Time frame: Swamp City
Rating: M for language/zombie violence
Relationships established: None yet
Description: Shenanigans involving Swamp City
"Morning all." Rochelle was up at the crack of dawn, unable to sleep long anymore. She sat up, along with her companions. She and Coach stopped at sitting, and Ellis, who was already sitting in a kitchen chair remained there. He was trying to come out of sleep as Nick stood and entered the kitchen, noticing several items on the table that weren't there before.
"What's this?" He asked, motioning with his gun.
"Just some stuff I picked up." Ellis answered, voice still heavy from sleep.
"Just some stuff you picked up?"
"That's what I said." The younger man answered with the patience of a saint.
"Where did you just pick these up at?" Nick scoffed in disbelief.
On top of the table was a bottle of BBQ sauce, a box of tampons, another box of saltines, toilet paper, and several candy bars.
"There's an abandoned AmPM down the street. We passed it on the way here. I went last night." Ellis answered, smiling to himself.
"Last night? You risked your fucking life for tampons? For tampons, Ellis? What do you plan on doing with those?" Nick complained.
"Well, since Ro got her period-"
"Ellis!" Rochelle scolded.
"Sorry. Well, since Ro has lady things happening, I figured, why not? The rest of all this just happened to be left behind. I got the candy cause I have been told a million times that chocolate helps with cramps and she wasn't doin so hot yesterday." He nodded to Rochelle, who instantly got over her PMS being announced to the room.
"Thank you." Rochelle looked like she was close to crying, odd for her tough-girl nature.
"Nah, don't worry about it. Consider it a thanks for runnin around KiddyLand with me." Ellis remembered the two of them, back to back killing some clowns.
"By the way, got you something else." Ellis eyed Nick, reaching around in his pockets, patting himself here and there before finding what he was looking for.
He extended his hand out in front of him toward where Nick was standing. The older man took note of this and hesitantly held out his hand under Ellis'. He felt something smooth and heavy weigh down on his palm.
"A bar of soap? You got me a bar of soap?" Nick eyed the thing. It was new, smelled nice, but had no brand.
"Yeah, you were throwing a fit about 'bacteria this' and 'bacteria that' yesterday so I thought...ya know...soap." Ellis shrugged.
Nick actually smiled, for the first time since the world went to shit, he smiled. It wasn't a huge smile, but it was much better than scowling.
"Okay, slick. I'll admit that. But you should have had someone go with you." Nick replied, tucking the bar into his pocket. I'm using this later.
"I tried. Coach was too tired, and you told me to eat shit." Ellis replied.
"I did not." Nick argued.
"Yes, yes you did. I woke you up and asked you to come with me and your exact words were, 'Ellis, eat shit' so I went by myself."
"Nick is pretty much right. That was damn foolish. Never again, little man." Coach threw in.
"Well, whose ready to trudge through some bacteria-ridden little town? I don't know about you, but I want to be as far out of here as I can get by the time the week is out. This needs to all just have been a bad dream real fucking soon." Nick announced, prepping himself to go out of the safe house.
"Right behind you." Rochelle agreed.
"Hey, you guys ever watch that movie where they trick the zombies by walkin like them? Think it works?" Ellis asked as they trudged through the swamp.
"I don't know, Joe Dirt. Why don't you go give it a try?" Nick answered.
"First of all, Joe Dirt was from Louisiana, not Georgia. Second of all-"
His explanation was cut off by the sounds of sobbing.
"Shit, there's one of them witches nearby." Coach warned, turning off his flashlight.
Thus far, the transition through the swamp had gone over smoothly. There were plenty of infected, by they were easy to pick off. With the sniper rifles available, most of the specials were brought down before they got close enough to be a threat.
"Don't worry about it. Everyone just walk around her." Rochelle suggested. The witches were always a pain in the ass and the group needed to conserve their ammo.
"I agree. Ellis, turn your damn light off." Nick snapped, trying to avoid stepping on any twigs as the group walked a full circle around where the witch sounded like she came from.
"Nick's mom at 3:00." Ellis said quietly, not entirely sure they were far enough from the witch to make any noise, but it wasn't a wonder for long when Nick drew his gun and shot the spitter in the face.
"Wow, that would have been hilarious... if I didn't completely hate my mom." Nick kept walking, ignoring the surprised look on the youngest group member's face.
"Hey man, I-" Ellis started to apologize.
"GODDAMN JOCKEY THING!" Coach yelled, stumbling about and falling over a tree root with the creepy little special infected on his back. They rolled down a steep hill and into the swamp water. "Get it off!"
The others followed suit as quickly as possible, and this time it was Ro's sharp shooting that blew the back of the Jockey's head to bits. The guys helped Coach up out of his near drowning position.
"Damn, that's not right for a man to be ridden like that." Coach grumbled, chuckling at his own joke with a husky 'heh heh heh".
"Well, we made it to the plane, at any rate." Rochelle noted, pointing to a crashed airplane completely blocking their path.
"Only one way to get past it, going through." Ellis noted.
The four trudged several yards farther, preparing to enter the broken side of the plane before some infected dumped out, along with a hairless, humanoid thing that belonged in Silent Hill.
"HOLY DICKS!" Nick yelled, taking a couple paces back, "What the fuck is that?"
His yelling apparently angered it because it bolted in his direction on all fours. He shot at it, continuing to back up as fast as he could in the knee deep swamp water, but it caught up quickly, knocking him into the murk.
"Shoot it! Shoot the damn thing!" Nick tried his best to hold it off with the handle of his ax, unable to let go and look for the gun he dropped. "Any time now!"
It didn't take long for Coach to put several bullets in it and Nick let it drop as soon as he was sure it was dead.
"To answer your question, that was a Mud Man. Ran into one back when I was with the last group."
The group checked the rest of the plane for any supplies available, but all that was laying around was a couple of old handguns.
"Why the hell are there guns on a plane?" Rochelle wondered aloud.
"You can't carry a gun on a plane?" Ellis questioned.
"No, sweetie, you can't."
"Hm, news to me. This is my first time on a plane."
"Oh really? Well, Ellis if your sister-mom could see you now, all grown up on a flying machine." Nick said 'flying machine' with an imitation of Ellis' accent.
The youngest of the group smirked.
"You know that's a stereotype. People from the south aren't into incest...I mean, I guess some are, which is why the stereotype exists. But I never knew anyone like that, and my parents weren't related." Ellis explained, not taking Nick's cruelty to heart.
"Something was up in that gene pool. You're like a giant goddamn five year old."
"Sorry, Nick. We can't all have spitter-moms." Ellis retorted, pushing open the door on the other side of the plane. His eyes widened when the door practically flew off and made a deafening noise.
"Goddamn it, Ellis! That noise is gonna draw a horde!" Nick complained, picking up one of the handguns off the floor that he didn't want a few minutes ago.
And it certainly did draw a horde. At least 50 infected showed up, three jockeys, one hunter, and one smoker. Fighting them in the confined space of the plane just made it more difficult. The group couldn't get out of the open door, being that infected kept pouring through. In the tussle, Nick managed to find himself under a Hunter's pin, but it didn't have a chance to start tearing his flesh off before the man he just finished insulting blew its face off. He smirked at the gambler, pulling him to his feet.
"Thanks champ."
"Yep. You got red on you, buddy." Ellis pointed at the pieces of hunter head/face painting the front of Nick's suit before heading out the door with the others.
"Goddamn it..." Nick said under his breath, this time with a grin creeping over the corners of his mouth.