Sunfowers and Sunshine

(This post is fully from the perspective of Kat)

Closing her eyes as the car began to move Kat slowed her breathing and listened carefully to the sounds around her. Taking one long, steady breath after another she reached out and collected her rifle bringing it between her legs. Gripping it tightly she let her fingers glide from the stock down to the trigger housing and over the slide before back up again. Carefully she released the mag and brought it up, inspecting it she insured it was full before returning it to it's place. Her eyes falling closed again she continued her slow, methodical breathing until they arrived at their destination.

On their way there Jason and Kyle discussed their past, What had brought them into their careers of choice and what they had done beforehand, or at least Kyle had, Kat couldn't care less at the current moment. The only thing on her mind was the mission, Getting what medicine, supplies, and survivors they could before getting out again. And doing it all as safe and as quick as possible, Which, should be straight forward and simple with their current roster, but then there's the kid, the one Kat had no gauge of her abilities, her skills, or lack thereof. Taking another in a row of deep breaths Kat's eyes opened as she heard Kyle call that they were arriving. Silent as the night Kat looked among the group and waited for Kyle to stop talking. "Two teams." She started. "Kyle, Parker and Randal you'll take the medical tents and housing area. Myself, Jason and his folks will go to the armory and Cafeteria." Not giving them a chance to answer Kat gathered her weapon as pack before climbing over the rear seat and exiting out of the rear door of the truck.

Hopping down she breathed in and held it while she looked to the sky. Blowing it out in one long strand of air she stretched her arms and rounded the corner to join the rest, waiting for them all to assemble she looked among them. "That sound like a plan? Any objections?" She asked looking passed them towards the crimson glow from the raging fire. Refocusing on the group she looked from one to the other. "It's surely gonna be hot and I don't mean the heat from the flames, if anything, anything at all gets too close you call it. Hear?" She spoke in a commanding voice as one would to their platoon of soldiers. Bringing her weapon up she pulled back on the charging handle and took the lead. Not looking back she focused fully on the task at hand. Time to get serious.  

Kyle turned to Kat as he heard her speak about the teams. So it seems as if he was with Parker and Randal but soon he heard Jason interject saving the EMT should be with the medical team and well Kyle agreed with him. "He's got a point." said Kyle softly as he shrugged his arms. "If you want to stick with him and his family all the way to medical then be my guest. I don't mind heading to the armory and the cafeteria." offered Kyle to Kat as he didn't mind switching roles. He then heard Jason say about the survivors inside possibly being weak and try to possibly the truck inside to make their trip shorter. Kyle agreed with Jason's plan over all and if the truck got to full and they had to leave he figured he could use the police car that he had left here depending on the condition it was in. Seeing that everyone was ready Kyle took out his kurki machete and it seemed that everyone was ready. "Hey Randal when we make a path I'll come out and let you know. Just stay with the truck until then." said Kyle to Randal.



Kyle cautiously walked inside as the gate was destroyed. He scanned the area and could see a good amount of the dead in the center area. It almost looked like a horde and Kyle's heart was racing yet he was trying to remain calm. Parker was behind him and the man had his knife out as he covered the rear Kyle making sure nothing was to jump out at him or Kyle. As they cautiously walked to the armory avoiding the dead by using the debris as cover Kyle took a few deep breaths trying to figure out his next move when one of the dead that was buried in the debris grabbed Kyle's leg. Before Kyle could react Parker stabbed the rotter in the head killing it. "Thanks." said Kyle softly. Parker nodded and he pulled the burned up corpse out of the debris and he started to cut it open. When he did Kyle looked at the man crazy as if he had lost his mind. "What the hell-" asked Kyle to Parker before he was cutoff by the man. "When me, Rollins and Kat were trying to survive in Tampa, one of the guys we ran into was covered in blood and guts I thought he was crazy but it turned out his plan worked out. So we are going to try this out." said Parker to Kyle who looked shocked but a few minutes later he snapped out of it and nodded. "Yeah...Uhh...Yeah" said Kyle softly to Parker. The two men then proceeded to put the corpse's guts on themselves. The smell of it alone almost made Kyle vomit but in the back of his head he thought about the others back at base and figured he would have to stay strong for them.

And just as they'd feared, inside and out, Castillo belonged to the dead. Immediately upon entry through the front gate a lurker had reached out from beneath a pile of rubble and debris and grabbed the leg of their host (thankfully being successfully put down before getting in a bite). And now, just up ahead, a sizable horde of cold bodies with blood-spattered teeth ambled throughout the stronghold. The world the way it was now, it was second nature to tune out the groans, grow deaf to the hissing and gurgling. But riding on the back of the deep disappointment he felt for Castillo's having fallen, the noises seemed to pierce right through the desensitization and into his brain. His heart sank, but their only real option at this juncture was to make the best of a bad situation.

The smoke and debris seemed to provide adequate cover from the majority of the dead, save but for a small handful of stragglers they couldn't avoid on the way to the medical tents. Every step of the way he made sure his sister and daughter were right at his side, never letting them out of his sight. "SHUNK!" came the sound of a shuffling walker's skull as it was split with his tomahawk. A thin line of fresh blood and gray matter was added to his shirt as he pulled it free from the flesh and bone. Keeping pace with Kat, they made their way to the tent. Jason cautiously led his family inside.

When they reached the back of the tent where Kat had directed them, Jason pulled open the doors of a sturdy cabinet. Stepping around him, Jordan approached the nearby tear in the lining of the tent and peered out. "Shit." she muttered to herself as she took in the visage of yet more dead cannibals. She scanned the area ahead for anything - dead or alive - that might be stumbling toward them. So far, so good. But as she took in their surroundings, her thoughts once again turned to the group they'd gotten separated from on its way to D.C. To catching up with them since things seemed to have fallen apart here in St. Augustine.

Inside this first cabinet there wasn't an overwhelming abundance of supplies or equipment, but it was at least plenty to justify the trip. "Good start." he thought aloud as he observed the contents of the cabinet. Jason pulled up one of the empty duffel bags they'd brought and began quietly grabbing supplies off the shelves. Several 350-count bottles of high-strength Acetaminophen were a nice start. These were followed from the same shelf by two rolls of medical tape, two boxes of latex gloves, three rolls of ace bandage, and an already-opened package of clean syringes. There looked to be a couple dozen in the case. He kept packing. On the next shelf there were a few bottles of isopropyl alcohol and several packages of antiseptic towels, a good store of adhesive bandages and gauze, field suturing needles, scissors, wire, and forceps, two blood pressure cuffs, and a splint. Not a bad haul so far. The first bag was quickly filling. "How ya doing over there, doc?" Jordan asker her brother with a smirk. "I've had worse days." he quietly retorted as he continued on.

Having worked his way down to the bottom shelf, Jason's eyes were drawn to the miniature goldmine still tucked away inside. He crouched down, reached inside, and drew out a box containing ten 30-mL vials of morphine, followed by five 1000-mL saline bags with attached packages containing portable tubing and IV prep. "There we go." he said to himself as he stuffed in the supplies and zipped up the now-brimming bag. Jordan looked back to her brother as he shut the cabinet doors. "How's it look?" she asked, releasing the fabric surrounding the tear in the tent. "Good start, but there's not a lot of hard surgical equipment here. I'm hoping we'll find that in the next tent." He responded, turning his gaze back toward Kat at the tent's entrance. He draped the full bag over his shoulder and the three approached their guide.

"Not bad in here," he began, getting Kat's attention. "But we're gonna need more tools than we found in this tent. "Any chance we'll get lucky in the next one?"

Adjusting her stance after clearing the way for Jason and his family to make their way into the first of four tents to gather supplies Kat looked first to the left, back the way they had come. Further off in the distance she could make out the shambling horde of the dead moving in the opposite direction towards the walls, "That's right, keep walking." She muttered under her breath. Looking to the right and further down the row of medical tents, somewhere deeper in she could hear the low growls of the dead but they weren't close enough to worry, just yet anyway.

Minutes later Kat continued keeping a vigilant watch over the surrounding area's as she heard Jason and the rest go about gathering what they thought they needed. "You nearly done with this one?" She asked. "We got three more to get through before regroup." She explained further, looking at them for a moment she returned to her watch and waited for them to finish, as they did and she heard the zipper of the duffel bag they had used to stache everything close she turned again. "We good to go?" She asked, waiting for her companions to answer she then nodded and motioned for them to follow her to the next tent, closing on the flap leading into it she began hearing the tell tale sound of one of the dead growling from inside. Raising her hand signalling the others to stop she slowly crept forward, sticking her gun out she pulled the flap open with the barrel of her rifle and peered in, the fire not yet reaching this portion of the medical area there was very little light in the tent itself, just like the last one there were rows of beds lined against the walls.

Pushing her way through the flap Kat motioned for them to follow, that's when they saw her. At the end of the row of beds laying on the far right cot lay the one person she hadn't hoped to see. "Nat..." Kat sighed with a shake of her head, making her way further in she began seeing a clearer picture of the body fighting to get to it's feet before her, her left wrist had been cuffed to the bed and to the side of the table was a loaded pistol, blinking Kat sighed again, she knew exactly why the weapon was left where it was, and exactly why Nat was one of the creatures rather than lying dead on the cot. "I'm sorry." Kat muttered as she came to stand at the foot of the bed. Watching Nat's reanimated body writhe in fruitless attempts to get at her and the others Kat slid her weapon over her shoulder and brandished her knife. Approaching the woman she then drove the blade into her skull giving her friend and the mother of the girl she now found herself charged with her final death.

Wiping the blood off on her pants leg Kat returned her knife to its home and reached down grabbing the necklace around the womans neck, pulling it off she examined it for a moment before popping it open revealing the image of Zoey and her late husband Jim that had died in a car wreck a year before the fall. "Don't worry Kat, I'll keep her safe." She promised her friend before looking back to Jason and the others. Clearing her throat she spoke. "It's clear, lets look for more supplies yea?"

Parker looked at the woman named Jordan as he heard her questions and soon after Jason asked questions as well. Parker let out a heavy sigh before answering them. "It's quite a ways. Me and Kyle killed one of the dead and covered ourselves in it's guts...You do that and the dead just think are like them. I couldn't tell if she was bitten we tried our best to move as much debris from here as possible, the only problem I could see was that damn support beam." said Parker to the group. He took a breath before continuing. "I don't know if she can walk. Hell it would be a miracle if she could and as for fractures I didn't have time to check Kyle sent me to get you Doc." said Parker to Jason. Hearing that they planned to leave the oxygen tanks didn't settle right with Parker but if they could circle back and grab them right after he would be okay with that. Parker paced the room for a moment before nodding. "Well we could go around...But that would be a hassle...The other option is well...This." said Parker softly as he pointed to his clothes that were covered in undead guts. It was then a light bulb went off in his head. "What if I went to Randal tell him to bring the truck inside and lay down on the horn? The dead would crowd around him and then we would have less of a problem getting to Kyle and Stacy." said Parker as he offered up that idea.

"Doc" Jason thought to himself. He hadn't expected that. The world the way it was now, an EMT was plenty close enough. Making sure his family was close by his side, they skulked through the ambling dead toward Kyle and the newly discovered survivor.  It wasn't long before the pair came into view ahead. Jason made out the form of Kyle crouched beside a woman pinned under substantial debris. She'd suffered at least superficial wounds. It looked like at least a pretty severe burn on the arm. Depending on the force of the impact and how long she'd been pinned, maybe nerve damage. Maybe worse. Time to find out.

Jason, with his sister and daughter nearby looking over his shoulder and watching his back, crouched near Kyle and the woman. Pausing a moment to take in the scene, he took a breath in and out. He turned and handed his 9mm Taurus to his sister, then returned to the pinned woman. "Try not to struggle to move," he began. "If there's a break or internal bleeding you might make it worse." He explained.

"What's your name?" he asked as gently as he could given his naturally gruff demeanor.

"St- agh. Stacy." She responded through a pained grunt.

"Stacy, I'm Jason. We met your people yesterday. At a watchtower. I think I can help. I need you to tell me if and when this starts to hurt." He spoke as he began to apply pressure to her lower thigh and knee areas. She didn't indicate that there had been any pain. Only general feeling, albeit faint and fuzzy. "Okay, that's good. The femoral nerve's not gone. Now I need you to tell me if this hurts." he instructed. Reaching back down with both hands, he began to manually flex her knee as much as he could without forcing it against the debris, back toward the thigh. It got a considerable way back before she yet again groaned in pain. "Agh, shit!" she protested. He quickly and gently released pressure on her pinned leg. "Okay" he began. "No fracture and the nerve's still firing. The leg's not gone, you'll walk again with some time to rest." He explained. Having surveyed her and area around her, he could also tell that her femoral artery wasn't cut, so she wouldn't die from blood loss. Another fortunate outcome.

As the rest of the group squared up to lift the offending beam off of Stacy, Jason and his sister both joined, while Kate kept an eye out for any approaching dead. On '1,' with a collective group heave, they lobbed the crippling barrier off of Stacy and dug the remaining detritus off of her, freeing her to move. With her body freed up, he turned his attention to her wounded arm. "That's salvageable, too. I just need to clean and wrap it so we can move you. Once we're out of here I'll need to cut away the dead skin and sterilize the wound or it'll get infected." He explained. Being careful not to touch her open wound with his gore-spattered hands, he took one of the many bottles of isopropyl alcohol they'd recovered and emptied a bit into his hands and began to scrub.

Opening one of the packs of gauze wrap they'd recovered from the tents, he tipped the alcohol forward so that a just slightly dampening layer soaked in. "Stacy," he zeroed in. "This is going to hurt at first. Grab something with your other arm and squeeze," he instructed. At that, he began layering gauze over her wounded, weeping arm, the sanitizing alcohol stinging the exposed flesh. Naturally, Stacy grunted at the deeply penetrating burn and squeezed at a hunk of debris at her side. This done, he unspooled a small portion of the ace bandage they'd found and wrapped the wound.

Already a world of difference made, it was time to see if Stacy could move. The group helped her to her feet and supported the vast majority of her weight for her. "Okay. Next thing. I need to see how much pressure you can put on your leg." Jason explained. The group began to gently ease off to allow her to support her own weight. It wasn't long before she reached the limits of her reduced strength. "Agh!" she groaned as she began to fall. The group caught her and helped her gently into a seated position. "So walking's out." he thought aloud.

With that, he turned to Parker. "You mentioned the truck," he recalled. "Can we get that anywhere near us quietly?"

releasing the hold the beam had on stacy in one quick move after counting down Kat took a breath and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Doc, Give her a good look over would ya?" She said looking to Jason, Hearing him start his examination Kat turned away to rejoin Kyle and Parker who stood near the far end of the beam. "So getting the truck in here without drawing the dead, that's our issue now." She started. "Any ideas?" Looking first to Kyle then to Parker she waited for either of them to put forth any ideas they may have had before speaking.

Looking away from the two as she waited for them to speak up she looked out to the main court yard where only a day ago children played and people went about their day to day buesiness, sighing she shoot the thoughts from her mind and focused on the task at hand again. "So, Any ideas?" She repeated.

Turning her attention to Kyle as he began putting forth one that he had come up with Kat listened and nodded when he asked if she remembered Ricardo and the fireworks that he had brought in when he arrived. "You know where he stashed'm? That would work perfectly if you do." Kat responded. Going quiet so Kyle could explain the rest of his idea Kat nodded along to his words until he finished, sounding like as good of a plan as any she didn't question it and soon enough they had begun putting it into action. While Kyle went about getting the other things set up and getting the truck inside herself and Parker were tasked with gathering what they needed out of the armory.

Spending a couple of minutes discussing a couple more details the group split and began going about their roles, Taking lead as Parker brought up the rear Kat quickly and efficently crossed the compound to the armory, coming up to the large wooden building with a brass door they had scavenged off a bank in town she looked to Parker. "You watch the door, I'll gather what I can then we'll switch out."

"Roger." Parker answered.

Turning back to the brass door after hearing confirmation from Parker Kat pushed it open, it's latch still intact telling her that the place was clear of any walker inside she kept her guard up all the same as the door swung open revealing the dimly lit armory. On the walls rested the weapons they needed as well as a number of boxes of ammo. Gathering a number of assault rifles she stuffed them into a weapons bag she pulled from the bottom shelf before turning to the pistols, pulling a few off the racks and stashing them away she then turned to the ammo and gathered all that she needed and could hold before turning to one last thing. The big one. Resting in a custom built wall mount at the far end of the armory was the camps pride and glory, a heavy caliber Sniper Rifle fitted out for night ops, a silencer bringing it's overall length higher and a night vision scope sticking out from it's scope mount she couldn't help but crack a smile at the thought of finally being able to get her hands on it.

Reaching out she unclipped the clasps holding it to the wall and pulled it out. Feeling it's weight in her hands she whistled, "Heyo big boy, Ready for some use?" She joked. Sliding the rifle over her shoulder she set to gathering all the ammo she could carry before zipping the weapon bag up and sliding it up over her other shoulder. Exiting she nodded to Parker letting him know he was up. A few more minutes later he returned with an equally stuffed bag.

Returning to the group Kat looked for Kyle but he hadn't returned yet, looking then to Jason who was still tending to Stacy she set the bag of weapons and ammo to the side and crouched on one knee. "How's it looking Doc?"