Viva Las Vegas

[Chadwyck]

OoC: This is an RP set in the universe of The Walking Dead graphic novels and TV show. As the title suggests, the city that our characters are closest to is Las Vegas. Send me a PM if you are interested because I don't want a HUGE group of survivors. Kthxbai.

BiC:


The scraping sound of limbs dragging across pavement. It’s a sound that one should never have to hear, yet one that Thomas Turner was intimately familiar with. Anyone would be after weeks of hearing it right outside your home, dimming the lights anytime they ventured too close. The faint moan accompanying every step that they took. Walkers, some folks called them. The living dead, interested in only one thing; eating.

Thomas huddled in the corner of the room, a single candle flame illuminating the room, blocked out from the outside world by heavy blankets covering the windows of his once family home. His family. He didn’t think about it, pushing it from his mind as he focused on something, anything, else. He counted the number of steps he heard outside his door, trying to determine how many of them there were.

In the beginning he tried to count the days that he’d been holed up in the house, only daring to go outside during the day, and only to go to the convenience store down the road. Now he didn’t go outside, the convenience store long since looted of the food; he himself had hoarded most of the canned foods up in his own kitchen. The days were blurred together; he blocked out all outside light so he could hardly tell the passage of time. His life became a sequence of sleeping and eating, occasionally he would do push-ups or sit-ups to distract himself from the horrible truth; no one was coming for him, he was going to die in this place.

The twenty-four year old was two years out of college and hadn’t even begun to really live yet. He tried to find a job at a local newspaper, having majored in English for some indiscernible reason. They wouldn’t take him, so he had resolved to work at a book store in town while he focused on writing his first book. It wasn’t coming easily to him. He was looking into jobs in New York, or another of the big cities; he was tired of the suburban life style. He had just been accepted for an interview in Atlanta when this all started. Suddenly, getting away from home to work for pieces of green paper didn’t seem all that important.

Within the first couple of weeks transmission was cut, the lifeline to the outside world severed. Before the news stopped broadcasting they were saying to go to the cities; the military could protect everyone in the cities. But Thomas’ mother was too sick to travel; one of the Walker’s bit her and she got really sick. They had no way of knowing just how sick.

Thomas volunteered to go to the pharmacy and see what antibiotics hadn’t been looted already, when he came back with the medicine it was too late; his mother was dead. But she didn’t stay dead.

The first one to be attacked was Thomas’ sixteen year old sister, completely dumbfounded by the sight of their deceased mother walking down the hallway. His father had been the next to get bitten, trying to free his daughter from his late wife’s hands. Thomas backed into a corner, too frightened and traumatized to think of what to do. He blacked out, and when he came around again, he was standing over his mother’s body with a bloody table leg in his hand.

The fever set upon his father and sister as though they’d been set ablaze, their skin gave off a horrible heat. His dad struggled to speak, “don’t you let us come back as one of them.” He coughed, blood ran from the corner of his mouth, “you do it for me and you do it for her.” His father pointed to the wardrobe that stood in their room, Thomas knew that there was an old revolver behind it in case of emergencies. With tears streaming down his face, he pulled the trigger on two of the people he loved most in the world.

After that, it hadn’t seemed worth moving. He lived in a daze, not feeling. Sometimes he put the barrel of that same revolver to his head, but he was too scared to pull the trigger; on those days he would break down and cry for the family that he lost. It had been a while since that.

He’d lost track of time. Days turned to weeks, and who’s to say that weeks hadn’t turned to months? Today, he sat huddling in the corner; a Walker got curious and started banging on the door. Thomas’ heart throbbed in his chest. “The cities.” He whispered to himself. “If I’m gonna have a chance, I have to get out of here.”

The closest city would be Las Vegas, about one hundred miles north; the irony that Sin City would turn out to be his salvation didn’t occur to him. Under normal circumstances, he may have found it entertaining. But, under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have been driven to seek shelter there in the first place.

He wasn’t an excellent shot, but he tucked the revolver into his waistline, at close range he may be able to do something with it. He grabbed a flashlight and went to the garage door, which opened with a creak. Thomas was thankful that he had an attached garage and he didn’t have to venture outside just yet. Still, to be safe, he stood in the door frame and shone the flashlight around the interior of the dark room, not venturing inside until he was certain that the garage was empty. He hoped that his parents had fueled up the car when last they used it.

He stepped into the garage and looked around on his dad’s workbench, grabbing an old axe from his dad’s days as a volunteer fireman; it would probably be best to preserve ammunition, he wasn’t sure where he would find more.

He climbed into the car and started the engine, the roar would undoubtedly attract more Walkers, so he needed to be quick. Thomas locked the doors of his Ford Focus and checked the gas gauge, content to see that it was three-quarters full. It would have to do. He clicked the button on the garage door control pinned to the sun visor and was greeted by mid-morning Sun; there were four Walkers making their way up his driveway toward the sound when he floored it.

The car easily pushed through the creatures and Thomas turned north, trying to catch his breath as he saw his friends and neighbors all stumbling toward the car as it drove past. They aren’t your friends, anymore, he thought, just keep driving and don’t look back.

OoC: So go ahead and make your opening post your character heading toward Las Vegas and stuff DD

 

[Sem]

Cory leaned stood on the patio, the only thing standing between him and a short plummet to his death being one of the large, black screens that went around the entire patio. He looked through the screen with a pair of binoculars down at the streets below him that was the Las Vegas Strip. Wandering around the Strip were countless people - no, they weren't people anymore. Walkers. That's what the popular name was for them. A less terrifying synonym for the word 'zombie', which is really all they were. They were undead, and the only thing they cared for was eating the flesh of the living.

Cory could hardly believe it himself when the outbreak first happened, but now, as far as he was concerned, anything was possible. And so every night the boy hoped that aliens would come and eradicate the zombie hoardes and save the few humans who remained, even if they were destined to be pets or lab rats for the aliens. It was still a better fate than whatever the Walkers had in mind. Needles, probes, and flashing lights had to be better than being eaten alive.

Behind Cory sat an empty pool - the water had been drained out shortly after their party had arrived at Caesars Palace. Otherwise it would have become a spawning ground for mosquitoes, which, while not as bad as Walkers, were still undesirable.

Of course, there was no one left but him now. His party had gone on an exploratory mission in search of food and water and other supplies, but never returned. Cory didn't know why they had gone. The hotel had more than enough to last them all for quite some time, and their current location, the Forum Tower penthouse, was easy to defend.

That was last week, when his party had vanished. He secretly hoped that they were all right somewhere and were simply unable to return for him. Cory's last instructions were to stay put, and so he did. He wasn't exactly alone though - Copper, a German Shepard, lay on the patio just behind him. Copper belonged to Cory, and had stayed by the boy's side since the whole thing began. He had been invaluable, warning the group if they were venturing too close to a group of Walkers.

Cory was supposed to be staying put until help showed up, which would likely be in the form of a helicopter, and so he was always sure to keep a lookout for one. But day after day passed and there hadn't been any signs of life at all. Eventually he would have to move on, but so long as he kept living the way he was, eventually wouldn't come for quite a while. And by then he could hope that the Walkers in the area would thin out for lack of food. There were a lot of them now, which meant that they were still finding people to devour. Sometimes Cory thinks he hears a scream, or a gunshot.

Squinting up at the Las Vegas sun Cory sighed and receded back inside. It was hot in Las Vegas. Especially without working AC. To be perfectly honest the only thing Cory wore anymore was sunscreen. There was no need to bother with clothes when it was so hot and no one but the dead were around to see you anyway. When Cory wasn't busy scanning the streets and the skies he was lying in empty bath tubs or on the marble floors, which were only cool for a few moments until he had to move again.

There was a pool table, which he sometimes used, as well as several decks of cards, but Cory had run out of one-person games to play, and he didn't have the energy to think of his own. His iPod still had life in it, thanks to him only allowing himself one song per day, but they usually only made him even more depressed, reminding him of the days before the world had gone to hell.

These few things were the only things to do besides sleep, which Cory tried to avoid. Sleep stopped being pleasant as soon as all he ever dreamed were nightmares involving Walkers and his now-deceased family. He was an only child and his family were among the first to get out of their neighborhood safely and join up with a party of survivors.

Cory's dad had been a hunting fanatic earlier in life, and so teaching Cory how to use a gun was one of the first things his dad did after the outbreak started. Cory was only twelve, and handling anything larger than a pistol was difficult, but he could use a shotgun if he needed to. Of course, there were no shotguns - they had vanished along with the rest of his party.

His dad had been one of the first to go, as their party had been taken by surprise by a group of Walkers and he went down defending his wife and son. They were forced to abandon him, and so one of Cory's many nightmares was him encountering the Walker his father had turned into.

His mother was next to go soon after, having been bitten during another run-in. She died in her sons arms, telling him to take care and that she would be waiting for him up in heaven. A bullet was put in her head in the moments after death, allowing her the dignity to die as a human.

Shortly after that the group made the risky choice of trying to hunker down in the hotel. It was a long process as the group worked to trap any walkers in larger areas such as the parking garage and Colosseum. Most of the wedding chapels were also boarded up and blocked off, full of Walkers. All entrances into Caesars Palace were locked and blocked, and then the group did periodic sweeps of the rooms, eradicating any Walkers they found. All in all the hotel was Walker-free except for those blocked off areas.

It disturbed Cory at first to be taking shelter in a building that did have Walkers in it, but he knew that they had no way of getting out of their confined spaces.

Grabbing and opening a bottle of water, Cory downed a quarter of it before recapping it and setting it on a table. The penthouse was enormous, to say the least. 22,000 square feet, featuring several bed rooms, two dining rooms, and quite a few living rooms. It was apparently the suit that Obama had staying in during one of his visits to Vegas. Cory would've thought it to be amazing if he had come on vacation with his family, but right now the place was a lonely and desolate, but still his only sanctuary in a city ruled by the dead.

 

[Cassandra]

OOC: I suppose I'll just say that I'm "new", so, here it goes. This will be a bit choppy, it's been a long time since I've done anything like this.

BiC:


The dry, raspy sound of a closed throat demanding air sounded distant as Cassandra opened her eyes. She blinked, choking she tried to sit up; her lungs aching for oxygen, she tore at her chest in desperation as she lay on her back. With the first succesfull gulp of air the panic subsided, the peace only temporary as her thoughts were flooded with recent memories. She reached up and touched her blonde hair, it was sticky with blood, her vision faded from blurry to focused as she stared at her bleeding hands, sitting up she coughed blood onto her shirt, not that it could be ruined any further.
She had fallen at least three stories to get away from them, her family. Her lips contorted into a cynical, terrified smile at her own thoughts, they'd always been a blood-thirsty bunch, but this...

Her sister had come back to life before her very eyes, sitting next to her on the bed Cassandra didn't move out of shock and fear, so it was her father, who had jumped up and embraced his youngest daughter who was bitten first. There was no shock on his face, just sadness, that this was not his daughter after all as he put a bullet in her head. Cassandra had run, but her mother leapt onto her from the hallway, her fake nails digging deep into her scalp and neck. Screaming, Cassandra fell to the floor and rolled over her mother and ran for the only way out - the window, and she jumped.

Cassandra blinked away the memories as she got to her feet. She was in an alleyway, the concrete she stood on was bloodied, but not as badly as she. At twenty three Cassandra had been married for five years, she had married young, and now as she stood in an alleyway coated in her sisters blood he was nowhere to be found. She silently prayed that he was alive, but it had been four days since he'd left, and she was sure his phone was dead.

At first it hadn't seemed so bad, news of the epidemic happening to the east had reached them, but they'd ignored it. Being in the city she'd figured they were safe, although now her own reasoning eluded her as she stared at the bodies on the ground nearby. There was no telling whether they were dead from the fever, soon to walk again, or if they'd been shot as walkers. She didn't care, as long as they weren't moving. She flipped her pockets only to find a knife and an extra violin string she'd never had the time to use. Her fingers began to shake as the weight of her situation sank in, she was alone, walkers couldn't be more than a few yards away on the other side of the building, and all she had were tools not even Macgyver could have put together to save his life. Over the fence to her left she knew of a hotel, the front doors were heavy. There should be supplies if they weren't all looted, and key cards to a room if she was lucky, perhaps there'd be a place to hole up in. The gym equipment could provide a weapon at the very least, but how may walkers were trapped inside waiting?

When it had first started, chaos broke out. People began looting and holding up inside their houses, guns were ransacked from stores and amunition carelessly tossed into pockets, simple household items became vicious weapons used to kill loved ones, and it only got worse when the power had gone out. At first it was the TV Stations, they were on standby, the high pitched emergency tone ringing out as a constant reminder from local bars and shops that the world was ending. Others were just fuzz, she assumed that a radio would work, but had no idea where to get one all she had was an old half broken iPod back in her apartment.

Cassandra's lips thinned as she made up her mind. Tearing off the lower half of her shirt she wrapped the material around her scraped hands, grabbed her knife and jumped the fence. She didn't run. She crouched at the other side of the fence, it was almost night fall and the tall glittering building above her still offered some shade cover. Before her were scattered walkers, slowly moving through the street aimlessly. She got into a low crouch and began to sidle along the wall as a seemingly broken neon sign fizzled back to life with a blue glare and a deathly electric hum.
Damn Vegas.

Cassandra ran for the hotel's doors, the building still looked impressive even with the damage. The walkers ran and lumbered behind her, she could hear the unnatural sound of their movement and could almost hear the stillness of their hearts and lungs, it made her skin crawl.
She didn't waste her time trying the main entrance, she ran instead through the small revolving door to what remained of the lobby, removing and shoving her boot as a wedge between the wall and the door as a temporary hold. Frantically she scanned the lobby, it seemed empty except for the baggage cart which she quickly jammed into one of the revolving segments. The walkers were banging on the glass as she ran through the lobby and up the stairs to whatever was next.

In the staircase she nearly ran face first into a walker seemingly minding its own business, staring at a wall, she stabbed the former man at least twelve times in the back, chest, arms, neck, and finally in the eye. Shaking and panicked she burst through the doors at the end of the stairway and found a walker-free room, and an empty storage freezer. She slammed the door shut behind her and began scavenging for food and supplies as a means to distract herself from everything. Eyes wide, she tore through cabinets against the wall, her blood stained hair plastered to her face as she slowly dropped to her knees on the ground. She'd found an old potato sack, she could try and make herself a bag, and a misplaced frying pan, hardly fit for a weapon, but perhaps the handle could be useful. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes only to open them again quickly as the horrific memories flashed across her eyelids. She slowly stood up, it was hot the freezer had clearly been off for a long time and there was no food that she could find. Wiping the blood off her face the best she could with the fabric on her hands she continued back to the staircase, she would head for the roof. It took her a good twenty minutes to crawl her way up, she had made her living as a dancer for the past five years, ballet and show, but she was in no shape to be climbing stares after the day's events. Reaching a hatch type of door she opened it to a fairly decent looking patio, an empty pool drew her attention immediately, she would have settled for drinking the pool water had there been any. With a frustrated yell she threw down her potato back, pan, and knife. Cassandra jumped at the sound of sloshing water nearby, and suddenly realized that other than the one walker, she had seen none in the whole lobby, and all the doors and windows had been boarded up, someone else had to be around. On edge, she crouched down to pick up her knife, it was getting dark and difficult to see far.

She hadn't spoken since her jump, her voice came out raspy and alert as she unconsciously attempted to wipe the blood off her abdomen to no avail.
"Hello?" she called out, both hoping for and dreading an answer.