“At first, it wasn't easy. Hiding from the hordes was a mess, those things can smell your fucking fear. You know, I accidentally hid in one of their nests. The smell was horrendous. There were piles of melted bleeding flesh everywhere… it was.. Just awful.” The helmeted figure recollects their story.
They turn to the poorly stitched together stuffed rabbit monster of felt and pieces of other plushies, and flip up their night vision goggles, revealing a young woman’s light blue eyes and freckled face underneath. “Well I'm glad you're here with me, Frankie. It makes all these waking nightmares… mostly… bearable.” She takes the franken plush and straps it on her hip. “Coast is clear buddy, let's head out”.
The dead of night is when they are most active, but it's also the best time to look for resources. Aside from the rotting monsters, there are bandits to worry about. They'd rather kill you than let you take what they see as theirs. Although fortunately, most of them fear the massive hordes.
As the pair makes their way to a rundown pharmacy, they hear the deafening clicking and snarls of the Herald, the sign of a massive horde approaching. Heralds, being recently turned, still give off the human scent, and with their increased agility manage to outrun the undead, allowing for hordes to grow in numbers.
The best way to scatter a horde is to kill or relocate the herald. They aren't easy to catch on account of their speed and inhuman reflexes. “Damn it, I don't have a dog catcher on me… looks like this'll have to do” she grabs a rock, and throws it at the herald, scaring it away. Then she runs the opposite direction of where it ran to, and trips on the corpse of a Chaser. The standard undead. The young woman pushes herself up and looks behind to see what she tripped on. The sight of its visage pulls her to action, taking out her knife and de-braining it with repeated stabs, blood splattering her helmet.
Taking the opportunity she was granted, she takes her plush, and opens the zipper on its face, positioned just where the mouth would be. With her knife, she quickly cuts off the chaser's hand and stuffs it in the plush’s mouth. She perks her head up from her work, the thudding noise of a thousand footsteps interrupting her, from the entrance of the pharmacy hundreds of chasers spew out in a cacophony of frantic moans and hungry groans.
Quickly she runs behind the pharmacy, masking her scent with Frankie and the hand. The herald is leading them away, giving her the opportunity to sneak in and gather supplies. “Oh god… the stench… just as I remember it.” as she navigates the pharmacy, flashlight in hand, littered in blood and gore, moving aside dangling flesh, she keeps an eye out for what she needs. “Cans… water… chips… batteries… First aid kit… inhaler… pills…” she repeats this over and over in her head.
When The End first started, many ran to their closest stores and grabbed what they could. Some cases didn't end well, disputes over who gets what, man killing child, monster killing screaming woman. The signs of the beginning are everywhere. Every bullet hole, every skull, tells a story.
In these places there are very little supplies left, if at all. Those who managed to get away with a good portion, and those who didn't make it past their aisle. It's the latter whose sacrifice is honored by the survivors of today. Human ingenuity surpasses that of a mindless fiend. However it's panic and vanity that attracts these creatures. Darwin’s Game is what bandits and raiders call the massacre that was the first month.
And on some level they're right. Modern survivors are only alive due to their adaptability and ingenuity. And whether that's a byproduct of The End, is unclear. Survival of the fittest is once again the law of the land. In this age of blood, only one will come out on top in the contest of brains versus brawns.
She navigates the nest, dried bone and rotting flesh nearly make her gag. But she powers through. The first of the items she finds are batteries, she grabs 3 boxes of 10 double A, and puts them in a pillowcase she pulled out of her backpack. Many of the aisles have broken, eroded, and unsalvageable shelves, some things can be found below or in between shelves. Unfortunately, moving them makes too much noise.
The next items she finds are cans. “Peach cans… shit’s dented to hell and back.” 5 canned peaches into the bag. Chips are difficult to come by, they make for a good travel snack, if they're not popped and scattered all over the floor. The best ones to grab are the ones in cardboard tubes, like Dingles, canned chips. Their durability makes them easier to find intact.
There's a plastic bottle near the medicinal section of the pharmacy. “A reusable bottle? Been wanting one of those” she takes it and clips it onto her backpack. For now, she can't find chips, but she does find a gallon of bottled water. Their handles make it difficult to hold onto, but the sack is large enough to hold it with some careful arrangement.
The woman stops in her tracks. Moaning and clicking can be heard nearby. “A chaser?” she thinks, and carefully looks up to the cornered mirrors of the pharmacy. A chaser is at the edge of the other side of the aisle she's in, just where she needs to go to hop over the pharmacy check out and into their shelves. “Did your pals leave you behind, miss?” she says as she carefully makes her way towards the edge. While her scent is masked, noise is also an attractor for these monsters.
She sets the sack down, and pulls the knife out of her back strap. With a firm grip and careful timing, she quickly turns the corner, shoving the blade of her knife into its face. It squeals, trying to reach the woman with its rotting fingernails. She struggles, but manages to push the knife to the right to split its head wide creating a horrific gash. The cracking of the split felt like tearing apart a coconut. It gargles out blood before she kicks it off of her knife. She unscrews a knob on the hilt and pulls out a white rag and begins to clean the blade.
“So, either you got left behind, or a horde is right around the corner…” she looks at the undead woman on the floor a few feet ahead of her. Then looks back into the medicine shelves. She hops over the counter and takes out a large pillow sack, and shovels in the 10 or so bottles. The pills rattling make too much noise for her to not be noticed, so she quickly ties up the sack, and on her way out she grabs 2 first aid kits off the shelves. One of them seems to have been opened already.
With all bags she hurries outside, and uses the bushes to hide her loot. She runs off to grab her motorbike, and places the bags in the sidecar after slowly rolling it to the bush. Once they're all loaded up, speeds off laughing, her heart pounding in her chest. “We did it Frankie! We fucking did it! Hahah!”.
After an hour of riding, she makes it to her base. An old treehouse spanning multiple trees with metal supports and sheets. At the base of the tree with a ladder, are initials carved within a heart. “M+F”. The woman parks her bike on a platform, then climbs up the ladder. Once she's up there, she turns a crank and pulls up the platform into the treehouse. It pulls up into a shed, a mechanics paradise.
She unloads the sidecar and drags the sacks into a separate area. This area is akin to a living room, a wooden couch, a patio, and stairs that lead up into a bedroom. By the look of this area, it's clear that a lot of time and care was put into it. In the living room there are a set of ladders that lead into a “kitchen”. It's fairly unsanitary, since there is dirt everywhere. In the kitchen is a contraption that collects and filters rainwater. This water is used to clean, drink, and once the top off sliver is reached, water the plants of the small garden that's near a bucket used to collect “fertilizer”.
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In the middle of the living room is a massive stump, the setup is similar to a war table. A massive map of the area makes the center its home. There seems to be a thin layer of glass on it, and the glass itself is marked in red marker with interesting locals. With a rag, the woman wipes away the red mark that circled the pharmacy she just explored. After doing so, she takes out everything she gathered from the sacks and begins to sort her loot.
She sets aside one of the battery packs, and places the remaining two in separate bags. The woman repeats this process for all items, always keeping 1 for herself. The two separated groups of items are stored into the two separate bags. She organizes the medications and aid kits the same way. This is a long process that takes into the crack of dawn. She climbs the stairs into her bedroom, and throws herself onto her bed, and sleeps.
Hours later, the woman wakes up from her slumber, an old rusted pocket watch tells her it's the middle of the day. She puts it back in her pocket, and gets up to greet the day. Her helmet has a visor that slides up, and night goggles that slide down. She loads the two sacks from before onto the sidecar, gets on, raises a flag on the back that shows an ouroboros and turns the crank to lower the platform. “Alright Frankie, lets make these deliveries” she sets off on her bike, heading towards the nearby survivor's encampment a few miles away.
On the ride there, her bike starts to slow down outside of her command, “Running low on fuel." She parks it and goes behind the sidecar “there you are.” she grabs one of the two gas cans tied down “fuck, you empty bastard.” she puts it back and grabs the other “oh thank God… should be enough to get me to the gas station” she refuels, and gets back on her bike. “Ooo no don't worry about it, you can just do it tomorrow” she scoffs after mocking herself.
When The End began, all gas stations country-wide unlocked the gas nozzles, allowing for any and all passersby to refuel. The only government aid that seemed to actually help. Everything else either made the situation worse or had zero effect. Gas stations aren't the only source of gas however, oil fields and other cars can be a good source for it as well, though for the latter some siphoning is needed.
Arriving at the gas station, she parks her bike near a pump and begins to refuel. After doing so, she hears something familiar, a snarl and a click, a chaser is nearby. She quickly jumps up, grabbing the gas station roof ledge, and scrambles up, scattering a trio of heralds. Surprisingly, there was no trademark shriek, or rapid taps of exposed bone on ground. No, the sound stayed, there was something off about this chaser. It was wandering around, almost aimlessly instead of searching for the heralds.
She spots it, and it's strikingly distinct from the everyday chaser “What the hell are you…?” she thinks to herself, as the chaser crawls on its arms, wagging its exposed spine as if it were a tail. The strange chaser propels itself upwards using its arms, and spreads itself, revealing thin skin connecting its arms to its body. It was a glider of sorts, and that was made apparent when it seemed to float over the ground towards the road.
The gliding undead picks at a crack in the road, and after looking around, its back begins to inflate and deflate. Almost as if it were winding up, and it was going to call over a horde. “In the middle of the road…? You bastard.” She quickly hops off of the roof and carefully makes her way towards the strange chaser. Unfortunately, the undead quickly turns around and bites at her from a distance, snarling in warning. She ignores the noises and runs in towards it, pulling out her knife.
It jumps up at her, wrapping its arm flaps over her face, she struggles, muffling through the rotting skin. It's thin enough for her to make out what it's doing with its tail. It wriggles violently, it tries to impale it through her chest, but she manages to grab it just before. She plays tug of war with it, and eventually manages to rip it from her face. She slams it on the ground and stomps on its head with her boot, and pulls the spine as hard as she could to tear it off from the body.
She falls back, panting hard and wiping off its blood from her face. She takes a deep breath and lets it out. After a moment, she gets up, and carves the skin of the neck and removes its head. “Fucker. You'll fetch some good credits at the raiders wont ya.” She murmurs to the dead undead, grinning.
She makes her way back to her bike, but refills the two gas cans before setting off. She places the head in the sidecar, and continues onwards to the survivors camp. After maybe half an hour of riding, she finally arrives at the fenced gate. Two guards stand at the two towers up front. They look at the ouroboros flag, and check with each other and one of them radios to their chief “Rider’s here”. After a few seconds, they signal to the gateman “let er’ in”. She guides her bike inside with her legs “welcome back Rider”.
The camp is a full marketplace, where Vultures like Rider sell off loot that require a more steady mind to gather from nests, like ammunition, medical supplies and non-perishable food. The marketplace in return sells scrap, fresh food, crafted weapons and protection. This of course, is provided by settlements themselves who buy the supplies brought in from the Vultures. And it's all based on a trust system with the marketplace, who provide “credits” for the wares to be bartered over, especially useful if someone needs to trade at a later date.
Some vultures even have benefits, like Rider, who has access to food and water free of charge, so long as it's reasonable. Most likely due to her kindness and frequent deliveries that other Vultures don't tend to provide.
Every vulture has to meet with the chief and resource officials. The vulture counts their loot, and the chief along with officials determine the granted credits should the vulture decide to take them instead of offering a trade. Some settlements are better off than others. Each settlement has at least a single doctor, but they lack tools or medical supplies to perform their duties. The resource official for medicine takes a look at Rider’s gathered medical supplies, three bottles, a tube of cream and an inhaler. 500 credits on their behalf.
The other resource officers do the same, appraising the gathered loot and assigning numbers. The chief tallies up the total on a notepad, and presents it. “Alright Rider. As always, here is your gain.” He says, pointing at a figure of 1100, an average amount for any haul. “And here is your total.” The figure at the bottom shows a large 329,100 credits in her favor, and the notepad is full of ever increasing figures from the past. “Are you sure you don’t need any supplies? With how much you keep bringing in, we have more than enough to share. Don't hesitate to ask for our help, Rider.” The chief pleads with a fond smile.
“It's okay, Jones. When I need to, I'll use the credits. Right now I'm just looking to help out. The food and water supplies are enough”. She tilts her head slightly, her face is masked under her helmet, but her expression is easy to tell. A warm smile. Jones’ bottom lip begins to quiver, but after a deep breath, he tightens his closed eyes, and leans back.
“Alright Rider, thank you for the supplies.” After she leaves with her credits noted down, one of the officials places their hand on Jones’ shoulder. He sighs out, and gets lost in his memories. “She has her reasons.” he gets up and returns to his daily duties. Running a settlement isn't easy, but with officials by his side, it's easier to manage.
He's never seen her face, but her voice is enough. He recognizes his daughter under any mask, and he’s willing to do anything he can to help her, but she never gives in. Before leaving, Rider visits the kitchen. There she fills up her new water flask, and takes a loaf of bread. Whenever she leaves her bike unattended, the mechanic takes it to his shop for a free refuel and repair if it needs it. “You take really good care of Oro, there's no damage to it anywhere, engine’s better than when I last saw her. As always, impressive work.” he says inspecting it. Rider nods, and he hands over her bike. She hops on and waves away.
Back on the road, she makes her way towards the raider camp for their deliveries. She's made allies with these two local camps. The survivors have had problems with them before, but after Rider appeared, the raiders have had no reason to go out on their raids anymore. They mostly focus on clearing the surrounding areas of undead and infestation. But since the lack of raids began, there have been some uproars in the hierarchy circles. Some solos have appeared here and there from the camp. A notable one being a raider who aims to overtake his chief and reinstate the raids.
On her way there, she passes by the gas station, but something is off. She slows down, and looks around, the corpse of the glider isn't there. She shrugs it off and drives forward, seeing a parade on the horizon. “Cultists, should've known.” As she gets closer, she can see a group of bald men and women with scars marking their skin. They wear tattered robes splattered in blood. They're holding the decapitated glider nailed to a cross, dancing around it, singing. One of them sees her approaching, he points and lets out a howl.
She speeds past them “Sick assholes, got nothing better to do than to-” before she can finish, the ear shattering sound of a war horn blared from the parade. “Oh fuck please no” she says, and a fleet of cultists in SUV’s drive out firing their guns into the sky and at her. “A fucking warparty! Why! You dickheads are gonna wake it!” An SUV drives up next to her and takes a swing with their rusted sheet cleaver, she leans forward, narrowly avoiding it. “Blasphemer!” the cultist then shouted out.
A distant roar is heard, and the ground shakes in a series of earth quaking thuds. “Nonononono!” she whispers to herself in panic, as a massive house-sized bear rushes out of the woods crushing trees in its path. Its fur is lined in yellow veins thicker than a drain pipe. It snarls and charges its way, pawing away SUV’s and causing a massive explosion that stalls it for only a moment. The corpse of a cultist and the fender of their vehicle get launched forward. The SUV who swung at her runs over the fender, bouncing up slightly and then swerving into a tree.
The bear charges out of the roaring flames, lit ablaze by its infernal rage. It has one target left, Rider. She tries to outspeed it, but it keeps charging ahead, gaining ground. So she leads it into a clearing, where a large lake resides in the middle. If she can't shake it off she’ll at least try to make it less dangerous, if only slightly. Near the lake is a large rock shaped like a ramp. She drives into it and jumps the gap, hoping the bear follows, but before it can, a large rumble and groan takes its attention. From the woods comes shambling a large horde, too many to count.
The horde keeps the bear busy, and Rider escapes on the other side of the lake through the forest.