Be "Prepared"

[SoleStride]

Remington Austen
Eastern Manhattan
November 17, 2020

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"Creepy Crawlers…" The words came out whispered from behind the mask that Remington still wore. From behind a pulled over UPS truck, she peered out at the streets, just crawling with the weird dead-looking people. She needed something, a weapon. Remi patted at the cargo pockets in her scrub pants, feeling a pair of trauma scissors and her pen light there. She didn't have much on her. A brief perusal of her overnight bag from her hospital locker revealed a change of clothes, a pocket knife, and a hygiene kit complete with toothbrush, tooth paste, floss, and even tiny shampoo and conditioner. Her hands scraped through the bag to see what else she could find. Spare phone charger, spare apartment key. She paused and then glanced around. She wasn't too far from her apartment by now. She had been walking for a while but it took so much longer while trying to stay hidden. Zipping up her bag, she pulled it back over her shoulder and peeked out from behind the truck again in the direction of her apartment. It looked like there was a bit of a cluster just down the street but they were all situated around the side of the building. Her apartment building was on the opposite side of the road. Maybe the front would be more open?

"What's that sayin' 'bout risk an' reward?" She steeled herself and made sure to look around carefully before running across the street to try to get to the other side. It didn't take long to get across, but it felt like forever considering the pressure in her chest she felt when she saw one or two Creepers looking her way. Was there no one else alive? The streets were all but abandoned and all that was left were these… things. Or maybe everyone was in hiding already and she was just behind? Her steps were quiet as she crouched low and worked her way through one alleyway, trying to get around to the front of the building. It was surprisingly dead and she was able to get in through the front door with surprising ease. The ground floor; however, was another story. As soon as she had stepped inside, three of those things stopped mid wobble and turned to look at her. Her apartment was on a higher floor, she needed to reach the elevator, or at least the stairs. The stairwell was closer. Ugh, more stairs. "Darnit." Remi pulled open the stairwell door and pulled it shut again, racing up the steps as fast as she could. It was uncertain how fast those zombies could move at the moment. Mostly, they just seemed to wander around, but she had seen in movies where there were cases of them running. "No sir, not my kind a zombie." She muttered to herself as she thought about the running zombies she had seen in movies.

The stairwell eventually led her to her own floor but she had to stop at the top for a moment to rest. Hands on her knees, she took a few deep breaths and then opened the door to the hallway on her floor. Poking her head out, she looked down the hall to make sure no baddies were out there. It looked clear, so she tiptoed out of the stairwell and down the hallway to get to her apartment. When she was almost there, about four doors away, one of those creepers turned the corner at the end of the hall heading in her direction. What appeared to be dark red blood dripped from its face and its dead eyes were turning toward her. She contained the shrill squeal she wanted to let out and instead backed into the nearest apartment to her, putting and hand on the door and closing it as quietly as she could. Luckily, it shut with no more than a subtle 'hush' of the wind being pushed out, and Remi let out a slow breath that she didn't realize she had been holding.

When her shoulders had relaxed just a little bit, she turned to see two people already in this room. She stared at them hard, nothing of her face visible but her mossy green eyes. They didn't look like those bleeders out there which she was grateful for. "Did y'all realize that there are zombies outside?" She asked with her clear but mild southern accent, as if it wasn't apparent to absolutely everyone by now, what with the streets swarming with them and whatnot. She took a few seconds to look around the room. It was shabbier than her apartment which was actually clean and had a legitimate bedroom with an actual bed. Her gaze slid back to the man and woman in the room which was when she noticed that there was something a little off about the woman who also happened to be wearing a mask across her face. That wasn't the strange part though. "Ma'am… You have six arms…" Captain Obvious was doing her diligent duty today. It must have been the overall shock of both the zombie apocalypse and seeing a woman with six arms in one day. It took just a few short seconds before understanding that she might have been rude to point it out and decided to say nothing about it anymore. Something like that might be a tender subject for some, but Remi was imagining how much help it would be during procedures. Clearing her throat a little, she pulled the surgical mask down from her face and let it hang from her neck. "Sorry to intrude, but the hallway… there was one of those things out there. I couldn't reach my apartment."

@RedArmyShogun
@EmperorsChosen