Wait we do WHAT?!

[Courtography]

(F16: Amanda Clearwater: START)

Amanda woke up with a start. What had that weird west American dude said? Kill each other? Crap crap this is bad! She looked around, wooden building? Right 'The Zone'. Okay so look around, then find friends, yeah? She got up, it looked like a post office but was all old timey.

She browsed through a few mail slots, old looking letters for people like "Samuel Smith" and other weird sounding names. That's when Amanda spotted her bag laying at her feet. Way more important than really old mail. She opened it up and browsed through it. Food stuff, water, and a metal rod thingie. Okay so she could hit people with it? No bad thought, she was not going to hit anyone with it. There was no way people would actually do that.

No the guys on the hockey team and her other friends were good people. She'd find them and they'd sort this out. Yeah good plan, now to figure out what she was going to do, she just needed a minute to think. Where would her friends hide?

She pulled out the map, okay so this was probably somewhere in that town place...and that's all she could figure out, no idea where people would hide. She'd make a plan soon.

[Cash Money*]

[[M09: Martin Ricco START]]

Martin Ricco awoke swiftly and with a sense of purpose, much like he did every morning. He had to be fast, after all; getting out of bed quickly meant you felt more energized for practice, or running, or just going to school. He had everything programmed out in reflexes; step out of bed, put clothes on, brush teeth, and all the other actions he needed to do to make himself presentable and prepared.

Until, that is, his foot hit the floor.

The bed he had stepped out of was a considerable distance closer to the ground than he was used to, and with the effects of the sleeping gas still somewhat in effect, he was not nearly as coordinated as he usually was upon pivoting out of bed. As a result, he stumbled and fell onto the hard, slightly gnarled floor. His left hand caught a splinter as a result, but Martin didn't have the presence of mind to deal with that right now. He had much bigger problems to worry about.

He stood up, still slightly wobbly, and took a look at the scene. This was not his room, by any means. Everything looked a lot older, for one thing. Everything was wooden - a far cry from his nice suburban home - and the bedsheets looked handmade. Then he remembered: oh yeah, wasn't I on the train before this? And then... oh no...

He immediately froze, trying to think of what to do, still not entirely clearheaded. He looked around, trying to see if there was anything worth investigation, anything he could use. The backpack in the corner of the room looked like a good place to start. He crouched down and opened it with the trained hands of someone who had opened a hundred sports bags, rifling through its contents. Okay, let's see... bunch of food, first aid kit, rolling pin... wait, what? He checked the food again, making sure none of it looked like it was in need of kneading. Nope. Hmm.

He put everything back in the bag, taking out the map, and got to his feet. He looked out the window. What he saw looked like a ghost town. In fact, it probably was. More importantly, though, it looked like he was in a desert. He tried to remember what had been said the last time he'd been awake, but nothing aside from a general feeling of fear was making it through his memory banks. Was there something specific he'd been told to do with all of this junk? In any case, it looked like he was roughing it. He set down the stairs - funny how his old room was nearly in the exact same spot in his house next to the stairs - and opened the map before stepping outside.

He had no way of actually making sense of the map, though, because he hadn't been told where he was in the first place. He might have even been able to suss it out is it wasn't for how blindingly bright it was out. Jeez! He shielded his eyes with the hand that wasn't holding the map and squinted as hard as he could, looking for other buildings he could investigate, maybe something with more to it than just a house.

The post office beckoned from across the street. Of course, he thought. There'll be paper there, and more likely than not there'll be information written on it. He didn't think of the possibility that someone else might be there, or of anything specific he wanted to know from the post office, for that matter. He just wanted to make informed decisions.

He walked with intent towards the post office, then pushed open the door.

[Courtography]

Okay so she needed to find people, but where would they be? She had just woken up so they were probably just scattered randomly. Still, they'd probably want water or something so finding that would be good, yeah people like water. She looked at the map. Okay so there was a river, a creek, and a spring.

Those were good places, even if they were kind of far away, but not too bad.

She was still mulling over this when the door opened. She whipped around, who was it? She looked at him, "Hey Martin!" They used to be on the hockey team together, so this was a good person to find. He had quit, but that was still okay!

They could help each other find their friends, and then they could find a way to stop this. She knew they could, none of them could possibly do what that guy had suggested.

[Cash Money*]

Upon opening the door, Martin immediately noticed movement on the ground a few yards into the post office. Hey, he thought, it's Amanda! He used to be on the hockey team with her, and they were still on good terms. She'd probably remembered more of what had happened on the train.

"Oh hi Amanda! Do you have any idea what's going on?", he said as he took off his backpack and sat down next to her, taking a look at all the stuff she had laid out in front of her. It looked pretty much the same as what he had, except there was no rolling pin. Odd. He also took a look at the map; he hadn't actually gotten a good look at his since he had taken it out. He noticed what looked like a cluster of buildings toward the lower right on the map - that must be where they were. As he craned his neck to take a look, though, the feel of a leather collar around his neck that had been somewhere in the back of his thoughts the whole time suddenly leapt to the foreground. He adjusted his seating position a bit so as to get more comfortable as he said,

"I really don't remember what happened before we got here. Is there something we're supposed to do with all this junk?"

[Courtography]

Idea what's going on? Well she didn't really know, but that Sheriff guy had said they had to kill or die. But no one could do that, right? "Well that guy said something about killing and dying, but that's crazy. None of us could do that."

They both looked over the map for a moment, before he asked her a question. She raised her eyebrow. "Well I mean we've got food and stuff, and then they said a weapon, and I got this metal rod thing," she motioned with it. "And they want us to kill, but that's just wrong, right?"

[Cash Money*]

"Killing and dying", eh? He was unsure of what she meant for just a split second until she mentioned that they might be doing it to each other. That was the memory jogger he needed, and at the same time really wished he didn't have. "Kill or be killed." Something about weapons. Something about not being able to leave. He understood what had been said, but none of it made any sense in practical terms. No part of him was prepared to grasp that somebody would trap a bunch of kids in a town and make them kill each other.

At that point she mentioned her weapon. So that's what the extra item was. He reached into his backpack, saying, "Yeah, I don't think I'm killing anybody. What does that guy even want? I don't even get why we're here." Finally finding the rolling pin, he pulled it out and continued, "Besides, all I've got is a rolling pin. I'll probably break it before I kill anybody else with it."

He figured if everybody else from the trip was around they could maybe form a team, figure out something to do. Right now he just needed to keep moving. Maybe they'd figure something out if they went somewhere. He asked, "Is there anywhere on the map that looks interesting?" He had some ideas, but he figured maybe she had some valuable input.

[Courtography]

Amanda let out a nervous laugh at the rolling pin. Really? They weren't baking cookies, well that would be way better. Someone's mom sometimes brought cookies to the hockey games for the team. Maybe it was one of the Senior's. She had to make cookies for the resturant sometimes too. Desserts. Speaking of, what would her parents be thinking now? Did they even know what happened? They had let her go on this trip though, but where were they even headed?

She couldn't remember.

He asked about places and she remembered what she had been thinking earlier. "Oh right, I was thinking we should head to somewhere with water, I mean everyone needs that. So that way we can find people, right?"

Her voice was enthusiastic. Martin was nice, and they would be working together. That Sheriff guy couldn't stop them then.

[Cash Money*]

Martin heard her idea and mulled it over for a second, wondering why there would be people trying to find water when it was right in their backpacks. You never know, somebody might have gotten really thirsty and drank it all... but why? That'd be kind of dumb. He decided it wasn't too bad of an idea, but he was thinking more along the lines of going into town. People congregated around towns, right? If he was a bit more lucid, he would have put everything in terms of needing shelter after water and food, but for the moment he just went to the assumption that where there are towns, people will probably go.

He said, "OK, sounds like a good idea. However, I think we might end up passing through town on our way up there, so why don't we check the town first? We'll just pass through and see if there's anybody."

He glanced at the window; streaks came through, just like they tended to do on mornings around this time of year when the sun rose early enough that he didn't need the alarm clock. He'd thought it had been one of those days today, hadn't he? Speaking of which, he wanted to be home right now. He'd been homesick before, but then it was at camp or something like that, somewhere where he'd had a timetable. Right now he had no idea... Nope. Better to just keep moving. He could think about home later.

[Courtography]

She nodded, yeah the town would be okay. Amanda figured everyone had just woken up anyway, like she had. So finding people at water wasn't important yet. But the town, that was bound to have people, wouldn't it? "Yeah okay, you wanna lead the way?"

(Amanda Clearwater continued in Uphill and Against the Wind)

[Cash Money*]

Amanda seemed to agree with him. She then asked if he might lead the way. He said, "Sure." With that, he zipped up the backpack, got up and stepped outside. He tried to gauge whether the sun was rising or setting, and in accordance figure out which way was north, but he only knew it wasn't directly overhead. Not much help. In any case, the important thing was to move towards the center of town. There didn't seem to be anything but a few houses like the one he'd woken up in ahead of him, so he turned around. More buildings that way. With a gesture, Martin strode purposefully off, glad to have a goal and trying hard to look like he knew what he was doing.

(Martin Ricco continued in Uphill and Against the Wind)

[chitoryu12*]

((Kenneth Danielson continued from Ain't Hotter Than Hell, But Just as Bad))

It was lonely.

As Ken walked down the dusty street, he heard little but the light flutter of foliage blowing in the breeze. The sun beat down on the empty town, baking the sand to a hard crust and leaving him soaked in sweat from his journey. Taking one of his plugs out to keep himself aware, he swore that he heard voices carried on the wind. He searched, but found nothing; they must have been gone before he found them. Or it was just the wind. In his head; growing isolation leading him to an early madness.

Ken stepped up onto a creaky wooden porch, the faded and chipped paint on the ancient wooden sign reading TRAIN. The sun was killing him; he needed to get inside and rest from the long, hot walk.

------------------

The inside of the abandoned train station was almost as hot as the outside; built long before climate control was a term anyone used, it was like walking into a dusty oven. But the scorching heat of the sun on his bare flesh was not a particularly pleasant alternative to the uncomfortable, but bearable temperature inside. So he baked.

As he sat on a wooden bench that must have been a century old, Ken dropped his pack next to him and opened it up. Taking the metal canteen out and hoping that it was filled with what it should have been filled with, he took a swig. The water was hot, but felt amazing on his parched throat. Sweat ran down his forehead and covered his white t-shirt with patches of water. His boots were long since broken in, but his feet were uncomfortably hot; he undid the laces and tossed the boots aside with his socks to let his sweaty feet air out and stretch his toes.

Kenneth began to empty out his pack slowly, looking at every individual item; he had spent some time hiking recently, so he knew to check his supplies and make sure he could use everything provided. There were two wax packages, one filled with tough, dried meat and the other with a lump of salt-covered flesh. It was feeling a lot like a camping trip gone wrong. Next to those were two tough, coarse loaves of bread that felt more like weapons than rations.

Taking out the folded piece of paper, Kenneth spread it out before him on the floor. The map revealed the myriad landmarks across the land, with a small legend in the corner to identify icons and let him determine distance. Comparing what he remembered from his trip and the way he entered town to his compass, he figured that he must have come in from the north or northwest. A little farther, and he'd enter the town proper.

Under the map had been more food: a commercial tin of Spam (which he greatly disliked, but food was food), a plastic Tupperware container filled with cheap cornflakes, and three large plastic bottles of a generic mineral water. He had never had so little food that he needed to ration it carefully, but he tried to think about how much he ate. He figured that the food was roughly equal to what he ate in one day.......which was bad. He'd need to ration out the calories of three meals (plus snacks) over however long this hell would last. He'd be lucky to make it a week on these rations. He may have lived a relatively rural lifestyle and gone hiking, but he was hardly an expert at the plants of the American deserts. He didn't have a clue how to skin and cook game, let alone anything to start a fire.

It didn't look good, and the thought of what he may have to do to acquire food terrified him.

Pushing the thought aside for more pressing matters, he reached into the bag to get the rest of his supplies. A heavy plastic box with a red cross on the lid, of obvious purpose, and a small plastic flashlight with another pair of batteries. Overturning the bag to make sure he didn't miss anything, a small object clattered to the floor.

Ken stared in shock for a few seconds, then picked it up.

He looked at the beautiful curves, the shiny black wood. It was a brilliant piece of craftsmanship.















Kenneth silently packed his bag, put on his boots, and left the train station.

A tobacco pipe was laying on the bench where he once sat.

((Kenneth Danielson continued in The Good, The Bad, and the Ohmigodwhatthefuck))))