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Provided everything went well with this? And when was the last time that worked out for anybody at Barren Pines?

When Sue first saw the mini-skirted stranger step gingerly onto the scene, he'd been cautiously hopeful. It wasn't anyone that he recognized - which was strange, even if he didn't know everyone at the school personally, he did usually have at least a brief idea of who was who and what they looked like - but whatever, she wasn't green, and that passed his criteria for "potential ally."

But things weren't right with this one. The fallen zombie didn't bother her - but her eyes seemed to be avoiding the survivors. She didn't call out to them, ask them what they were doing, bravely offer to sign up. She just went for the corpse like it was an fallen comrade....

Normally, Sue wouldn't have found any room to complaint for someone taking a zombie off their hands. But they had a system here, and it was one they needed to keep with. A stranger coming in couldn't possibly know what was going on, and this business with there being a stranger at all just stunk. For all Sue knew at that moment, Virgo was the one behind this mess.

"HEY! Hold it right there!" Arresting the scene with his command (or at least, trying to), Sue pointed at Jess, made a quick beckoning motion with his finger, and started out of the barricades in order to meet with this odd girl. "Who are you, and what the god-danged do you think you're doing there?"

The golf club was in his hand, of course. You might even be able to see a slight blemish from where he'd struck that girl Elke (who was clearly not Virgo) on their last encounter.

After meeting a few fellow zombies and humans, Calintha Johnson had decided that she didnt want to be an undead scourge anymore. It just wasnt fair, wasnt fair at all. The hunger, it gnawed at her stomach and constantly twisted itself up in a knot, never relenting and always tightening. It was making her go mad.

After her encounter with Marit and Leonette, she eventually split off on her own and again went through the burned wreckage that used to be the student dorms.

She'd lived there once. Key word being lived.

There, she'd found enough makeup to make an army of zombies look like hussies. It seems a lot of her fellow students had enough reserve makeup to last an apocalypse. Which certainly had come in handy now. Choosing the thickest looking foundation she could find, she applied it in a cracked mirror.

After several coats of that and concealer, she was beginning to look normal again. Cali had never been a pro at makeup, but she knew enough from watching her little sister who was much girlier than her own tomboyish self.

After that, she'd found some actual surviving Barren Pines uniforms and replaced her James Bond style with them. After all, she was turning into a secret agent! Checking herself over in the bathroom mirrors, she applied some more makeup to her neck. She looked a little dull, but it would pass certainly from far away, and should continue to fool until someone got up close.

Finally, she'd taken a pair of gloves to cover her hands, grabbed her serrated trowel and plant and headed out. The first thing she heard was shouts and cries in the distance.

Heading towards it slowly, what Cali saw was straight out of a bad horror movie. The surviving students had barricaded themselves in and fortified the shed with downright medieval looking traps. Approaching slowly from the SOUTH SIDE, Calintha called out, trying to put some panic into her voice. "Hey- what are you guys doing?!"

She knew exactly what they were doing; they were taking a stand. Cali just figured playing dumb was her best option.

Death comes on swift wings to whosoever attends this school.

Only she wasn't dead.

Abeline Froust was at her limit. She had been drowned. She had been brought back to life like a puppet, her body the rolling pit of power used to eat another student (although given half a chance, Zombeline would have probably chewed said student's ear off, but maybe not the rest of her...) and then laid back to rest. But the rest had been momentarily. Again, she had returned as a rotting corpse, filled with the hunger for human flesh- but now, also, her own sentient thoughts. It was cruel. Painful.... and.... well Abeline Froust was sick of this. She'd just been bludgeoned to death for crying out loud- and still, still death wouldn't take her.

Feeling like nothing more than the puppet of her parents wishes that she had in life, Froust pulled her messy self from the stake that she had been left on. Her legs still walked and she made a hasty retreat from the field of carnage. Well that was it! She wasn't going to sit around and be a pin-cushion for the other students, nor was she going to just accept this.... this... argh, her one remaining eye was too mushy to see in a straight line! Damn that baseball bat-totting lunatic!

Fuming with raw emotion, and the knawing need for a fresh supply of kneecaps in her diet, Abeline ran as fast and as low from sight as she could. She was.... leaking from the chest where she'd been spiked, and her uniform was a complete mess. There was no grace or dignity in her fleeing. Only mystery as to what could make a zombie run like a schoolgirl about to have a cry from its.... very squished, mostly missing head.

Calintha raised her trowel over her head in somewhat defense, somewhat as an attention getter. She didnt like the look of the place, not at all. She just hoped that people didnt recognize her. She'd met many humans in her time, just those right in the beginning when she had awoken. Still though, in possible defense of that the girl had removed her red hair sash and stashed it in the bathroom somewhere- she'd go for it later if she could.

"Are you going to hurt me if I come closer?" She wasnt about to take that chance, because if someone hurt her it would likely cause her to go back to being a zombie. But she wasnt a zombie, she was human. She had human skin, human hands and a BEATING human heart. She was alive.

Even Calintha didn't believe her internal lies, but she had to keep trying. Everything was okay, she was just seeing if her new friends would actually let her in. "I've been holed up in the garden sheds this whole time." She moved closer to the south side barricade, but not close enough to tough the spikes and table in front of her.

The deed was done. Mackenzie was gone. Evie tried to consider it as an act of mercy, so that the girl wouldn't have to roam around craving human flesh. Even so, she kept her gaze away from the scene, unable to look at what she knew was there. She knew that if she saw it, it would never get unseen, and it would haunt her more than anything else, so even before Virgo began to make for the corpse, Evie walked to the South side of the camp. Sue could have someone else stake this one. She just couldn't handle it.

Evie liked Jess, and when she saw the girl waving in her general direction, she picked up her pace, jogging to get to a position to the right of her. Her words, however, confused Evie. A possible survivor? How did that happen? Evie looked over the barricades at the girl, who seemed vaguely familiar enough to be counted as a student, and certainly not a green one. Feeling somewhat grimy herself after not having a proper bath since the fire, Evie couldn't help but question the cleanliness of the girl, but something clicked: if the girl was clean, maybe she knew where a running source of water was. Hell, maybe she had shampoo. Shampoo sounded really nice right about now.

But there was commotion over at the North side, and Evie really didn't want to make a decision without Sue there to back her up. Still, they had to do something about the girl. "Just stay where you are, and we'll have someone bring you in, mmkay?" If there was one thing Evie was good at, it was projecting her voice, and she secretly enjoyed having the opportunity to speak louder than a whisper again. With a nod, she looked back to Jess, still not finding anything suspicious about the girl on the outer borders. "You think it'll be okay if I go out there myself, or should I go grab Kirin?" she asked the girl, the grip on her broom relaxing.

Great. The skirt wasn't answering him, their zombie "friend" had just broken the rules (they were simple rules, damn it! YOU DON'T ******** WITH THE LIVING, that was it!), and now the ******** zombies were resurrecting. Could things get any worse?

He wasn't going to tell his people to attack someone who wasn't a greenie. Not without damned good reason. Sue's job was to lay down the line and make sure it didn't get crossed - and while corpse-stealing was something he didn't want to abide, telling everyone else that it was all right to trust a zombie over a living person? Yeah, no. Not in this lifetime.

"All," Sue shouted, "take out the charging zombie!"

There wasn't really time to take a swing, not safely. Not with the storm of bricks that was going to be turning up. Sue was just focusing on making sure he didn't get caught in the crossfire, and that was enough.

And once that was done, he was going to kick Virgo's ******** a** for throwing off their operations. Maybe once that was done, he'd be able to see to the new survivor coming to join their ranks.

Elke had been right. The thing was a fortress.

Sébastien chewed on his thumb, eyeing the encampment from where he crouched in the forest. It was hard to make out it out from this distance and in the cover of the forest, but he knew why Elke had been warning him not to go. The front side alone looked menacing.

He breathed out harshly through his nose, biting harder on his thumb in a vain attempt to hold on to the remainder of his sanity. Just being near Elke had been like baiting a lion, and he had barely been able to keep his promise to Giselle. But she had been his friend, his best friend, and he had been firm in his resolve to protect her. These students, however, were not Elke, nor were they French. While it may have been lowering his standards to want to eat them – wanting Giselle had been bad enough – his brain did not protest as vehemently to the idea. And he was so hungry....

No.

The blonde made a pained noise in the back of his throat when he felt his teeth break the skin, but he refused to remove the finger from his mouth. He wasn't here to play around. He was here on a mission. Sue had to be taught what it meant to mess around with Sébastien's friends, and worse, make it so that said friend's boyfriend was the first to know. His French pride had been seriously wounded and it was time to show that cat-loving Englishman what it meant when you messed with the French.

Finally taking his thumb from his mouth and giving his hand a shake, he began prowling through the forest, searching for any sign of his target. For once, being green was actually useful.

[ He's in amongst the trees, so feel free to have the cats spot him. ]