in a terrible mood and wasn't acting anything like she didn't the first time they met her. She was a lot less...enthusiastic. "Okay..well I can make you some food if you want.." Luna made sure her voice was gentle, but she felt uncomfortable around Beth. Beth smiled falsely at her and shook her head. "No..no. Just go please." She mumbled, rolling her eyes. Luna nodded and closed the door behind her. She made her way downstairs and went out of the front door. The sight of Greg, Clayton and Coden doing something together made her smile again.


Coden yawned and smiled a little. "I'll go first, I'm oldest." He smirked at Clayton, teasingly. He felt like they had really gotten along the previous night and he could be more himself. He walked over to Greg and leaned over to snatch the rifle.

 

[DrTrollinski]

Greg and Clayton chuckled a little as Coden took hold of the rifle. ".. Alright..." Greg put his arms around him from behind while looking up at the fence. "You need to hold it a little more like this." He said, adjusting the butt of the rifle so that it was rested just beside his shoulder. He moved his hand further down the rifle and then looked at it a few times. ".. Okay, good. You paying attention, Clay?" He asked.


"Yeah, dad." He said, he was watching Coden, and he knew that he didn't know what he was in for. The gun was quite heavy, and compared to a video game, it was a lot harder to control.

 

[Elwin]

Coden scoffed. "This'll be a piece o' cake!" He called back to Clayton. In his mind he was pretending to target an enemy from one of his video games. "Can I shoot Greg?" He asked, feeling impatient.


Luna watched them from a distance for a little bit, before deciding to go for a morning stroll herself. She took a spare pistol from the weapons they had, as she lost her own the night before. Luna loaded the gun and pulled a coat over herself before wandering off down a path. She was going to go check out the town to see if she could bring anything back.


Beth made her way downstairs after applying her makeup. She had been running low on it but was too embarrassed to ask any of the men for some. She had considered heading to town to get some herself but wasn't sure if it was a good idea.

 

[DrTrollinski]

".. Yeah, go ahead. Don't spray it. Just tap fire it with this - you try and spray and you'll end up getting knocked over backwards." He chuckled a little bit and patted his shoulder. ".. There's about a dozen up there, so shoot five or six and then we'll let Clay take a few shots." He said with a nod as he backed away and put an arm around Clayton's shoulders so they could watch Coden try and hit something.


Jackson woke up not too long after, but only to use the bathroom. Once he was done he instantly went back to his bed and crawled into it - in the noise he'd made getting up, Jacob also awoke and was sitting on the edge of his bed by the time Jackson had climbed back into his own.


"You okay, Jackson?" He asked, Jackson yawned and nodded.


"Uh-huh... I just got up to use the bathroom." He said, Jacob slowly got up and walked over to him, tucking him in a little more and smiling.


"Alright, I'll get you up when breakfast's ready, okay?" He smiled at him and then walked out of the room, yawning as he made his way down the stairs and to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. He went into the living room and dropped onto the couch, and was soon joined by Phil.

 

[Elwin]

Coden aimed the rifle, squinting his eyes and pulled the trigger once. It pulled him back slightly, but he managed to skim his target. He turned round and beamed a grin at the two. "Wasn't as bad as you thought, aye?"


It took Luna fifteen minutes to get to a row of stores. The streets seemed pretty empty, but she wanted to be safe. Luna remembered seeing a swarm of infected the night before and wondered if they were more likely to be out at night. She tried to justify this thought in her brain but struggled. Maybe the sun burnt? Probably not, they weren't vampires. As she walked, in-front of a store an undead walked slowly, one arm missing. Probably not the best situation for a gun. Luna had brought along her knife so she walked behind the walker quietly and plunged the knife into its head, dropping it to the ground. The store the undead was strolling along had been a camping store. She decided it was a good time to get some clothes that actually fit properly.


Beth walked into the living room, yawning. She saw Jacob and Phil, who she was in no mood to chat to. She ignored them both and sat on a chair in the room, staring blankly into the air.

 

[DrTrollinski]

"Yeah, pretty good." Clayton smiled and nodded. ".. What's it like shooting it? Does the recoil hurt you at all?" He asked in curiosity. He wanted to be prepared for anything when he was going to be shooting that in a few minutes.


".. So, Phil, how did you sleep?" Jacob asked. Phil shrugged.


"Fine." He said, leaning back on the couch and staring up at the ceiling. ".. As good as I could on the couch." He added.


"Yeah, fair enough--.." Jacob scratched the back of his head. ".. What about you, Beth?" He asked quietly with a yawn.

 

[Elwin]

"Not really, it was a bit discomforting but that is all." He said, shrugging. Coden took the rest, knocking down about 2 of the targets.


Beth blinked, pulling out of a daze. She looked at Jacob and smiled half-heartedly. "I slept okay, It was a bit uncomfortable." She mumbled, fiddling with her hair. Her curls had got really messy and were making her feel self-conscious.


Luna went into the camping store and pondered over the women's clothes. She took the opportunity to try a few things on, as there was not much else to do. Eventually she had picked out a tight black top with a long hooded black cloak style jacket. She changed her cargo pants for a pair of black jeans then pulled a thick black scarf over her neck. A lot of black, but it was better to blend in at night. Once she was finished she had spotted a weapons store not to far away and headed up there to see if she could find anything cool. She came out about ten minutes later swinging around a katana. "Perfect.." She said and sliced the sword down the middle of a walker who had been walking up the road. She paused for a moment, clearly the sun didn't irritate them, so where were they all?

 

[DrTrollinski]

(I hope you're not implying that she cut the walker clean in half.)


".. Oh, okay. Come on, you've got a few more." Clayton said encouraging as he watched him. He quite liked Coden now - It was pretty awesome that he'd managed to become friends with him. They were quite alike, in some aspects, and so far they'd been getting on well.


".. If you want uncomfortable you should try the couch." Phil mumbled, Jacob sighed and nodded at her.


"Yeah. Oh well, better than staying out there in the street, isn't it?" He said with a shrug.


(Gonna go take a quick shower.)

 

[Elwin]

(No, haha through middle of the head, I probably should have wrote that a little better. And okay c


Coden tried again, managing to hit the last few. It was difficult, but he felt he was getting the hang of it. He finished up and passed the rifle to Clayton. "Your turn, shortie.." He teased and stood back with Greg to watch.


Beth shrugged and looked away. She utterly hated being here and felt like people were on her back constantly.


Luna thought about taking a few things back with her while she was here. She went to a drugstore and picked up a few deodorants and minor important things for everyone back at the house that they might appreciate. She put them in a bag she had taken from the camping store and started headed back down the road. She stopped in her tracks and jumped into an alley, peaking over the corner. There was a group of people going through the shops. They were heading the opposite way, so hopefully she could get back to the house without an effort. Luna wondered where they were staying or if they were just passing by. She gripped her new sword, shaking a little. She had noticed when trying it out that the blade had been a little wobbly as she plunged it down, so it mustn't have been good quality. She continued to watch the people. There was a woman, with dark skin and large muscly arms in full camo gear. There was also about four men who equally looked large in stature and wore camo pants with vest tops and various skin tight t shirts. Luna stepped back a little and started making her way opposite. As she distanced herself she started running until she got back to the house.

 

[DrTrollinski]

(Right on time again. You posted as soon as I got back xD )


"Give it a couple more years, and I'll be as tall as you, just wait." Clayton grinned as he took hold of the rifle and then went to stand in the same place as Coden did; he followed every step and lifted the rifle into the appropriate place, taking a deep breath as he did so. He slowly rose it up and looked down the sight - he was swaying a little, but not much. It was quite heavy, but all he wanted was to take his time and hit his target.


Greg inched over to Coden and put a hand on his shoulder. "Good shooting right there, buddy." He smiled at him and patted his shoulder while watching Clayton. He fired his first shot and hit his first target, causing it to shatter. He turned back with a proud smile but then turned back to the fence once again.


Phil got up from the couch and walked out without a word to go and sit out on the front porch again. He saw Luna running back towards the house, looking quite... panicked, in a sense. He didn't think anything of it and decided to just take a deep breath and pull out a cigarette to smoke it.

 

[Elwin]

Coden rolled his eyes at Clayton, feeling a bit disheartened. "Alright big shot.." He mumbled as Clayton turned around. He was pretty impressed, really, but didn't want to show it.


Luna saw Phil and ignored him, rushing past him to get into the house. She wasn't sure whether to tell anybody that there were people near by. She ran upstairs and put her katana down, taking off her scarf and coat. She pulled her arms around her knees on the bed and thought hard about what to do.

 

[DrTrollinski]

Clayton continued shooting, slowly and surely. The first shot was sort of lucky, seeing as he missed equally as many shots as Coden did, but eventually managed to get all but one pot.


"Hold up!" Greg said, Clayton lowered the gun and turned to him.


"What is it?" He asked.


"I want a shot at the last one. Give me the rifle, son." He smiled, Clayton shrugged, handed him the rifle, and then went and stood beside Coden. Greg quickly raised the rifle and shot the pot - Easy stuff. He smiled a little as he lowered the rifle to his side and then turned to look at the two boys. "You both did pretty good. You're a little slow for now, but that's something we can work on, for sure. Good shooting, guys." He ruffled the hair on both their heads and laughed a little. Something popped into Clayton's mind and he quickly looked up at Greg.


"Dad, can you take me and Coden hunting soon?" He asked with an anticipating smile. Greg eyed the both of them for a moment and then shrugged as he smiled.


"Sure, why not." He said, Clay jumped once on the spot in excitement and then turned to look up at Coden, smiling.


"Told you we could go hunting sooner." He said, but in a friendly tone.

 

[Elwin]

Coden shrugged, playing it cool But he was super excited. "Nice.." He said, flashing Clayton a smile. Coden sat down on the porch and bit his lip. He hoped that his Mom was going to be okay with it. She had always showed a disinterest in his own interests, it almost seemed like she did it on purpose.


Luna fidgeted on the bed a little, confused. Should she go back? Make sure they had gone? She picked up her sword and gun, then set them back down again, hesitating. No..but should she? She picked them back up and went with it, running back downstairs. She ran past Phil again and back down to where the row of stores had been. She kept the sword in a scabbard on her back and had her gun in-front of her.

 

[DrTrollinski]

".. Alright, guys. We'll go out hunting once we've got something more permanent sorted out, alright? I don't think this house is big enough for all of us, so I was thinking about getting everyone down to that Laaw Enforcement office just into town. We can build that place up pretty well, so when you get the chance, make sure you've got everything packed, alright?" Greg said, Clayton nodded, looked at Coden, and then went into the house, presumably with Coden at his side as he walked towards the stairs.


Phil saw her run out with the gun in-hand and quietly sighed. He leaned just into the door and grasped his shotgun. She wouldn't be hard to track, but she wasn't out of sight just yet. He quickly but discreetly gave chase, following as closely behind her as he could - as a natural-born-hunter, his ability in stealth and staying out of sight had been honed over the years. What had her so interested, though?

 

[Elwin]

Coden nodded at Greg and followed Clayton inside. He was quite alright with getting out of the house, it'd be nicer to have more rooms to get away from his Mom.


Luna continued running towards the area she had seen the group of people. She stopped quickly when she saw them and stood against a building holding up her gun. She moved slowly, keeping against the wall as they went through different stores taking supplies and weaponry. The woman was holding a rifle and pointing at every point as they walked. They were an awfully cautious group. Luna got a bit closer. She was quiet, due to light feet and size. She managed to get closer enough to hear their conversation as she ducked in a store doorway. "We need to search every part of this ghost town to make sure there ain't no threats about. Walkers, easy. Other people..competition. Not so much." The man who spoke had a deep southern accent. The woman nodded. Luna couldn't believe the size of her. She was bigger than at-least two of the men with her. "I agree, Aslo. If we are gonna' have a superior community then we can't have any rivals..or weaklings." Luna rolled her eyes. These people were deluded. Who did they think they were?

 

[DrTrollinski]

Phil had slowly drifted down there with her. He saw her standing against a building and peering around a corner, but as he got closer, he could hear what was going on. Hm. Interesting, more people. It wasn't a problem - He'd already killed more people during this than he could count, and the only person who stopped him from doing all of that was Jacob. He'd have no problem retracing his footsteps, though. He slowly crept up to Luna and slapped a hand over her mouth, his shotgun held at his side. He quietly hushed her and pushed against the wall beside her, and once she'd gotten over who it was, he slowly moved his hand away from her mouth.

 

[Elwin]

Luna regained her breath after the shock and scowled at Phil. "What are you doing?!" she hissed attempting to pull away from him. "I got this, okay?" she struggled again, gripping her gun tighter. She really wanted to know what the group were talking about, put they were walking too far for her to hear them.

 

[DrTrollinski]

"No," He glanced around the corner. "You don't got this. There's five fuckin' people and the last thing any of us want is you getting killed playin' hero, alright?" He took one more peek around the corner and sighed. "They look paramilitary, heavy shit." He muttered. "There's a gun store across the street a few buildings down, looks like they're walking by it. We can sneak in the back." He sighed.


"Look, I'm sorry and all, but you don't deserve to die. Are you in on this?" He asked.

 

[Elwin]

Luna gritted her teeth. "Listen, don't talk to me like I'm stupid, I am not playing no hero..I am finding out what they are actually doing. I'm not going to gun them down if that is what you're thinking, they might not even be a threat!" Luna was trying her best not to shout, but she couldn't stand the way he had spoke to her. "I don't know why you are here, following me, but you can't just kill living humans when the majority of the population is dead." Luna yanked herself away from him and started heading round the corner.

 

[DrTrollinski]

"Don't be an idiot!" He grabbed her and stopped her. "Christ, I don't know what you think I'm here to do, but I didn't say anything about killing them. Look at everyone at home. For god's sake. How many guns do we have if these guys attack? Not enough. So let's go into the gunstore, get some stuff, eavesdrop for a while, and then head back." He said. "But I ain't letting you run up to them now." He said.

 

[Elwin]

Luna wiggled away, not saying anything. She frowned for a moment then spoke. "The weapons store isn't great. There isn't much in there.." Her voice was a mumble and she couldn't look him in the face. He made her angry. "Can't we just follow them now? I want to know where they're heading. They sound like they're planning more than survival.." Luna stepped away from Phillip, so he wouldn't grab her again.

 

[DrTrollinski]

"And what if they see us? I don't get why you didn't tell everyone else. If they saw you, I bet I'd be coming down here to drag your body back..." He sighed. "They ain't looking like the friendly type. We'll follow, but you follow MY footsteps. I'm a hunter, sweetheart. None of you know how to stalk better than me and Jacob... Let's go around to the left." He said, nodding towards the opposite side of the building.