Brain Dead, Chapter Two.
Evangeline felt herself rousing from the blackness that she had encountered with a small yawn, oh goddamn it did she fall asleep after that? That's just great, she could have been surrounded by walkers and eaten in the time that she was taking a little cat nap on the floor of this place. Groaning a little she sat up and clutched at her head, opening her eyes she promptly let out a small scream, a walker head was pinned directly onto the wall in front of her, literally centimetres away, trying to get her wits back under control, she stood up shakily and wandered over to the head, it was still snapping weakly at her and she flipped a knife out, stabbing it through the skull and watching it fall still, seeing a note pinned with the head she sighed.
Taking the pin out she grimaced as she felt the blood and other liquid she didn't even want to think about from the walker plip onto her hand as she took the note out from the pin, throwing that aside as well, the note was written in the most untidy writing and she thought that at least 75% of the words on it were spelt wrong. From what she could make out it was from that bastard who knocked her out, touching her nose gingerly, that soon became the least of her problems as she swore loudly and rushed to her backpack.
The bastard had taken all of her supplies!
Not having had a drink in more than a day now, she wanted that water she had been saving and now it was gone she began to panic, she needed something to drink, Evangeline could tell that she was weak and she needed to regain her energy back. Taking deep breaths in and out, she muttered to herself to calm down, she needed to keep a level head and get a hold of the situation at hand, being panicked would do nothing for her except get her hurt, or worse. So, with that she closed her eyes and wandered through the kitchen area, seeing that it had mostly been ransacked, Evangeline slumped slightly, but checked anyway.
Opening a few cupboards she found tins of fruit that had been left there, perfect, she grinned to herself and as she opened one of the cans she swiftly drank the juice that was in there first, it was a welcome taste on her dry mouth and made her feel instantly better. Letting her fingers pick up the rings of pineapple Evangeline savoured them, not knowing when her next meal was going to come, yet she was too hungry not to eat the rest of the fruit in the can, she still needed more nutrients, she couldn't carry on eating this little.
Now, the tin empty, she threw it aside and took the small box of crackers out of the cupboard, before removing the rest of the tins of fruit and shoving them in her backpack, she needed to take all that she could find, however disgusting she would have thought it was when she was able to pick and choose what food she would have eaten, peaches and tinned oranges were not her favourite things in the world, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
Since she was here, she took the time to check out some of the washing facilities, there was a staff shower and after checking that the area was secure, she nipped inside and tried to turn on the water. After the initial gunk came out, much to Evangeline's disgust, she was overjoyed to see that the water coming out was clean, and it was slightly warm, quickly she stripped out of her clothes and eagerly washed herself in the warm water, which although got colder and colder and the shower less powerful, she was grateful for none the less. Taking a clean tshirt out of her back pack she towelled herself dry with the older one, before throwing it aside, she could pick new clothes up from the stock room or the rest of the store downstairs before she left. Pulling on her denim shorts, and her leather boots, Evangeline let her hair dry on its own, it was a boy cut, and it would take about 5 minutes in this heat which hadn't seemed to let up any overnight.
Opening the door to the bathroom Evangeline heard movement, and she quickly let her eyes narrow, taking one of her knives out of the holster she had fixed on her leg, she walked, slowly, and carefully through the halls, hearing people in the room she had just been in, she was secretly glad that she was able to listen to what they were talking about, so she could tell if they were friendly or not friendly and decide on the appropriate action, before she got herself into anything bad again. The bruise on her nose was enough to attest to that train of thought. Keeping her ears sharp in case they decided to move off, Evangeline pressed her ear to the wall once more and listened.
"The trail of blood goes in here…" one of them commented, he sounded Southern just like the man who had been here last night, and she found that her interest was piqued by the conversation, maybe they were related or something and he was looking for him? Who knew. Maybe she would find out soon enough however.
"He must have used this to cauterise the wound." Another man spoke, in disbelief, that was the exact same feeling that she had gone through when she had found out what had happened to the man, Merle if she recalled correctly, she still couldn't believe someone had managed to survive cutting their hand off, even if she didn't know how or why he had done it.
"I told you, it wouldn't let it stop him." The other man stated, before shouting "Merle!" and it was then that Evangeline knew that they were looking for the same man that had been here last night, and she thought that she had better pop her head around the corner and tell them just what had gone down last night, maybe they would find what she had to say, however limited that might be, useful in some manner.
As she threaded two more knives through her fingers, she stepped around the doorframe with them held out, her backpack over her shoulder, she found that there were three men in the room instead of just the two that she had heard talking about the missing person they were apparently looking for. It was the third man, an Asian, who pointed her out and drew his gun shakily, the other men followed suit and she narrowed her eyes at the two who seemed more confident with a fire arm, they would be the biggest threats if this turned nasty, which she was preparing for. No, she wasn't going to make the same mistake twice not like yesterday.
"What are you doing here?" she asked in a cool tone, her voice was clipped, she didn't want to give any impression that the men were welcome around her, not like last night where her nice approach had failed massively.
"We could ask you the same question!" the other Southern man exclaimed, brandishing his crossbow at her, well, the two certainly acted like they were related, and Evangeline wondered if the other man was the 'leader' of the group, he would seem to be from the way they were all standing, but she couldn't be sure, nor did she actually really care about this little group of survivors, travelling in larger groups drew more attention, made things more dangerous, at least in her experience anyway.
Seeing that this was going to be sort of a stand-off situation, Evangeline did not lower her weapons, but the other man, the one who she had also seen talking turned and gave some sort of signal to the group and they all hesitantly lowered their weapons, and she supposed that it was only right that she did the same thing, she didn't want to make the atmosphere any more tense than it already was, it spoke of violence and she didn't really want to get her clean clothes dirty. Slipping her knives back into her holster she crossed her arms and looked up at the three men with a quirked eyebrow.
"Now let's all just…calm down." The dark haired man stated, trying to diffuse the situation "We're here looking for one of the members of our group, you haven't seen him while you've been here, have you?" he asked Evangeline, noting that she seemed a little young to be on her own around here, so he thought that he should keep his guard up for an older person who might still be in the area, maybe she had her own group as well? He couldn't rule out that possibility.
"There was someone here last night yes, when I came here I saw him, spoke with him for a little while." She elaborated, not letting all the details go just yet, after all, it was something that she wanted to keep to her chest as long as possible, maybe they would give her something for the information if she played her cards right, she could see the Southern man and the Asian perk up a little bit with the information, although she wondered just why the Asian seemed so happy…maybe he just didn't fancy wandering around walker infested streets to find this guy.
"Tell us where he went then dumbass." The Southerner demanded, stepping forwards and attempting to seem more authorative than he really came across, he just came across as slightly intimidating, but nothing that Evangeline couldn't handle she had gone through worse with the other encounters she had had with humans along the road.
"I am not telling you anything, I don't even know your names, why should I trust you?" she asked, her eyes narrowed as if she was daring any of them to counter what she had just said, they all knew that it was true, why would she trust them? Why would they trust her? They could all easily be lying about the things they were telling each other, but at times like these, Evangeline wished she had more faith in humanity, but, perhaps it was a good thing, that she didn't.
The leader of the group stepped forwards and extended his hand towards Evangeline, before stating; "My name is Rick, this is Glenn and this is Daryl."
He gestured to each of the group members in turn, before waiting as if asking silently for her to complete the formalities by giving them her name, Evangeline wondered if she should or not, but, didn't believe it was going to be that big of a problem, she wouldn't be seeing these guys again anyway, so what was the harm?
"I'm Evangeline."
With that she took his hand in her own and shook it firmly, letting her eyes lock with his own for a moment, and she drew it away soon afterwards. She could sense that they weren't going to leave without answers, and she supposed if the roles were reversed, neither would she.