300 miles on a hunch || OPEN

[carter paisley]

Carter stabbed at the fingers that poked through the crack, crouching down slightly so that she was eye-level with it. 'Come on, put your face to it. The screwdriver was long enough that it could hit brain if she was able to get to it, but after a couple minutes, she didn't think that would happen. It's not like the zombie relied much on its sense of sight; he wouldn't be peeking in at her and she wasn't going to be poking her fingers out to bait the son of a gun. She tucked the driver into her waistband, positioning it carefully so that it wouldn't poke her, and ran back to the lawnmower, climbing on top so she could fetch her gear and supplies.

Applejacks backed away from her, ears pointed toward the sound of creaking, groaning boards. His instincts warned him of the danger and he felt trapped in the shed. Walkers smelled bad enough to a normal person, their flesh rank with decay, but horses had a much stronger sense of smell and didn't like the smell of blood to begin with. "Easy buddy," she soothed, needing him to focus on her. He was a loyal horse and mindful of his training. His head turned toward her and those big, brown horse eyes settled on her. He trusted her to get them to safety. "That's it." She rewarded him, gently stroking his neck with a hand that trembled slightly.

Within a few minutes, she saddled and bridled the animal and looped the shoulder strap of her backpack over the saddle horn, tying it to the pommel. She glanced for the hundredth time toward the sound of the biter. It looked like the shed was still in tact and there was only one. One she was fairly certain she could handle. What worried her was how much noise it was making. These days, things were pretty quiet. Even the wildlife were more subdued, so the grunting and rattling seemed like a cacophony comparatively. She had to get out of the shed before more of the dead laid siege and cornered her there.

Drawing the reins over Jacks' head, she fixed them to the saddle horn as well, keeping them out of the way of his feet. Next, she turned toward the door, retrieving the screwdriver from her belt. Someday she would be able to approach a moment like this without shaking, but this was not that day. She ran her tongue over her dry, chapped lips and mentally fortified herself. When she moved, she did so quickly, the shakiness not badly hindering her ability to unchain the door in a matter of seconds. It opened outward and in a burst of energy, she drove her shoulder in and forced the door outward as abruptly as possibly, hoping to knock over the geek on the other side.

[erik knight]

Erik listened as the noise from the walker became more desperate to get to what was inside. Apparently, the lurker could smell the living beings inside the barn and was going to stop at nothing to get to them. The dead weren't intelligent at all, but would relentlessly seek food; their lack of pain only made them more dangerous in that they would walk through fire, glass and fall from tall heights in order to see their meal entered their belly which was a danger not shared by the living. Regardless, the increased noise gave Erik more indication where the walker was and he spotted him beating on the wood gurgling and growling. Carter and her horses were sitting ducks inside the confines of the barn, but were safe so long as more walkers didn't turn up.

He snuck up behind the walker, quickening the pace a bit but remaining cautious of his surroundings. The young man had to silence the biter before it drew the attention of more that could be lurking nearby as if ringing a dinner bell in a starving dinning room. Erik raised the hammer and closed distance more and came up behind it. While it was distracted by the movement within, he took his opportunity and slammed the hammer down into the top of the walker's head, ending the threat, at least he could hope that it hadn't drawn more in with the noise it had made. With the force of the hit crushing its skull, his hammer had gotten stuck inside and as he pressed his foot against the corpse's back to gain leverage in order to pull the weapon free, the door came open violently.

It slammed into his shoulder sending him to the ground beside the walker with a thud and he sat up quickly, brows furrowed locking gaze with Carter. "Ya know, Carter - most women kiss their heroes, not kill 'em with barn doors..." He chuckled a bit, letting her in that it was in jest as he pulled himself to his feet and looked at the hammer still stuck where he'd placed it. "Guess I returned your hammer early, huh?"

Erik looked back at her, a look of seriousness of his face, "You alright?"

[carter paisley]

Carter took one step outside the barn, screwdriver clenched in a small, tight fist before pulling up short. Needless to say, she didn't expect Erik to be staring up at her from the ground. What was he doing sitting in the dirt like that? She looked at the motionless walker and put the pieces together before staring back at him mutely. "Well..." she wasn't quite ready to joke, adrenaline still gushing through her. "I guess I owe you one then." His laugh settled her a bit and she cracked a small smile when he joked about the hammer; she liked the way he could lighten the mood. But when she looked back at the body -- blood and brain matter inky black in the darkness -- she leaned forward and placed her hands on her knees.

"I should be used to this by now, but..." She shook her head and held out her hand so that he could see the way it was trembling. She sighed and leaned against Jack's shoulder, tilting her head into his mane. "Thank you," she said to Erik, looking at him with one eye, the other side of her face pressed to the horse's neck. Despite her doubts, she was starting to get used to this way of life and started feeling better after a couple deep breaths.

She gave him a brief appreciative smile and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. Probably better off than you, actually. I didn't hurt you, did I?" She had thrown herself into that door with everything inside of her. Maybe that wasn't much, but maybe it had been still enough. "I'm sorry about that."

[erik knight]

Seeing the screwdriver in her hand, the young man counted himself lucky to have fallen to the dirt and not been withing range. He couldn't say she'd have stabbed him for certain but there was hardly any light outside and barn and she could have easily mistaken him for the biter. While his arm hurt, he knew it didn't hurt nearly like having a screwdriver driver through his head. After gathering his bearings, coming to his feet and brushing himself off a bit, Erik waved off the owing him one line and shook his head. "Nah. If anything we're even. You gave me a place to stay and I took down rot-face there. So don't worry about it."

He watched her reaction to seeing the body and looked over at it with a sigh. The sight of the walkers didn't get to him anymore nor did killing them, but he didn't suspect he'd ever get used to the smell of rotting flesh and, in the event life did return to normal by some miracle, he'd never forget it. He listened silently for a moment looking at her trembling which was in stark contrast to his rather connectedness. His heart was racing from adrenaline, but the fear had long subsided. His fight or flight instinct had a way of kicking off once the immediate threat was dealing with though he knew other people didn't have that blessing. "Honestly, pray you never do. They were people once, after all... not anymore, but... still - I kill to survive. Don't mean I have to like it. Ya know?" To her thanks, he nodded affirmatively and moved over to the biter, pulling the hammer loose and wiping it on his jeans.

For the first time since meeting her, he saw a genuine smile from her. It was refreshing to see in the least that humanity wasn't totally gone in others just as it was relieving to find she wasn't hurt. Erik rubbed his shoulder where the door had hit him and shook his head, "I'm alright. Got more bruises from my own stupidity than anything. No apology needed. You didn't know I'd taken it down."

[carter paisley]

Jacks turned his head to sniff her and then stepped away, severing her loose grip on him. She let him move away and faced Erik. Hearing his tone when he spoke now, she found it just a smidgen too staid for her liking. Carter was glad that he wasn't going to hold her to anything, but at the same time, she got a feeling that she was snuffing out that little spark of humor. In an attempt to remedy that, she piped in with, "hey. No take-backs, k?" Just to be sure that he knew it was ok to joke with her in the future, she threw in a wink.

Carter felt herself deflate as she exhaled, all the tension her body carried moments earlier ebbing. The scene turned out to be serendipitously anticlimactic and all of the intensity she had conjured to keep herself alive faded. 'This is like having a bodyguard,' she thought absently. She studied him as he retrieved the hammer. He knew what he had to do and had made peace with that and himself. "Yeah," she replied simply. She knew. She only feared that one day her human side would get her killed. Although surviving sometimes felt like too much of a burden to want it, she wanted to live.

She nodded when he shrugged off her apology. It had been an accident, though she still felt better knowing he wasn't holding it against her. "We should probably keep watch for a while to be sure no more are coming. That guy made a ruckus. I'm not going to be able to sleep after all this anyway. I can watch."

[erik knight]

Erik found her sense of humor welcome and was glad to see she felt that she could relax a bit around him. He truly meant her no harm and, if anything, would do what he could to help keep her safe so long as he was there. Carter seemed to be a nice person thrown into a bad world like the rest of them and it was the least he could do for a fellow survivor to have their back. At her comment, he chuckled a wide smile spreading across his cheeks followed by a nod. "Alright. No take backs."

She seemed to understand what he was talking about, but only time would tell. Erik hoped that she'd make it through the way the world was but, more than that, that she'd not judge him too harshly if and when she saw some of the things he had accepted doing in order to live through to the next day. The hammer didn't even feel like it had much weight in his hand and the young man chalked it up to his arm having gone practically numb from hammering boards over windows just a couple of hours prior. Still, when she mentioned she would keep watch, he looked down at it and then offered it over to her.

"Okay, sounds like a plan," he began while nodding to the hammer, "you might need this." Erik wasn't going to argue with her about who got watch, but kept his feelings to himself about relieving her in a couple of hours so that she could rest. His body had gotten used to minimal sleep, but as on edge as she was after the scare they had, he didn't want to leave her out there all night. "I'll be in the cabin. Try and stay close so you can get me if a lot of 'em show up. Kay?"

[carter paisley]

Like Erik, the young woman welcomed any mood lighter than fear, grief, and despair, which seemed to dominate her spectrum recently. His smile dimmed some of the fatigue he clearly wore on his face. That smile paired with the chuckle extracted a bitter-sweet pang in Carter's chest. She had always been something of a jokester and provided the comic relief within her social circles, clowning around carelessly. She had lots of wonderful memories buried somewhere, but what pained her was how hard it was becoming to unearth and hold onto them. Right now, though, they felt a little closer to heart as she smirked back at him.

With a nonplussed expression, she glanced down at the hammer her offered to her. "Oh... No, thanks. That's alright. I'm more of a stabbing or shooting kind of girl than the bludgeoning kind," she explained casually, tucking her fingers into her pockets and rocking from her toes onto her heels. She shrugged and rolled her eyes like this way a normal, everyday kind of statement. And really, if the world kept heading in the same direction, it would be the new normal soon enough.

"Alright. Goodnight." She let him go, rounding up her horses who had wandered onto the lawn a few yards away to graze before re-securing the barn doors. Unbuckling the bridle and saddle, she stripped off all the tack and left it in a pile in the corner. Before settling in for first watch, she fetched the flashlight and switched it off. It's not like the battery would go dead -- it was a kinetically charged flashlight -- she simply didn't need it on. After that, all she had to do was settle into a good vantage spot and keep her eyes open.

As she had stated, she was far from sleep. Her subconscious mind played back what had happened and then went one step further by speculating on what horrible things could have happened. But at some point, her thoughts turned toward Erik. Now that she reflected on the interaction, she realized she had started to trust him and chided herself. 'You barely know him.'  Still, a faint smile tugged at one corner of her mouth as she recollected his jests.

[erik knight]

Erik didn't have to state the obvious in knowing that shooting wasn't a good idea in an area where a sound of that sort would echo throughout the woods for miles and draw in more biters than either of them could handle. Even he wouldn't fire unless he was backed into a corner and had no other choice if not only to keep sound down, but conserve ammunition for when he truly needed it. He also kept a knife in his pocket but didn't like the risk of getting that close to a walker; all it took was a single scratch and it was all over. The hammer allowed greater reach than his knife, though it was considerably more brutal and he could understand her not wanting to smash a head open like he'd just done.

"Okay," he agreed with a nod, "I'll leave you to it, then. Goodnight. Be careful." He made his way back into the cabin and looked at the armchair he'd moved out of the way in order to get back outside. Rather than move it back in front of the door, he instead chose to push the door closed and lay down in front of it. This served two purposes: he would be awoken should the door attempt to be opened inward and he'd easily hear a knock or request of help from Carter if she got into trouble. He laid the hammer next to him along with his gun and interlaced his fingers behind his head staring up at the ceiling in the dark.

He couldn't shake the thoughts of the lurker he'd killed and how many of his friends and family could very well have succumbed to that fate and were walking around eating people. He knew his mother wasn't one of them as he'd made certain of that before leaving home, but his father had been nowhere in sight and then there was Travis' fiancee that had been mauled on the train tracks. Erik had no problem taking care of business when it needed to be done, but he had to mentally admit to himself that having to shoot, stab, or bludgeon his father or friend would be hard. The young man felt he'd have to call it self-defense and ending their misery in order to get through; added to all he'd seen already, it was a wonder he wasn't insane.

As Erik shut his eyes, he thought on how many walkers might be in the woods and couldn't be seen; he wondered if they'd heard the commotion earlier and were coming to investigate and if Carter would be okay on her own outside. He knew next to nothing about her other than her name and that the cabin belonged to her family, but couldn't help his thoughts. Sometimes he was too caring and other times, he didn't care enough or at all. It was a like a light-switch: he could be ruthless and cold when need be but the next be kind and protective. A chuckle escaped his lips at the notion of how his career choice should have been that of a police officer or a soldier rather than a cook in a hotel restaurant and then his thought of the happier times before the dead as he drifted off to sleep.

[carter paisley]

The first hour of watch went by easily. Carter got lost in her thoughts which strayed from the occurrences of that night to years ago and then even toward the future, uncertain as it was. All the while her eyes diligently doing what they had been assigned to do without much conscious effort. The second hour of watch was probably the hardest. She kept checking her watch, minutes dragging by. After that, hour three breezed by as she got a second wind and found things to occupy herself. She memorized the alphabet backwards(occasionally faltering around 'j'), ate a piece of butterscotch candy, organized her inventory, and carefully combed through her hair with her fingers, picking out all the little tangles that had accumulated, before braiding it.

In hour four, her eyes started to feel dry and itchy. She rubbed at them, but the unpleasant feeling wouldn't go away. She thought about going to wake up Erik. 'Just gonna close my eye for a minute first,' she told herself, jolting up quite awhile later. The sky had taken on a navy hue, easily distinguishable from pure night. Turning over her wrist, she read her watch. 5:58. The sun would be up shortly.

Pushing back her bangs, which were getting long enough to frame her jawline, she tried to clear the sleep from her face. She peered outside and didn't see any signs that anything had changed while she slept. Thank God. She stretched her legs, then her upper body, feeling like she'd gotten hit by a bus.

[erik knight]

Erik's night had been more or less the norm for him as it had been for months. Generally, he was alone, though, and didn't require leaving a place he'd made safe enough for a few hours of sleep unless there was major trouble which was extremely rare. In either case, he slept well for the first time since the night before everything started. He felt like he'd been running non-stop at a dead sprint for three long months and had finally sat down. His dreams were mostly of the past and how things were with his family and friends; it could be assumed that it was his mind's way of coping with what he'd lost and would never have again. Sure, he could make friends, but his family was gone and the old friends were gone forever. It was a sobering thought that he didn't dwell on in his waking hours and only revisited in his sleep.

The young man woke before the sun had peaked through the trees and the sky was simply a lighter blue with the distinct orange from the sun streaking through the morning clouds. He came to his feet and picked up the Beretta, sticking it beneath his belt and stuffed the hammer beneath the belt on the opposite side before sliding the door to the cabin open and walking out into the morning air still cool from the rain the night before. He rested a hand on his hip and looked around the area, not seeing any sign of walkers other than the dead one by the barn nor did he see Carter.

At first he began to worry that she'd gotten taken in the night or had left him, which wouldn't surprise him very much as it had happened before though there were no signs of a fight and the barn doors were still closed meaning that her horses were likely still inside. After stretching his arms over his head with a yawn and a follow up pop to the his neck, Erik moved over toward the barn, stopping just outside the door. His eyes glanced down at his own handiwork for a moment then went back to the aged wood where he knocked four times then wait for an answer. It was time to bring up the one thing he let go the night before despite catching on something was amiss: Wyatt.

[carter paisley]

Carter yawned deeply, the corners of her vision dimming. She sat still momentarily and blinked a few times until her eyesight returned to normal, then reluctantly stood up. Her movements were stiff and sluggish, but she just needed time to shake off the lethargy. In the meantime, her stomach whined and she pressed a palm into her abdomen in an attempt to quell the growl. The flesh under her hand was taut, not supple as it used to be, one of the many changes she'd undergone in the past few months.

Going about something of a morning routine, Carter fed her horses first, then herself. Oats for them, peanut butter for her. The substance made her thirsty and she drank water from a large jug that was very nearly empty, but there was a utility sink in the cabin with a manual foot-pump system. It would be filtered water, safe to drink, not that she had always been picky in moments of need. The shower wouldn't work, unfortunately, but there was a well worn path down to the stream where her family used to go fishing and she intended to capitalize on her first opportunity to go down for a bath.

A distinct four-beat knock brought her to her feet and she walked to the door, unable to respond verbally at the moment. As she unchained the door, she did her best to swallow the glob of peanut butter in her mouth. Before the apocalypse, she hadn't really much cared for the stuff, but now it was a life saver, full of protein and fiber. She pushed the door open a foot and gestured, indicating he could come in if he wanted. She set the jar of Jif aside and ran her tongue over her teeth a final time, though her mouth still felt dry. "Mornin'," she said inconsequentially. She hadn't forgotten his offer to help her track down Wyatt, nor had she quite figured out exactly how to handle the conversation she sensed was about to commence.

[erik knight]

Erik didn't have to stand in wait for long before he heard the door being unchained and he stepped back to allow it to open freely and not hit him like it had the night before which, despite what he'd said, did sting that morning and his upper arm was probably bruised. It wasn't cause for alarm, though, and would only serve to annoy him for a few days at the very worst. The young man took her offer and stepped inside the barn looking around briefly then back toward Carter.

"Morning," he replied with a slight nod, "sorry to bother you if you're busy with anything, but we should probably get started lookin' for your friend so we won't be out after dark." His deceptive look showed seriousness and calm while inwardly he was skeptical of the entire Wyatt situation. He could understand if he were dead and she didn't want to face it being someone close to her, but she'd have to sooner or later and the more she put it off, the more difficult it was going to get.

His own friend was gone and he wasn't so sure he'd go into detail about how his death came about, but he felt he could explain to her that he was dead. Even the people he hadn't confirmed dead, he presumed as much. In a world with the dead wandering aimlessly and tearing anything living apart, there was little hope for some of the people in his life to have survived. Erik couldn't count them out completely, though, given that he'd managed to survive as long as he had; it was possible that others in his family and circle of friends may have done the same. He spoke up once more, "I can help you get together what you need and I can wait outside if you need to change or somethin'."

[carter paisley]

Carter studied the man as he entered, thinking he looked a mite better rested, even if he'd only gotten a few hours. It amazed her sometimes how one minute humans seemed so fraglie and easily destroyed, and then the next minute, they were so resilient as to keep running and fighting even without proper food or rest. Erik didn't waste time, lunching straight to the point. She nodded faintly, but didn't say anything at first. Even though she didn't know what to say yet, when he offered to help her get her shit together, she couldn't let him continue to be so nice under false pretenses.

"I wasn't completely truthful yesterday," she began, not pausing there long to give him time to jump to the worst conclusion. "Wyatt isn't really missing -- well, he is, but... He's my brother. I haven't seen him since he came home from college for winter break. He and my other brother, Will, were away for school, you just... reminded me of Wyatt when I first saw you." They had similar builds and hair style, all the features that she might see at first glance, especially since he had been partially silhouetted. Her eyes skimmed the ground as she spoke, occasionally sweeping sheepishly off to the side, but only up to seek Erik's reaction when she had finished her rambling confession.

She brows knitted together and when she opened her mouth, more words tumbled out. "I didn't trust you at first. I felt safer with you thinking that someone on my side could show up at any time. I hope they will, but I know they won't. I mean, I'll be looking for them. They're my brothers, if they're alive I want to find them. But I know how small the chance of actually finding them is, dead or alive. I don't have anything better to do. I just don't want to drag you around." She licked her lips. Her mouth still felt dry, but not from the peanut butter. That little speech was the most she had spoken in a long time.

[erik knight]

Erik listened to her finally come out and tell him the truth and he did so with patience and nary a raised brow. He understood her wanting to protect herself and couldn't condemn her actions too harshly. She was a young woman out on her own, after all, and with a strange man approaching it could mean anything. Though Erik wasn't the kind of man to take advantage in such a way, there were a lot of people that may. When she'd finished, he rested a hand on his hip and nodded.

"Glad you told me," he stated, "but I caught on that Wyatt wasn't comin' last night. Still, honesty goes a long way nowadays - more than it used to and I ain' the sort to hold it against you. I understand why you did it." The way he saw it, honesty had a tendency to build bridges that wouldn't normally connect between people. It was a good rule of thumb in the old world and even more so in the new. If someone started questioning the honesty of another, it could lead to serious trouble. He'd gone looking for his father after leaving Savannah but never found any sign of him whatsoever and so he felt the odds of her finding either brother was slim to none but faith was a good thing to have when all else was lost.

"Goin' all over lookin' for your brother's admirable, but stupid... dangerous. It's a good way to get yourself killed," he explained matter-of-factually but shrugged and looked to the ground for a moment then back at her with a smirk, "which is why I'm goin' with you. Everyone I knew is either dead or missing - probably dead, too... so I've got noplace else to be. Most of all we'll do better with the two of us watching each other's backs anyway. I'll have yours so long as you've got mine. You got my word on that." They may find Wyatt and they may not, or could find his corpse and, as morbid as it sounds, it'd be better than finding nothing. Even Erik would settle for his father's dead body as opposed to never finding out what happened; it gave some sort of closure to the matter that Carter might luck up and find.

[carter paisley]

Carter didn't know how he would react, but she was ready for an arguement in case his tone was negative. Although she felt bad for misleading him, she also couldn't be too apologetic in this dangerous new world where the ethical code was still being revised. She had done when she thought was best and she couldn't start second-guessing herself. In her opinion, people had to prove themselves first before she could place any faith in them. There were no more benefits-of-the-doubt.

However, Erik disarmed the woman with his first few words and the knot in her stomach loosened. Carter's head canted to the side speculatively as he revealed he'd seen through her deception. "Oh..?" She hadn't fully suspected that he had seen through the rouse, maybe simply because she had been an optimist. Part of her didn't mind that she was a bad liar. Of course, she would have minded more if fate had brought a bad man to her door instead and he was able to read her the same way Erik did.

His next words cut her when he went from calling her admirable to stupid in the span of a breath. She opened her mouth, but the only sound she made was a clack as she clamped her jaw shut. Maybe it wasn't a practical plan, but she was human and -- She blinked at his smirk, processing the meaning of it slowly. "So... That makes you stupid too then?" she asked innocently, playing at naivety. A mixture of feelings swarmed her. The tendency to second-guess herself lurked beneath her bantering. She wasn't quite convinced yet that he would be traveling with her, whether she doubted his seriousness, or suspected that she herself would turn around and tell him no. While her emotions boiled down, she covered with a cheeky smile.