where the blacktop ends | Carter

[erik knight]

Riding on horseback wasn't difficult and Erik caught on quickly just as he suspected he would. While he hadn't ridden since his teens, it wasn't something someone easily forgot how to do but he did forget how riding long distances felt to his butt and back. While sat up straight and occasionally leaned his head from one side to another to ease his back, he felt that it was leaps and bounds better than walking and quieter than a car. They'd been traveling for quite some time together having picked up a map from a gas station on their way out of McCollough and north toward Atlanta.

They had to hold out on hope that there was a safe-zone there with food, shelter, armed guard and a cure from whatever had infected and turned the dead. At last check of the map, they needed to take US-24 to avoid the interstate and make it to Atlanta. It was easily a two or three day trip and they were only partially through day one but were making great time. As they moved down the road, Erik spotted a small shopping center with a sign indicating a pawn shop, small convenience store and even a bank though the third was a pointless endeavor with money meaning nothing.

He rode Applejacks up next to Carter and matched her speed, holding the reigns with one hand and pointing with the other. "We should stop and get what we can. There's no tellin' when we'll get another chance and it's a long trip ahead yet." They could use what food and basic supplies they had left and Erik hoped for some 9mm ammo in the pawn shop that hadn't been looted though he wasn't holding his breath on it.

carter paisley

[carter paisley]

Erik wasn't the only one suffering from too much time in the saddle. Whenever Carter dismounted, it always took her several minutes to walk normally, sometimes longer. Until she loosened up, she looked rather bow-legged, which might be funny except she suspected Erik was going through the same thing. The girl leaned over Cheer's neck every so often to stretch her back, unmindful of how the saddlehorn dug into her stomach. So far, she'd been impressed by Erik's horsemanship and riding ability, even if he was rusty. He certainly would be brushed up by the time they made it to Atlanta, which she was feeling more positive as time went on. They had chosen a route that would keep them away from busy interstates, metropolitan cities(aside from Atlanta, of course), and would keep them close to a stream or river most of the time.

She was almost lost in a daydream when the shopping strip came into view. Erik must have already seen it because she heard him riding up next to her and turned her head toward him. She nodded, knowing he was right. While she still had lingering wariness about the man himself, she trusted his instincts, which had been good so far. "Keep the horses on the grass. We'll leave them in that clear spot over there." Although they were unshod, the horses' feet were hard and the bottoms cupped in such a way that made loud their every step on asphalt. It would be better to go as quietly as possible. The horses would be out of the way, but still close enough that they'd be able to run back to them if they needed to. At least, that was the idea.

Once they had dismounted and ground-tied the two animals, she motioned for Erik to lead the way, saying, "since you have a gun and all." They passed the bank first and Carter curious peered in through the window, amused to see that someone had broken in. She imagined it had probably happened early on and that whomever it was hadn't any idea that things would get so bad.

[erik knight]

"Good idea," he replied to her instruction to leave the horses on the grass in the clearing. It was the safest route to keep the horses nearby but not too close that they may be overheard or seen by any lurker hanging around the shopping center. On top of that, they weren't too quiet with their hooves on the pavement and, while they were safe from a distance, a biter could hear them easily if they came within fifty or sixty feet of one. Thirdly, while Erik wasn't going to say such a thing aloud, if trouble came through, they'd go after the horses first and buy he and Carter time to escape. While the four-legged animals had been reliable and he didn't desire to see them die, he would gladly leave them to the dead if it meant he and his companion got away. It was ruthless, maybe, but sometimes things like that had to be done to survive.

After dismounting and tying up his horse, Erik pulled the hammer from his bag; he kept the hammer in hand after slinging the backpack onto his shoulders, securing it snugly against his back. The stores were likely dark and closed quartered; he didn't want to make it possible for a biter to grab hold of him by his backpack and not let go but otherwise there was no way to gather any supplies and bring them back to the saddlebags on the horses. When it came down to it, the young man would rather lug around a backpack than a saddlebag. On top of that, his hammer was a silent, mean weapon and would allow him to crack the skill of most any walker that drew too near though he wasn't so arrogant to think he was untouchable.

When she indicated he should walk ahead because he had the gun, he gave her an arched brow knowing that using his gun wouldn't be the wisest decision. If anything, he'd make sure to use the hammer he held in his right hand unless he was cornered and had no choice. "Alright, we should start with the convenience store. If we have to leave in a hurry, we can still walk away with somethin'." After a moment, he nodded and moved toward the shopping center, keeping his eyes peeled for any signs of movement noticing the signs of looting soon as they came up closer. He glanced over at the pawn shop then turned to Carter. "Speakin' of a gun, we should look into gettin' you one soon. Never hurts to be prepared."

[carter paisley]

Carter smirked back at his expression, knowing he wasn't buying the excuse to have him go first. At least he hadn't turned around and rebutted her with the old 'ladies first' gag, and went ahead and took point anyway. She followed, the rubber soles of her boots making hardly a sound. True to what she had told him on their first night together, she drew a Viper from her pocket, her finger settling comfortably on the trigger. With a click, the spring assist pushed the blade out of the front where it locked into place.

The pawn shop offered unknown treasures, but she had to admit -- although somewhat reluctantly -- that the convenience store was a better bet for starters. They would be able to find what they needed faster than searching through the endless junk they were sure to find in the pawn shop. A 48" flat screen tv wouldn't be much good to them afterall. At mention of a gun, she nodded. "Been in the market for one, just haven't made up my mind yet," she half-whispered, joking like she really had many to choose from. There was a gun case in her family's home back in Tennessee that was well-stocked. However, in her hurry to get out of there after witnessing her father ripping into her mother, she hadn't thought to raid it.

As they made their way over to the convenience store, she felt a quiver creep into her gut. Nerves. It wasn't nauseating, not yet; she tried to ignore it before it got to that point. Her attention turned toward Erik and she watched him momentarily. She would have his back, no doubt, but she would also have her own, not trusting anyone else more than herself with her own safety. It was nothing personal, just survival and she had learned that humans were flawed, and damaged humans came with even more flaws than before. And everyone was damaged in some way nowadays.

The convenience store looked dark inside until she stood right outside the window. It was still dim with no lights working, but she could make out the cashiers' desks and aisles beyond. They wouldn't have too much trouble once they were in. 'Too bad my cellphone doesn't work anymore,' she thought, recalling all of the times that she had used the device for a little light to see by. "Ready when you are." The statement seeped between her lips, only air without a sound from her vocal cords.

[erik knight]

Hearing Carter's reason for not having a gun, he recognized it instantly as humorous with the selection for weapons so open in current times. He looked over at her briefly with an arched brow, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth before he shook his head with a chuckle, glancing over toward the pawn shop; part of him was hoping they'd have time to look it over with her needing a gun just in case things got too bad for knives or hammers, but also selfishly praying they had a box or two of ammo for his own gun. He hadn't used many of the bullets but it never hurt to have plenty.

"You waitin' for a blue-light special," he remarked with sarcasm and cast a smirk over at her. "Best to get somethin' small and light that has ammo easy to come by. You don't wanna get stuck in a fence or run out of bullets when ya need 'em most." He knew this from experience. Before Travis had been bitten trying to save his fiancee, he'd run out of bullets for the hunting rifle he'd taken from home only to keep it around and get it stuck in a barbed wire fence. Lucky for him, Erik was a good shot and it allowed the group to escape, but the gun had gotten left behind. Once ammo was scarce and the weapon was a burden, it was best to be discarded.

As they moved through the parking lot, Erik glanced around at the ruins around them both of the buildings and of the vehicles that had either been abandoned or crashed into one another in the panic to get out of dodge. Some had blood on the windshields and bodies behind the wheel. The young man could only hope that the initial blow to the head had done the poor people in the cars in rather than simply kill them to have them turn.

Erik looked inside the dark store with just enough light to make out the shelves, counter and evidence of looting on the floor but nothing detailed. Either way, he picked up a car battery sitting on the counter, likely in the process of being paid for when everything went to hell, and used it to prop the door open. "Alright, we're gonna have to split up a bit in here. Move quickly and get what you think is useful. Keep your eyes and ears open. Ain't no telling what's lurkin' in here. Be careful." Despite realizing he was likely coming off as bossy, he disregarded the thought then nodded at her with a confident smile then pointed to the back wall and then pointed his finger down to the back of the store to indicate to her where he would be then moved toward the back, walking slowly searching for walkers while avoiding knocking something over that would draw some in from the road.

[carter paisley]

[Sorry for my absence. Might take me a couple posts to get back into stride. Hope you can bare with me.]

Carter grinned soberly as he told her to be careful and nodded. "Yeah, you too." She glanced at his face again, having no assurance that it wouldn't be the last time she saw him, before turning away and heading off toward her zone. Calculating each step, she moved without a sound down the aisle. Since she only had a knife, the girl did everything she could to avoid having to defend herself, relying more heavily on light-footed stealth and evasion. To get them out of the way, she tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears. Her skin prickle as her senses went into overdrive, willing herself to hear anything inside the silence. Faintly, she heard buzzing. Flies milled around a produce stand. Waving them away as she passed, Carter glanced at the unrecognizable mush they coveted, trying to remember the last meal she had that didn't come from a can or box.

Every spring, her family would plant a garden and prune the grove of fruit trees. This time of year, they would have a nearly endless supply of peaches, apples, and pears, along with a variety of vegetables. What they didn't eat they would can or occasionally freeze to have later in the year. Not allowing herself to feel homesick, Carter moved past the useless produce section and peered down what appeared to be canned goods. They clearly weren't the first to loot, or even the second, but even so, not everything was gone. Easing the sack off of her shoulder, Carter collected dented cans of soup and beets and anything else that was leftover. There wasn't enough for her to be picky.

She heard more buzzing as she neared the end of the aisle and half expected to see another stand of rotten fruit, but this time it was flesh. The pungent stench hit her nostrils and instinctively her hand covered her mouth and nose. The body had no face. Most of the head, in fact, was missing. Not missing, actually, but rather scattered she found as her gaze shifted to the ruddy brown spray covering the floor. Closerange, heavy caliber.

[erik knight]

Erik nodded in affirmation to Carter's words before setting off down his own selected aisle, combing the shelves keenly and glancing at his feet from time to time in order to make sure there wasn't something large to trip over. Most of what littered the floor was useless paper products, soap and the like which, while seeming important, weren't necessary for survival. The young man asserted that these had been dropped in either the initial panic of the outbreak or during looting when those that had broken in wanted to get out in a hurry. It really didn't matter to him how they ended up there or why though the barren look of the shelves disheartened him.

They had to have food; in the end it always came down to food and water. No matter how nice a camp someone had or how much firepower they had, it amounted to nothing if they starved to death or dehydrated in the hot Georgia sun. Either way, water was covered for the time being. He had a canteen in his backpack, but could boil water from a stream if necessary since the rains allowed for plenty of runoff. It was always a gamble, though and he'd found himself walking for miles upstream of a creek to the starting point to ensure no lurkers had fallen in and contaminated the water. It was a daunting task either way and so he conserved his water as best he could but knew even if they got some food, they'd have to get water soon.

Along the shelves he didn't find much to be desired other than some left over cans of potted meat and a single can of peaches. In the initial panic, people still overlooked these items but the protein a single can could provide a survivor was worth its weight in gold anymore. Having put the cans into the bag and arrived at the end of the aisle, he stopped catching wind of the one smell he'd never forget - dead flesh. Believing it could be one of the dead, he readied his hammer but found Carter standing over the body and made his way over, brows furrowed.

"Poor bastard," he muttered and sighed, "we can't do anything for him now. Come on. Let's keep movin'."

[carter paisley]

A fly curved lazily through the space between the dead and Carter, curiously buzzing past her face, which earned him an attempted swat. She didn't want any of the bacteria passed to her from the corpse via tiny fly feet and that weird little tube it had for a mouth. She still didn't know exactly how much it took for a person to become infected and she had a policy against being the guinea pig.

Carter didn't have to wonder how Erik had survived so far. It became apparent that his self-preservation skills were sharp when he entered her peripheral vision without a sound of warning. The girl's chin jerked up, but before she could tense up too much, she recognized him and hid her surprise. She'd only been standing there less than a minute, but she had been consumed by thought. "Right," she said with a simple nod, moving to give the body a respectable berth as she passed. Once outside the immediate reach of the stench, she took a deep breathe to replenish her lungs of the oxygen they had been deprived while she tried to avoid breathing the odor. 

"I'm going to go see if there's anything in the backroom," she murmured as she paused next to Erik. "I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something made of chocolate." Holding up her non-knife-wielding hand, she showed off her index and middle fingers and how they bent around each other. It took a little more than a rotting pile of meat to stave her appetite, or that's what she told herself anyway. "Wish me luck."

[erik knight]

Erik nodded affirmatively when she mentioned checking the back room and couldn't help but grin a bit when she hoped for chocolate. He hadn't had chocolate, or any type of sweet, since everything had started. He could recall having his mini fridge full of candy at home and would often have opened it up and gorged himself on his nights off watching horror movies. While it seemed like heaven at the time, he looked back on it and realized he was too much of a loser for his own good; even so, he'd give anything to be able to go back and do it again, even if it dead mean he was a lonely loser. At least he wouldn't have to deal with the dead chasing him at every turn and not knowing if he'd survive to see another day.

"Alright," he warned nodding toward a door next to the beer coolers. Despite his wanting to stock up on some beer he knew it would be no good with the heat and potential danger getting intoxicated could bring. He turned his attention back to Carter as he pointed toward the front counter. "I'll be checkin' the front out. Maybe I can find somethin' of use. There's probably no light back there, so come get me if ya need me." He wanted to go with her, but didn't want to insult her by making her think that he didn't have faith in her to do something on her own and she'd managed to survive that long on more than just luck. He was within earshot either way and would come to her aid if she required it.

He turned and looked to the shelves and shook his head at how empty they were, but they couldn't expect much else. "Good luck. With the way things are, we'll both need if we're gonna find anything. Though we shouldn't stay in here much longer and get movin' to the next building." He smiled confidently at her then moved down the same aisle he'd started down toward the counter hoping for a hidden gun, keys to a manager's office that could offer supplies, or even a simple Snickers bar. Carter wasn't the only one hoping for chocolate in the search.

[carter paisley]

Dropping her arm back to her side as her fingers untwisted, Carter passed the knife to her other hand. She rubbed her palm against her thigh, drying the sweat on her pant-leg, before switching the knife back into her dominate hand. Although she couldn't control her sweaty palms, she kept her shoulders relaxed and smiled genially toward Erik, following his glance toward the cases of beer. "Ok. Just don't get yourself into trouble without me," she joked, despite having the clear impression that he was too smart to bother drinking. Carter herself may die a virgin and never having gotten wasted, but she was ok with that as long as it was always put off until tomorrow. Always tomorrow.

The girl tipped her head as he did indeed wish her luck and smirked back as he started to move toward the front of the building before shuffling over to the backroom door. There was a 12x12" Plexiglass window set in the door at "eye-level", but because Carter was on the shorter side, she raised onto her toes to peer inside. Even with hands cupped to the glass, she couldn't see anything until she took her flashlight from her pocket and, clicking it on, shone the beam around the backroom. After a few moments of surveying the room from outside, Carter's breath fogged up the glass and she still hadn't seen much of anything, good or bad, so she tried the handle.

Her brow furrowed as the handle turned, but something hindered its mobility from the inside. Some kind of barricade. A heavy one, too, she found as she tried to press her shoulder into it with no success. Someone had blocked the door and had never unblocked it in order to get out. She was considering fetching Erik to see if their combined efforts could move the barricade when the sound of crashing from within made her jump. Elevating onto her toes again, she leaned toward the window as a hand smashed into it, bouncing off the trauma-resistant pane. Biting the inside of her cheek, Carter shone the flashlight in the faces of two walkers, wearing matching vests and nameplates, their rotting faces baring teeth as they tried to get to her. Behind them, shadowed figures started to separate from the darker corners.

"No luck," Carter informed Erik a few minutes later when she found him up front. "All of the employees are locked in back there." She really had no inclination to take on a herd -- even if it may only be a small one -- for the slim chance that there may be untainted supplies left behind. "Did you find anything good?" She tried not to sound too hopeful.

[erik knight]

After smirking at Carter's remark on getting into trouble with her, he came to the front counter and stepped behind it, looking at it for a moment with his hands on his hips before sliding around the notebooks and papers scattered about on it. He noted the phone and picked it up only to find no dial tone; he wasn't too discouraged and hadn't suspected that a random phone in rural Georgia would work when so many others didn't. He didn't bother putting the phone back on the hook and simply laid it down on the counter and turned to a table beside him noting several keys likely belonging to the store. Upon closer inspection, he spotted a pack of cigarettes and a some pictures along with a wallet which, like the phone, was useless.

He heard steps approaching and glanced over to make sure it was Carter before looking back at the messy clerk area. "Good, I'd rather 'em be locked up than wanderin' around out here," he stated in response rather matter of fact and, in realization that he sounded cold and unfeeling at all turned to look at her with a sigh, "some of my coworkers thought it a good idea to seal themselves in the store room... they're probably still there, too. Goes to show hiding ain't the key to survival." He pushed the thought of his friends from his mind as quickly as possible not wanting to dwell on their fate as it wouldn't do him any good in his current situation and would only serve to distract him.

When she asked if he'd found anything he shook his head and pointed to the counter that, aside from some papers was pretty much barren having been looted like the shelves. His finger indicated the table beside it that he suspected was for employees just below a large key rack. "Just a half-pack of cigarettes and a whole lotta keys... nothin' of use really." It was disheartening to find nothing of use but despite the sad look of things, he picked up the cigarettes and stuck them in his pocket, shrugging over at Carter. "Gotta deal with stress some way."

The young man stepped from around the counter and stopped just inside the propped open doorway, facing his traveling partner. "We should move on to the next building," he suggested, "we don't have much time to kill before dark and we'll have to stop for the night - best to travel as much as we can."

[carter paisley]

Carter didn't rush the man as he finished sorting through the contents scattered across the desk. Instead she hopped up on the corner of the counter and waited patiently, swinging her legs so that the rubber heels of her boots bounced lightly against the side, but didn't make much noise aside from an occasional squeak. It was nice to sit down for a moment outside of the saddle. She didn't bother shrugging the backpack from her shoulder, knowing the rest would be brief and not to get too comfortable.

On the short walk up front, Carter had been imagining the horror of believing you had barricaded yourself into safety, only to have the sudden revelation that you had only trapped yourself in with a monster. For this reason alone, Erik's remark caught her off guard and she blinked. When he turned to her, her body reacted on its own, her face turning away just a fraction, a nuance of motion that he may not even notice. To a small degree, it caused her to give him a sideways, skeptical review. Her gaze dropped to the ground as he explained and she felt herself nodding. "I don't disagree," she sighed, referring to the downfall of hiding and, because she knew what he had meant, added, "Better they stay there than spread the disease. God knows there's enough of them on the loose already."

Non-judgmentally, she watched him pocket the cigarettes and shrugged back. With either a soft snort or a chuckle, or a mixture of both, she shook her head in an amused way. "If you ask me, lung cancer doesn't sound so bad anymore." Out loud that sounded more melancholy than she intended, but she decided she didn't care and let it at that.

When it looked like Erik was done, Carter slid down from her perch and followed him to the door, walking past him back into the sunshine. Just as the rays made her feel too warm, a breeze wafted by. "It's weird that there are still days that the weather is nice. Sometimes I think I'd prefer if it was always raining or overcast." She didn't mean to get distracted or be distracting, and kept moving as she mused, mostly to herself. The horses were across the lot where they had left them, chewing up the overgrown grass. They didn't seem to sense any threats, but Carter kept an eye out as they moved down the strip to the pawn shop.