Survival Of The Fittest

He heard the exploding collar and stopped midstep, looking behind him. Random chance. And not his name. God was clearly smiling on him. But this girl, this Liz Polanski. Typical. Not content to just be a murderer, she was getting those around her arbitrarily killed as well. He felt a touch of cognitive dissonance at his anger at her. Hadn't he just been shooting at the girl that this Polanski girl had gotten killed?

He tossed the thought away. Nonsense. He was just trying to survive. But Liz... well shit. She was actually getting those around her killed through her own childish desire to break the rules. Typical criminal behaviour. She had no thoughts for the consequences of her actions. He remembered the prayers he'd said after the first girl he'd killed, the myriad times he had wished her soul to god. He imagined this Polanksi girl, cackling with glee as her mischief cost lived by the minute.

He resumed, walking out of the residential area, on the hunt for the girl. Liz Polanski had to die. There was no question. No choice. Evil must be punished. The greater the evil, the greater the punishment. He checked that the gun was loaded a final time, and set off in search.

(David Matson continues elsewhere)

Andrea was on the move, and she wanted him to come with her. Still feeling shook up, Allen got up onto his knees and looked around in all directions just to make sure there were no more trigger-happy students lurking around. Waiting a few seconds and absolutly certain the coast was now clear, he quickly stood up and followed Andrea to the door.

And then Danya decided he'd be making an announcement in the middle of the day. It was totally unexpected, and Allen very nearly jumped out of his skin when the loudspeakers started up. Panting, he forced himself to listen to what he had to say. Except it wasn't Danya talking, it was their teacher. 'Huh? Mr. Kwong's alive? Liz Polanski's done something? Wait... wait, he's doing WHAT? Oh holy shit.' And there went Daisuke's collar, supposedly blown to pieces and taking his life with it. Allen looked to Andrea for some kind of answer, though she didn't seem to have a clue what exactly was going on either. Real helpful.

Andrea wanted to check the inside of the house out and Allen nodded, inclined to agree with her. 'Inside. Yeah, it should be safer in there... hopefully,' he thought, gulping as he wondered just how close to death he was a minute or so ago. He shuddered, following Andrea inside the dusty building. He glanced above him as soon as he entered, glaring at the camera positioned in the corner of the ceiling. He looked ahead again and saw they weren't alone. A girl Allen recognised as Lucy (no last name sprung to mind) was in the same room. She seemed friendly enough, which was fortunate; at least it wasn't some psycho like Clio or Maxwell that they'd just walked in on.

He didn't really get a chance to greet the shy library girl, for Danya had decided it was high time for another announcement.

'Again? What the hell?' It was concerning Liz again, who was still being a 'pest' in Danya's eyes. And he was resorting to detonating another random student's collar. 'Oh no... not again, please don't let it be me,' Allen prayed.

The name was read out. His wish was granted.

'Lucy Ashmore?' A brief pause as the name sunk in. 'OH CRAP!'

That was instantly followed up by a rather loud bang, Allen screaming and falling backwards in reflex from the sound which had originated right in fucking front of him. Looking up from the dusty floor, he could see Lucy falling to the ground in front of Andrea, blood flying in all directions from her exploded neck and splattering over the walls, floor, ceiling and Andrea's front. She hit the floor and just lay still.

Allen slowly got back to his feet and looked over Andrea's head, staring aghast at the fresh body on the floor, his face turning pale in a matter of seconds. The amount of blood leaking from her neck and spilling over the floor made him feel nauseous. "Oh...oh my God... I-I think I'm gonna-" Allen gagged, turning away from Andrea, collapsed onto all fours and started to retch. Nothing but stomach juices and bile came out of his mouth from where he'd hardly eaten anything over the past day.

He looked towards the front, suppressing the urge to throw up and crawled towards Andrea. Her top was covered in Lucy's blood, which only made him feel worse. "A-are you okay? You're not bleeding... are you?" he asked.

From outside the house a male voice called out, startling Allen. The person outside claimed that he was unarmed, but Allen didn't know if he could trust this person or not. On one hand, he could genuinely be friendly. On the other hand, he could be the person responsible for all the gunshots earlier. Dragging his bag closer to him, Allen reached in for one of the grenades, gripping it tightly with a shaking hand and pulling it out.

"W-who's there?" he croaked out as loud as he could, holding the incendiary device close to him.

It's OK, it's OK, it's OK, keep it together.

I'm a winner, everything's cool, this is my game I'm Andrea Raymer, I'm 77, I'm the female Adam Dodd, I'm a winner, I'm Andrea fucking Dodd is who I am.

Everything's cool, everything is cool

Keep it together.

....

Jesus fucking Christ, her eyes are fucking staring at me.

Andrea had seen dead bodies before SOTF, of course. Real life wasn't like Six Feet Under and she hadn't grown up with her dad embalming bodies in their basement; but she'd always embraced the morbid cool factor of her father running a funeral home and figured she was desensitized enough. Hell, she'd crack wise at some of the kids' reactions on earlier SOTF versions.

But had she ever seen a dead body with its eyes open like that? Fucking staring at her like Lucy Ashmore was? Andrea couldn't remember. By the time a body got to a funeral home, its eyes were long since closed, the eyeballs themselves sinking back and settling in their sockets. Her father would only open them long enough to put a plastic eyecap under the lids, which helped to give them a more, well... lifelike shape and appearance. That done, he'd glue the lids shut, and that's how they'd stay. It was all very professional, very clean.

Lucy Ashmore's eyes weren't clean. They were just THERE, staring out of a bloody face into nothingness. Desensitized or not, it was really, really unnerving, and that combined with all the news about Liz Polanski and Danya blowing collars had driven Andrea to the ground, where she repeated the mantra a couple more times.

Everything's cool, everything is cool.

Keep it together.

"It's like I said, huh?" she said, for lack of anything else to say. "People fuck around, they blow up someone else's collar! That's why you, uh, you gotta be entertaining to them..."

Andrea heard the unmistakable sound of vomiting and trailed off, realizing that she was muttering to herself. Whoa. That was trying way too hard to keep it together. Thing was, she recognized that, but wasn't sure she could do any better right now. It wasn't just the girl's collar getting blown apart in front of her, it was the entire situation. While Andrea was fucking around, Liz Polanski was actually accomplishing stuff. That might end up helping her in the end or screwing her over completely, but either way, she had to make some actual progress, and soon. Otherwise, who the hell knew? Maybe she'd get her collar blown next time. Not only would she be dead, she'd be completely fucking forgotten.

Allen turned back to her, wiping his mouth, and asked a silly question. For which she didn't really have an answer.

"OK? Yeah, yeah, sure I'm OK, I uh, I needed to change my shirt anyway." It was all she could think to say. Well, whatever, Allen surely wasn't coping any better than she was.

Liz Polanski. Liz fucking Polanski. How'd she done it? And now what was she doing out there?

Andrea knew Liz Polanski of course. The girl was a humorless bitch who didn't have the good sense to at least be self-depreciating about her lifestyle choices. Andrea disliked that in a person. And there was no way she'd let Liz Polanski steal her thunder here.

But it was OK. It was OK. Let Liz have her spotlight. Let Liz take it for now.

Allen, meanwhile, had realized that someone else was around and was fumbling for one of his grenades. Christ. Who the hell had the other guy been? Andrea tried to focus.

"I saw him before," she said after a second. "It's, oh.. who the fuck's that guy, the guy with the hair. Joe Rios."

God, she wanted some more pills right now. Later. Later.

"I think he's cool, but uh, I also think we should maybe take off now."

Yeah, screw this house. There were houses everywhere.

Andrea looked back down at her T-shirt, where Lucy Ashmore's blood was now running down the midriff in ribbons. Shuddering, she grabbed at it, peeling it over her head. Her skin underneath felt cold with sweat. At least it didn't soak through my bra, THAT'D be disgusting. She called out to the other person as she tossed the shirt aside.

"So yeah, Joe Rios if that's you? Sorry, but I think we're gonna, uh, leave now. And we've got a grenade, so yeah."

Yeah. Get a new shirt on, then blow this popsicle stand.

She moved to zip open her bag, and saw how her hands were shaking. Aaargh. If she opened that bag, she'd see her sweet, sweet medication, and right now, she didn't know if she'd be able to resist gobbling an entire handful of them like Tic-Tacs. Still, what was she going to do, run around topless? That sure wasn't keeping it fucking together.

Then she saw one of the cameras.

At least they're getting a show.

She couldn't help but smile.

Andrea stood up and grabbed her bag off the ground, then looked at the camera. She shook her chest at it.

"And uh, Danya, if you want to see more crazy shirtless Andrea, don't blow my collar!"

Fuck, Allen's gonna think I've gone totally crazy here. And I seriously seriously need him.

She turned to him, smiled, and forced herself not to imagine what he was thinking right now.

"Sorry, lost it for a second there. Yeah, let's go so I can put a shirt on. We can talk, then, k?"

They went.

(Andrea Raymer continued in Out on a Tether)

The girl, who he recognized as Andrea Raymer, and the guy, who he vaguely recognized as Allen something-or-other, apparently didn't want his company.

Joe totally understood this. In a sense, it was almost like karmic retribution for ditching Cisco's dumb ass back in the woods. While his mind was on that subject, it began to wander a bit; what if Cisco had told Remy and company about how Joe was supposedly the Grim Reaper? That would essentially preclude any hope of joining them, and make him a fair few new enemies, and if there was anything that Joseph Rios did not need it was new enemies.

Moreover, the girl had taken her shirt off. This was a nice development; she wasn't exactly his type, but she was far from unattractive either. He tried to keep himself from staring.

As his mind wandered off to new things, so did Joe himself. There was nothing interesting for him here, as the gunshots had stopped and everyone else had started to leave.

((Joe Rios continued in The Long Road Home))

"Yeah, yeah, I don't want to hang around here any longer than you do," Allen agreed, looking back to Lucy's corpse that was still draining blood everwhere from the torn neck. The metallic odour was strong and the idea of escaping into fresh air was extremely welcoming. Not to mention that sitting just yards away from a dead body was really freaking him the fuck out.

He was still clutching the grenade, keeping it handy just in case the gunman was still outside and waiting for someone, anyone to pick off with a simple bullet to the head. How effective a grenade was against a gun though was up for debate; he may well be on the receiving end of a headshot before he even got the chance to pull the pin.

All thoughts of gunmen and grenades flew out the window when Andrea took her top off. 'What the-?!'

Allen blinked a couple of times, startled quite a bit by her sudden action and found himself staring at her out of surprise. 'What is she-oh crap, look away, Allen, look away!' He hastily turned his head away, so he was now looking at Lucy's face instead. Her cold, bloodied face with eyes that stared back into his. He shivered and closed his eyes.

Andrea was now conversing with Danya through one of the cameras, pleaing with him to spare her life in exchange for topless shots, out of all things. Allen turned back to look at her, a shocked expression on his face. "What?" he asked in disbelief. He thought about asking her just what in hell she thought she was doing, but then decided against saying anything at all. He just wanted to leave as quickly as possible, so he stood up and left the house right after Andrea.

((Allen Birkman continued in Out on a Tether))

((Thread now concluded))