NOVEL WEB S2E62 – Clearing the Prison
*SHLICK!*
*SHK!*
“Haaaaaah, haaaaaah, haaaaaah. Goddamn there’s no end to them!”
I hear Andrea complain between stabs. We’ve been going at this group of walkers for a good few minutes. It’s been tough to say the least. Sometimes these dumbasses will keep walking even after the one up front is dead, meaning the dead walker blocks the live one. Other times, ones in the back will completely ignore us and wander off meaning we have to get their attention again.
But, we’re just about through. I look over at Andrea and see her sweating profusely and obviously exhausted. I put a hand on her shoulder, feeling sweat through her shirt and say,
“Hey, go take a break. We can’t have you getting a heat stroke out here, alright? Get some water and some rest.”
She nods her head and sets down her sharpened piece of rebar before heading back to the tarp. I look around at everyone else as well,
“That goes for all of you. If you feel like you’re losing steam and that the heat is getting to you, go take a break. Once we’ve cleared this out, we’ll be done for the night, and we’ll pick back up in the morning. We can’t deal with heat strokes right now.”
Everyone nods as we continue on. Over time; Glen drops out, then Maggie, then Tony, then Shane after we force him to leave, leaving just Rick, Daryl, and I. We eventually clear it out after the last walker trips over another one of the walker bodies. I haven’t seen the riot zombies, meaning they’re probably somewhere else for now. I slowly catch my breath as I lie down on the hill leading up to the prison. I hear Daryl’s voice ring out,
“Hey, let’s get you in some shade. Take your own advice.”
I open my eyes and see him holding out his hand to help me up, which I take. He pulls me up which is when I notice that I’m extremely light headed. I quip with him as he keeps me from falling over,
“Damn, I really should have followed my own advice heh.”
He shakes his head and says,
“Yeah, keep workin’ yourself like that and it’ll be bad. Let’s get you in the shade.”
Despite my insistence that I can walk fine now, he proceeds to lead me to the canopy tent. Andrea notices me and gets out of the lawn chair she was sitting in. I give her a thank you as I plop down, feeling like a bowl of half-boiled spaghetti. She then hands me a water to which, I give her a smile and another thank you.
I take small sips of the water over time and decide to just take off the plaid button-up I’d been wearing, as I have a sports bra on underneath. First thing I hear as the shirt comes of is a whistle from Maggie,
“*whistle* Damn, how’d you get that six pack?”
I feel a bit confused. I’d always been on the more fit side, but I’d never had a six pack. At most, I had a two pack. But, as I look down, I notice that I do indeed have the makings of a six pack. It’s nothing super obvious, like a muscle girl or anything, but still it’s there! My arms are slightly more toned as well. It seems that my muscles are becoming more dense rather than growing larger. I chuckle,
“Heh, guess crushing walker skulls has its benefits, eh?”
I also notice that my skin, which used to be white as snow due to my lack of outdoor time, is now lightly tanned all around.
To cool down, I put the water bottle on my face between sips. As we’re all sat down, I take a peek at my watch.
[4:53PM]
I look at everyone and see them all looking rather haggard and tired. I look at Glen as he makes a joke,
“Damn, what I wouldn’t give for a bath.”
Shane shrugs his shoulders,
“There’s a stream right outside the gates. Be my guest!”
Glen looks towards the stream, seeing several walkers stumbling about outside. He speaks with a bit of dry seriousness,
“Ah… Uh… I think I’m okay.”
Everyone chuckles at this, but then I look up at the sky and see a few dark clouds on the horizon. I feel a slight breeze in the wind, cooling me down. I speak curtly,
“Gonna be honest, if it rains, I’m stripping.”
The first person to respond is Andrea who nods her head and says,
“Amen!”
Everyone gives another chuckle as thunder rumbles in the distance. We go quiet for a bit after, looking down at the small fire that Shane got started a while ago. Tony speaks up next,
“It’s weird.”
We all give him a slightly confused look before he continues on,
“Just a few months ago, we’d all be complete strangers. Well, maybe not all of us, but anyways. We’d be complete strangers, never having said a word to eac other. But now… we’re sitting in the middle of a prison full of walking corpses joking about using a storm to shower and eating MRE’s.”
Everyone sits there for a second, taking in his words before Daryl speaks up,
“Well. I don’t really think it’s that weird. Humans are probably the most adaptable animals on earth. No other animal lives in so many different climates, on every continent, not in an enclosed space. I mean, we lived through the goddamn ice age. I think I’d rather fight a walking corpse than a wooly mammoth, but we did that too. We also like to make jokes about how awful life can be. Doesn’t matter who you are, a joke during an awful time will always cheer you up.”
After that, Daryl goes silent. For a good five seconds, silence once again fills the area, save for the occasional walker grunt. Rick then quips back,
“I didn’t know you knew that many words!”
Daryl looks at him deadpanned and says,
“I’ll have you know I’m incredibly verbose.”
Andrea snorts as he says this, causing us all to laugh. The rest of the night is spent joking, laughing, and going over tomorrow's plans. By tomorrow night, we should have the place cleared out. For now, I think I wanna check out the store. See if there’s anything useful.
[2230p] is what I’m working with. None of the store items that I can afford seem to be that useful for now… Wait… That one is a maybe,
[Trap Detection 1 - 2000p]
Nothing really seems to be all that helpful for clearing out the prison. I mean, there’s a cartography skill for 500p, which could help with mapping the inside out, but I don’t really need that and it requires you to go through it yourself. That and I would have to draw the map myself, and I don’t really have an art skill, do I?
Well, Trap Detection will be useful in the long run, so I may as well go ahead and get it.
[-2000p]
[230p]
With that, sadly it never rained, so I just decide to whip out my tent and go to sleep.
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