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 Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 12:38 pm
Scotty looked around in confusion for awhile and then looked at the bottle of wine in his hand. This stuff's stronger than I thought. He shrugged and finished the bottle off, despite its horrid taste.
He talked to the bottle, "Yeah, I probably shouldn't drive now. I wonder how far it is to the nearest liquor store, you need to be replaced."
With those words, he went toward the nearest trash can to dispose of the bottle. Then he started his way toward the east.
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 1:02 pm
Harbinger-Of-Bunnies Scotty looked around in confusion for awhile and then looked at the bottle of wine in his hand. This stuff's stronger than I thought. He shrugged and finished the bottle off, despite its horrid taste. He talked to the bottle, "Yeah, I probably shouldn't drive now. I wonder how far it is to the nearest liquor store, you need to be replaced." With those words, he went toward the nearest trash can to dispose of the bottle. Then he started his way toward the east. Most of the trash cans appeared to be knocked over or run into or parked on. The two paid little attention to him as he got out of the car. Most of the patients crawling out of their cars, or even those being drug out of their cars towards the hospital, ignored him as well. Across the street, a housewife struggled to keep her purse out of the hands of a young hooligan. She shouted for kids to quit fighting and for Jodie to quit biting Tommy.
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 2:03 pm
Scotty continued walking toward the east until he finally found a liquor store which he went into. He looked around for a bit and gave up.
He went to the guy behind the counter and spoke, "I'm going to be honest with you. I don't normally drink. I have no idea what's good and what's not. But, tonight I just want to get drunk. Give me the strongest stuff you've got."
He paid for it and left with the bottle in a brown paper bag, unsure which direction to go and not wanting to go back home.
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:31 am
"Get out of the ******** way!" Rene roared, face bright red and sweating from the exertion of running faster than she had in years. Unable to stop herself in time, she tripped and fell into the bearded man with the sunglasses. She lost her balance and crashed to the asphalt, the aluminum bat clanging and rolling away.
Muttering curses, she glanced over her shoulder at the mob pouring out, some panicked, others mad with whatever insanity was going around. "s**t!" She heaved herself up, glaring at the man she bowled into. "Sorry, I don't think Wal-Mart is open right now. You may wanna run." To punctuate this, she dashed for the bat, again moving with surprising speed. Picking up her weapon quite ungracefully, she again turned back to the man. "Hey! I said run!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:43 pm
The embrace had surprised him more than her bandages, at first. It would be lying to say he hadn't wished, upon a time, for these kinds of hugs more often. Lately, though, his mind had been preoccupied with other goals, and the thoughts had subsided.
"It's okay, Liz. I'm here. I'm here..." He comforted, being brought back to the moment. "What happened to your arm!?"
He glanced at her wound, then back into her eyes.
"...I fell. Lisa she... It's probably just a sprain."
Whenever girls say something like, "I fell," they're lying. That's in the first chapter of the Nice Guy handbook.
"Big bandages for just a sprain..." he said, worriedly.
"We didn't have time to get it looked at. We'll just go to East City later. I wanna go home. They can't take me here." Another shot from inside the hospital made her flinch, and cling tighter as if she were hiding.
He looked at the Hospital, and then back at her. "The streets are packed with traffic. It looks like something big is going down. I don't know if it's a terrorist attack or what, but everyone's rioting and no one is getting out. Let's go back to the apartments and figure out what's going on, first, okay? Hop on behind me and hold on, I'll go slow."
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:53 pm
The idea of a terrorist attack in the mid-west seemed outlandish to her, but she couldn't make sense of the patients she had seen today either, so at this point most any explanation would have suited her if it got her home and got some rest.
She carefully turned her backpack around so that she could lean comfortably back against him for support, and also have it to lean against if she needed to lean forward. She had trouble balancing herself at first, but soon fit comfortably between his arms.
The car parked near the entrance, which a man had abandoned earlier, caught her eye. The state of the parking lot, however, with cars parked out to the middle of the street and packed the roads down, convinced her that they'd never make it home if they could somehow manage to start the vehicle.
"Hey David...? This isn't your car." she mumbled simply.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:45 pm
He didn't have the heart to tell her about what happened to the motorcyclist. Especially with her leaning back against him like this.
"I got stuck in traffic and started running here." Alright, so he embellished a little. "I found it on the side of the road, like it was abandoned. Still running and everything. With everything going on, I'm not gonna just leave it there, when I could use it."
They swerved between parked cars slowly, as the art of shifting gears still eluded him. He paid more attention to the violence happening on the sidewalks, and tried not to bring more attention to himself and Liz than the motorcycle already did.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:52 pm
The woman who'd crashed into him had caused them both to unceremoniously tumble to the ground. A stinging in John's palms told him that they'd been scraped up, and were probably bleeding, but that was certainly not a top priority at this point. Rising to his feet as quickly as he could, he glanced back at the store entrance to see that the screaming, thrashing mob was continuing its push towards them. He then turned to see the woman glaring at him, as if it were his fault for not getting out of the way fast enough.
"Even if they were open, they're not getting my business today," he tried to quip back, but he'd never been very good at off-the-cuff remarks, and so quit while he was ahead. Besides, as the woman had so aptly pointed out, there were much more important things to be doing at this point. Like running. Running the hell away.
It was around this time he noticed the bat, as she grabbed for it. Wait.. was that--blood? No--brains maybe? Shaking his head clear he realized he didn't have the luxury to be pondering this now, as she was already on the move, so he dashed through the parking lot after her.
"You... didn't kill... anyone... with that... did you," he gasped out between breaths. Conversation was of secondary importance, compared to outrunning the mob that he could only assume without checking was still following them, which meant that a thorough discussion of what happened, and how and why would definitely have to wait. But that one question, at least, he needed to hear the answer to.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:52 pm
"Oh. That makes sense. I guess."
Finally having a moment to rest without immediate threat to her person by patients or personnel, she yawned and closed her eyes, the pain in her wrist throbbing. She tried to push it out by singing softly under her breath, her voice lost in the violence around them.
The farther they got away from the hospital, the sparser the riots and damage become. Liz was thankful they didn't have far to go to get home, but chose not to worry about the density of problems around them.
Not more than a block from the apartment, a group of three men, their skin flushed with the heat of their rage and frothy blood at their lips, took chase after them, grabbing for David's jacket.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:33 pm
"Dammit!" He shouted. The men came out of nowhere, it seemed. A blind spot behind a trailer truck while he was looking the opposite direction.
He tried to pick up speed, but man's grip on him made him lose control of the bike and send it towards a stop sign. David found himself not moving, and watched the bike lazily fall on top of Liz as the man's grip held firm on his jacket.
Turning to face his attacker, David flailed. The man punched at him, releasing his grip. The blows struck his arm and chest, and then his helmet. The sudden pain stunned the man, and David took the moment to bend his knees and twist his body, focusing his entire strength into a straight tae-kwon-do punch to the man's groin.
He dropped.
A fierce pain in his kidney reminded David that there was more than just that one man. The second guy began pummeling on him from behind, and in desperation the young man did an Ender's Game worthy nose-breaker in return, using the helmet to deliver some serious damage to the man's face.
To his surprise, David instinctually grabbed the man's arm, thrust his shoulder into him, and threw the man onto the first attacker. They soon began fighting each other, and David painfully sprinted to Liz's aid.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:46 pm
Liz lay dazed on the curb, her left leg pinned under the motorcycle. Her first instinct upon hearing/seeing the men was to cower in a ball. The next thing she knew, she was in pain.
Her head throbbed. Something sticky and wet was on her left arm; her wrist screamed for her. She couldn't lift the bike off her, and when she tried, her left arm and wrist protested heavily.
She managed to let out a groan before the third man, unnoticed in the sprawl, latched onto her throat and right arm, pressing her against the curb.
This time she barely managed a confused squeak.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:01 pm
The pain he felt made him angry, and seeing a man choking Liz send David's rage over the edge. Even more adrenaline poured into his system, and in a euphoric dash, David lined up his target.
It felt like it was in slow motion. He'll never forget the man's eyes, wide with madness and bloodshot. One step. The tears on the corners of Liz's eyes. Two steps. The blood on her arm, and on the stop sign. Three steps. There's his chance. Fourth step was for distance. He then drilled the tip of his boot into the side of the man's head with enough force to have it bounce back against his foot after hitting the shoulder.
He quickly grabbed the man's throat and hauled him off of the distressed girl. He squeezed very hard while doing so, in a primal attempt to crush the windpipe. Whether or not that actually happened, he didn't know, as he was then hefting the motorcycle back onto its wheels with surprising ease.
Heart racing, he knelt down to pick the girl off the ground. He had to get her back on the bike, and then to the apartment building to bandage that wound for her.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:09 pm
They lived on the second floor of Summercrest Apartments. Technically it was the third floor as there were two levels below them, but that mattered little now as Liz, coughing and half blind with pain, slowly ascended the stairs with her friend's help.
She leaned against her doorframe when they finally got to the apartment and rummaged above the door for her key, which she handed to David.
Once inside she sat herself in the nearest chair-the breakfast set in the middle of the small kitchen, her backpack on the floor. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then surveyed their injuries.
Her face paled at the extent of the damage to her arm. Her wrist was swelling over her brace. Her arm had a gash out of her upper arm from falling onto the sharp end of the stop sign. She could tell her eye was swelling that wasn't her main concern at the moment. Her legs were obviously working, just bruised.
Next she turned her attention to her friend and savior, who she motioned to also sit, "...you alright, David?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:25 pm
Balcerzak "You... didn't kill... anyone... with that... did you," he gasped out between breaths. Conversation was of secondary importance, compared to outrunning the mob that he could only assume without checking was still following them, which meant that a thorough discussion of what happened, and how and why would definitely have to wait. But that one question, at least, he needed to hear the answer to. Rene was leading the way through the parking lot, weaving through cars, but she was slowing down, the pain in her knees and her weight finally catching up to her. ""No...not yet," she gasped in response, flashing a wry grin at the man. Her shoulder connected with a sideview mirror, but she pressed on. "You got a car? A way to get away?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:28 pm
Scotty began walking toward the hospital again. He suppressed opening the new bottle just yet. The pain from his ear and the cheap wine hadn't killed off his judgment completely.
He reached a clump of trees near the hospital and looked around. No one close enough to see. He slumped against a tree and opened the bottle he purchased. It smelled horrible. He top a small sip and gagged at the taste. It was just like rubbing alcohol smelled.
Then a squirrel came down from a tree and looked at him. And then he started singing to the squirrel.
"Yes there are no cats in America. No cats in America."
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