Ten Years After The World Ended.

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"L-look, th-they're gone. " Aaron said, pointing his finger while still trembling. The guy got what he wanted. Was he gonna let him go? Or was he lying?
 
"Alright." Phelan said to Jakob, nigh free of anger, even with a slight overtone of gratitude. He was glad this was almost over, and had even started to like the young man who to him, had started to seem like not such a bad guy right before everything went to shit.

As Jakob carried the passed out girl away and, hopefully, out of his beloved town, Matt quickly pondered what to do with the other boy, still in his grasp and at his mercy.

"L-look behind you. Th-the girl's dead. Wh-why don't you help her?" Aaron pleaded, but Phelan acted as though he hadn't heard a word. "What do you do kid?" he pulled the knife tighter, "You must be doin' something or goin' somewhere pretty cool to have a flashbang. So, what is it?"
 
"....It... it was from my brother. That was the only thing I had left from him... but I had to do it. I didn't want that guy killed. I didn't want him to get killed like my family. That's the truth. I didn't want to do it... but I had to." He said to the man. He just wanted to get out of this fucked up town.
 
"Yeeaah, a little present from you're brother uh? Like a birthday bomb, how sweet. Alright man well, here's the thing, you're funking done now. It's over, and you got no fucking recourse."

"Now, I can't decide if I want you to repay me with labor, or if you're too fucking dangerous to keep around. Whadda you think? mm?"
 
"Look, I do not fucking know, you choose. Kill me, or whatever. I've lived a short life, anyway. Scared to death... hehe... what a funny way to die... once again, it's your choice. Not the best, though." Aaron looked at the man, meeting the eyes of a savior or a murderer.
 
Pausing for a second in contemplation, Phelan mercilessly shoved the kid to the floor and proceeded to stomp the boys ribs, arms and legs, in a quick, violent staccato.

After a good half minute of waling on the boy, Matt looked down at him, bruised and bloodied.

"You work for me now kid, and if ya' fuck up, you'll wish I'd fucking killed you."
 
A few minutes of a beating. After what happened, that was the only thing that woke him up. "Alright..." Aaron said, getting rid of the dust on his clothes. Well, he really fucked up. Oh well. He could stab the guy, but he decided not to. What was the point, anyway?
 
Jakob walked out the north gate without any issues although he garnered many stares. It was reasonable he supposed, after all Jakob was carrying a girl and a lamb in his arms. As soon as he exited his eyes scanned the horizon looking for any sign of danger, seeing none he continued onward. After about 15 minutes of walking Jakob began to look for a place to rest, his arms had begun to grow weary. The girl had very little weight to her, not that it surprised him much, it was to be expected but carrying her for so long had it's tolls. Jakob searched with the experience and trained eye of a survivalist for a small area with decent cover that was off the main road, yet not to obvious. Unable to find a suitable place Jakob chose to veer off the main road and go west towards some sparse trees. Roads were dangerous in this day and age unless you were traveling with a group or caravan, and even then safety wasn't guaranteed.

After another 10 or 15 minutes of wandering and searching Jakob came to a hill with a bit of an overhang. The opening faced west so that any prying eyes from the road wouldn't notice and it provided enough cover to take shelter in case it rained. Gently he set the girl down and looked for some sort of stick he could use to make a stake. Finding a suitable log Jakob jammed it into the ground and tied Baa to the post. It was close enough that Baa was able to limp it's way towards the girl and lay beside her. Putting his duffel bag on the ground he took out a blanket and his spare jacket. He folded up the jacket and put it under her head as a pillow then wrapped her in the blanket so she'd stay warm. Jakob sat with his back against the overhang and began cleaning his gun. He would wait an hour and if she hadn't regained consciousness up by then, he'd wake her up.
 
After the morning's scuffle, Mr. Phelan felt the need to tighten security. Proceeding to load the pockets of his errand boy and bartender Johnny with what nowadays passed for a small fortune, Matt instructed the young man to enlist six strong and able men from the tenant camps, as well as to purchase three relatively nice rifles. In addition to the already expensive supplies, he also told Johnny to pick up a knife, bludgeon and bullet proof vest for each of them.

When Johnny returned, Phelan was relatively pleased with the results; he had retrieved almost everything Matt had asked for, though he could only find three decent examples of each requested item. As far as the "bullet proof vests", he had managed to snag one undamaged ballistic vest, as well as two M.O.L.L.E. laden plate carriers, one of which had thick metal plates someone had used to replace the original ceramic. He even found, what seemed to be some eager, capable, and not to mention, burly young men to utilize the newly procured tools.

The Standing Pine.png
 
The lamb nuzzled her face against her owner, laying in it's weird little way and leaning against her. With fluttering lashes and an aching head, Kitty squinted open her eyes and shut them again. "Oh." She whispered, had never blacked out like that before. A buzzing static hummed in the back of her mind and she rolled slowly to her side.
"Oh." She repeated, feeling a little dizzy and out of place when she opened her eyes. "What happened? Where am I?" She asked those questions to herself, not seeing Jakob, and looking at the lamb with half-open eyes. "I don't feel good."
 
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"I don't feel good."

Jakob glanced towards the girl as she came to. He hadn't had to wait too long before she came to, giving one quick final look over the gun he re-holstered it. "Glad to see you've woken up little miss" speaking softly so as not to alarm her "How are ya feelin?" Standing up, Jakob brushed some dirt off the back of his pants, he then turned and knelt over his bag unzipping it and grabbed a granola bar and one of his water bottles. Zipping the bag closed he cautiously approached the girl and crouched by her side. He outstretched his left hand holding both the bottle and granola bar in it. His right arm he left casually 'relaxed' by his boot which had the knife hidden in it. "Here it's chocolate chip flavored" he tried to put up an air of friendliness although e wasn't really good at the whole facial expression thing. He'd been told by his friend's way back when that he'd always seemed hard to approach because he didn't smile much. "Try and take small sips, and don't eat too fast either"
 
Kitty laid on her side, her vision still a little blurry from waking up. "What?" She muttered, rolling onto her stomach so she was facedown in the grass. "I feel like no." Her body laid still that way, the lamb nudging her. "What did I do?"
"Wait."
Slowly she rolled on her back and sat up. Maybe a little quickly, "I know yo-Woah~." Her head rushed and went light a second. She closed her eyes, then wrinkled her nose. "Am I hell now? Isn't it supposed to be a lot hotter?" She ran her left hand roughly through her hair and yawned.
"I don't even know anymore."
She kind of remembered the altercation at the bar but it seemed a lot like a dream to her for some reason. A distant past of some sort. She kind of felt like the situation had happened before. It was a strong sense of deja vu and that something didn't feel quite right.
 
Jakob placed the drink and food, by her side and stood up. He was amused at her reaction to sitting up fast and almost chuckled, then he remembered why she was unconscious in the first place and the amusement disappeared in a flash. "No, you're not in hell. Well that is if you don't consider the current state of the world hell" Leaving her side he went and sat back down beside the bag. He had two choices here, tell her the truth, or lie. In a flash a memory of his father's words came back to him, 'Now Jakob it ain't never did nobody any good to lie, at least not in the long haul o'things. If ya don't want to speak the truth then you'd be better off not speakin at all son'. His father had asked him that the first time he'd caught Jakob trying to steal some cookies when he was just a little kid.

"And yes, you do know me" Jakob hesitated a moment, whatever he said next would make a major impact on what the girl thought about him. Better to be honest and hated, than to try and hide it and just be hated even more in the end he thought. "In fact I'd be surprised if you didn't after all, I did almost shoot you." He closely watched the girl's reaction hoping that he didn't spare her life just to end up prolonging the outcome.
 
As Kitty's mind stabled and she began to really wake up she looked at Jakob. "Oh yeah. Why'd you do that?" She asked, green eyes wide. "Did I make you mad?" The little lamb beside her got ready for sleep, resting on it's side that wasn't lame. "Mmmm..." Kitty hummed taking a careful look around. "Also, where'd we go? He kick us out?"
Kitty blinked, as she remembered the scene about her. It had elicited strong, powerful, and tiring emotions within her. Drunk people could sometimes be so awful. And alls she could remember was her father's breath every time he came home after drinking. She cringed, and looked down at her dress. Sort of inspecting herself for wounds or injuries.

Then she quickly ruffled through her messenger bag and made sure she had everything. After all it'd would have been really easy to steal from her in an unconscious state. "I bet everyone hates me now." she decided "I usually keep my name clear, too." When she figured she had everything, Kitty nodded.
"Also you had a perfect chance to kill me and you didn't, idiot." She said, suddenly leaning over with a childish angry look on her face an bopping him on the head.
"You gotta be smart, don't be a stupid idiot. Atleast you could've taken my gun away!" Kitty was horrified that this man might've had a death wish and shook her head. Stupid people, and people with death wishes should've had natural selection take them by now. She gussed some people had been extremely lucky then. Glancing at the food and water she shook her head. "Also I'm not hungry."
 
James walked back into the saloon or pub or whatever it was, taking note of the guards. 6. Not too many, I could take them if I needed to...

So he walked to an empty table, one with a clear view around him, and each of the armed guards, and ordered his drink, as usual. Nothing besides that: he had just gotten back from another scavenge run, and now had a bit of money to spend.

A nice watered ale would do him some good after what he saw in there.
 
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"Well, you pulled a gun out and fired it" lifting his hand which was covered in scratches from when he had used it to protect his face from the glass "almost hitting me, so yeah I was mad." Now that Jakob was actually thinking about the situation, it struck him as having been one huge cluster fuck. A sigh escaped his lips and for just a moment is guard lowered, he was exhausted maybe not physically but mentally Jakob felt drained.

All of a sudden his head had been hit with something, Jakob snapped back to awareness and for a moment thought she had just tried to knock him out. "You gotta be smart, don't be a stupid idiot. At least you could've taken my gun away!" her tone angry at him as if she had expected better from him. "I guess your right" he paused a moment and his tone became sad and weary "but sometime's you gotta take risks you know, I could'a killed ya but if all you ever do is make the survivor's choice you end up doin a lot of bad things. Every now and then just to keep a bit o'your humanity ya make the risky choice, and sure sometime's it's not the smartest but if you don't you'll just end up insane." Looking at the lamb beside the girl was a perfect example of this "I mean, you don't have to keep and love that lamb, but you do right?"
 
Kitty looked at Jakob, then at the lamb, then back at Jakob, her grass green eyes wide. There was a very petty, determined look on her face as she said "Yes I do. It's a sheep. I'm Kitty the princess thief of Sheep. It's law, no lamb shall die under my rule." Her tone was matter-of-fact. Her lips pursed afterwards. "This is the first sheep I have seen in a lonnnnngg time." She added.

Kitty used to have a collection of teddy bears, and she remembered having a stuffed lamb. But it wasn't long until it was taken away for 'bad behavior'. Often Kitty got her toys taken away for that reason. "Maybe I'll find more when I go up to the city." She added, "And then I shall have a kingdom to rule." Kitty really didn't believe she was a princess, but when she was younger that's what she wanted to be when she grew up. And never learning any better, she kept with it.

The lamb dozed off and Kitty yawned. "Well, you should have killed me too. Now I'll have to thieve away any sheep you come to obtain, and you shall be sheepless."
 
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"Princess eh? I guess that's pretty ambitious of you" Jakob was realizing what kind of affect this world had on her. In some ways she was like an adult, killing, scavenging to survive, these things you wouldn't really expect from a kid. However she had never had the opportunity to grow up, no safe home, no family to rely on, no school to teach her about the world, no friends to play with. It was kinda sad, although at least she didn't have to remember what humanity had lost. Kitty yawned, she was probably a lot much more exhausted than he was. "Go ahead and go to sleep then Princess Kitty, I'll keep watch to make sure no big bad wolves come to get Baa in it's sleep"
 
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Kitty nodded and looked at Jakob with questioning eyes, her eyebrows knit together. "I hope your not a vampire, why aren't you gonna sleep? Vampires don't need to sleep. Then they drink your blood. My blood is not drinkable, and neither is Baa. So don't drink it." She added, biting her lip. "But you have food, so you can't be a vampire. Why won't you sleep with us? Is someone after us?"
 
"Is someone after us?"

Good question, that guy from town may have sent someone after them but Jakob doubted it. He wasn't worried about anybody following them, not really. What Jakob was worried about were two things, bandits and slavers could stumble upon them at any time although that was rare. It was something else that he truly was afraid might happen upon this little campsite of theirs. Husks were the big threat in his mind right now. Jakob had heard there was an old city somewhere in the north and you could almost always find husks in the older towns and cities. He hoped they hadn't got close enough to the city but he wasn't sure.

"Nah I don't think anybody is after us but you never know" Jakob could last a day without sleep, of that he was sure and this place wasn't concealed nearly enough nor was it easily defensible, so he wouldn't have slept much anyway "I'd rather not wake up to a bunch o'slavers so I'm gunna keep watch. You should get some rest now cause regardless of if ya come with me or not it's going to be a long walk when you wake up."
 
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