Survival Of The Fittest

Ray looked at Annaliese, stared for a second. He raised his finger and took a breath to say something, but nothing came out. He furrowed his brow, as if thinking hard about something. He settled for folding his arms, cocking his hip, and licking his lips.

"Wh..." Ray stopped, still at a loss. Finally he shrugged and shook his head as we watched Annaliese drag stuff around the house, like she was building a....barricade? Really?

He turned back to Alex. "We haven't really figured that part out, yet. We're low as hell on water and food. I think there's a grocery store around here, we were probably gonna go check that out. Good a plan as any, I guess."

Ray pushed his knuckles into his palm as he talked, working a pop out of them. At this point he remembered he was still barechested, but he wasn't sure he wanted to put his shirt back on. He had forgotten his bag with his change of clothes at the tree where he woke up, and the shirt he'd been wearing was still foul with seven days worth of nasty.

"Someone wanna help me look around here, find a fucking shirt I could wear?" He asked the group.

((Thanks bunches, Holly!))

Isabel walked over to the musty looking old couch in the room and flopped down, landing with a satisfying "thump" and bouncing just slightly on first impact before settling down again. She closed her eyes and covered them with her left arm. Her sleeve pulled up a little, revealing a few faded, sharpied letters on her arm.

She was still tired and not all the way back up to %100 just yet. But again she couldn't suppress something of a little laugh when Annaliese made her view on raisins known.

I must be tired because that actually makes sense to me.

"I've never thought of it like that before," she said, eyes still closed.

Ray wanted to go to the supermarket and find a shirt. Well, Isabel didn't even have any of her own clothes left. Most of her stuff got left back at the swamp.

"Check up the bedroom maybe. There might be something someone left behind," she said, trying to be helpful.

It was almost surreal. They were all going to go to the market to pick up groceries. Get some dorritos, pick up a frozen pizza, maybe some cokes.

She moved her arm a little bit and opened one eye to look at the girls. These were the sort of people she could have seen herself being friends with if only she'd actually gone out and tried to make friends at school. Isabel certainly got along with them easier than the other group, even if she was silent most of the time.

What did that mean, though? She'd built a bond between the others that was held together with trust and forged through hardships. She could bet everything that Dave and Helen wouldn't try to slit her throat in her sleep. And it would be so terribly hypocritical for her to drop them for new people. Didn't she know what it felt like to be dropped for someone easier and better?

Maybe she could look for them with this group. Become one huge group. She closed her eyes again and rolled onto her side.

"Grocery store. Sounds like a plan," she said to no one in particular.

Alex rolled her eyes and dropped down on the couch next to Isabel. "Raisins are awesome, you so don't know what you're missing," she couldn't resist teasing Annaliese back. "Speaking of fruit that sounds wonderful. Any chance of a fruit salad at our potluck? What I wouldn't give for some kind of fruit. You don't suppose that the grocery store has any? Even the dried kind?"

"Bedroom would be my guess as well," she said turning her attention to Ray. "I doubt any of my shirts would fit you, but you're welcome to try." She looked from Annaliese to Ray and then back. "Umm, if the plan is that we're going to go check out the grocery store why are you building a barricade?

Annaliese eyed the two girls sitting on the couch as they talked to Ray about shirts. ‘The lazy girls always die first. Well, first the ho-ish girls die,' she corrected herself. Which really didn't apply to the situation as it stood since she didn't think Ray was going to sneak off to go get biz-zay in the woods with either of the couch dwellers.

"You know not of what you speak," she said, finally addressing Alex. "Raisins are an unholy evil that should not be tolerated to live. They are the gateway dried fruit. First raisins. then you escalate to crap like craisins and prunes. Eventually, you're consuming the dark forces that should not be named." She looked Alex in the eye. "The disgusting, evil inhumanation: dried banana."

Annaliese struggled to lift the keystone of her zombie barricade. She rolled her eyes at the other girl's ignorance. "I am building this," she said, her tone lofty, "because, obviously, the ravening zombie horde will roll right in through the windows uninterrupted if I *don't* block them." She let the unspoken ‘duh' hang in the air before turning towards Ray.

"Are we really going to the grocery store? Because I was thinking…." Her voice trailed off as she got a good look at Ray for the first time. Her train of thought completely derailed onto a new track as she processed what she was seeing. ‘Oh, Ray has no shirt on. Hello shirtless Ray. Your hair doesn't look like it's eating your head anymore. You have a nice flat tummy. It's all ripple-y and…good and stuff. Shirts are not required.' Annaliese continued to look at Ray and blink. After a moment, she giggled and spoke.

"You have a nice button," she said with a grin. Shifting her grip on the wooden piece, she began laying the groundwork for her barricade.

Ray didn't make a comment on Annaliese's tirade about the evils of dried fruits. He happened to enjoy dried bananas; he'd eaten a lot of them over his wrestling career a snack that wouldn't put on too much weight. He watched as she tried to bolster her makeshift barricade. He almost entertained the idea of helping her with it so it would get done, so she could move on to whatever else she was cooking up in her head.

Then she saw him like it was the first time she'd noticed him since he got out of the shower, and he was both confused and amused. He guess he looked good; he spent more than a little time in the weight room for purposes of strength, and he tried to get some kind of tone to his body. This was just one of the first times someone had actually seen and acknowledged it. It was weirder that Annaliese was the one to notice.

Ray gave a short chuckle when Annaliese talked about his button, then headed for the bedroom.

"Right, finding a shirt." On the way to the door he looked over at Alex. "I already got it out of Isabel here. Tell us 'bout what you been doing before you got here. We can ki....we can burn a little time." He headed in, leaving the door open so he could hear.

"Zombies," she said with a shrug to Alex, echoing Annaliese as if it were obvious.

The smudged letters on her arms reminded her of her old task. She almost was beyond caring about that now. In fact, she was sort of feeling lazy all around. She wasn't sure she was even going to get up if they all decided to go to the grocery store. She was content to just lay on the sofa like a rag doll.

Ray had gone to look for a shirt. Isabel wasn't totally sure of why it was so important to him. She briefly considered offering her own but didn't think anyone would take that suggestion well. Isabel looked down at her stomach and lifted her shirt a little past her navel. There were more names of killers faded into her stomach but that wasn't what seemed to catch her interest. She poked her stomach.

She'd lost weight. A lot of it.

A week ago there had been a slight bump from under her navel just to where the line of her skirt started. Now it was flat. It depressed her. She took a deep breath and the upper corner of her ribs were slightly more defined.

"I think I've lost like, ten pounds," she sighed.

((Jimmy Brennan and Rosa Fiametta continue from Doesn't Matter, I had Sex))

Jimmy Brennan stumbled through the woods, panting and spitting blood and saliva. He was soaked, drenched and stinking of blood and sweat, his scrawny frame bloated and covered with bruises and scabs. He'd left his hoodie back at the Gazeebo, not like he'd need it. It was ruined beyond repair, and the Island had grown far too hot for a hoodie anyway. He was practically burning up as he staggered through the forest, clutching his prized shotgun in one hand, his half empty bag in the other. Rosa was somewhere behind him, close enough encase any danger came about. She wasn't talking that much, for some odd reason.

Heh. Girls. Never understand girls. They're all crazy. Girls. Fuckin' nuts. Doesn't stop me.

Jimmy tried to grin, but found himself physically unable. His face looked like a battlefield, bruise upon bruise, his nose broken and purple, cracked just far enough to the left to indicate a fracture. Dried blood coated his lips and mouth, running down toward his chin. It was far too painful to grin, so instead Jimmy kept his face slack, his mouth slightly agape, the only position he was really comfortable with. Any grin he could make was badly mangled at this point, resembling more of a Clint Eastwood Style cringe then anything positive.

Clint Eastwood. Man with No Name, coming into town, wreckin' shit, taking names. Heh. 'The Good'. I like that. Need Revolvers. Revolvers would be badass...

He spat on the ground, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. As much as he hated to admit it, ever since his encounter with J.J he was resting more often. The boy had beaten him bloody, thrown him into a fucking pole. He was still standing, but his body and mind were screaming for a rest. He pushed it to the back of his conscious, gasping for air, waiting for Rosa to catch up.

He couldn't afford to over think things. He knew who he was.

I ran towards Claire, because... I knew she couldn't hit me. She's a girl, weak, she couldn't have, not after she saw what I did to J.J no, no... I knew it. That's it. I KNEW she'd miss, beforehand. I had no fear, no fear, because nothing can kill me, 'specially not some dumb bitch blindly following J.J Sturn... Ha! That'd be hilarious. Me. Dead. Ha! No, not going to happen, not going to fucking happen. Impossible to happen, still so much to do, karma, it's all karma. Forget about it, you're Jimmy Fucking Brennan. That doesn't concern you. Morality, fuckin', fuckin' anything, it's all beneath you, beneath me...

Sucking in one last giant gulp of air, Jimmy started walking again, faster then before, despite the pain running through him. As painful as it was, he mentally forced himself to avoid hobbling, avoid slowing. It wasn't fitting of a man like him, to walk weakly. If his classmates were going to see him, they were going to see the real deal, the confidant stride of a man in control. It was all about first appearances. Jimmy heaved his shotgun up, breathlessly chuckling in joy as he examined the weapon. The end of the gun was slick with gore, what had once been J.J's brain matter.

First impressions.

"Come'on Rosa! Stick close, gotta'- gotta' stay together now..." He called back.

The woods were opening up ahead, and for the first time in game, Jimmy could see actual houses. Craning his neck to get a better view, he realized that they'd stumbled upon a residential area, houses and more. Jimmy wasn't dumb, he knew there would be no electricity, and little supplies. But the prospect of kicking his feet back, if just for a moment, was an alluring one. He turned back to Rosa, painfully attempting to smile.

"L-look. We got houses."

A thought crossed through his mind as he turned back towards the town. The Island was large, he'd been running around it for what... seven days? Less? More? And yet he had had no idea this place had even existed. But then again, his class number over two hundred. Houses meant civilization. Houses meant cover, and a warm place to sleep.

Houses meant people.

No... Enemies. So fucking be it. I'm always ready. Let's go. Let's go Jimmy. Let's fucking rock.

Jimmy raised his shotgun, trudging forth into the open, toward the houses. Being caught off guard could mean the end of him, and he wasn't ready for that anytime soon. If he was going to kick back and relax, he'd first have to post an eviction notice.

Fucking. Rock.

"I already got it out of Isabel here. Tell us 'bout what you been doing before you got here. We can ki....we can burn a little time." He headed in, leaving the door open so he could hear.

Alex shook her head at Isabel's comment and looked between her and Annaliese. Between Isabel's tendency to talk as if no one could hear her and Annaliese's apparent obsession with zombies, she was beginning to have her doubts about this group. But Ray, Ray seemed to be dealing okay and keeping the girls together. And Alex really didn't want to strike out on her own again.

"Not a whole lot. I spent most of the first three or four days looking for my brother. I found Jess pretty early on and we've been together most of the time. But after Roman was killed, we kinda drifted apart. Not that I blame her it's not like I'm the best company.

I just got him back, found him, after four days and then Acacia…well I don't know what she was thinking but she took him from me," Alex stopped talking, shifted in her seat, and then forced a laugh.

"See what I mean haven't exactly been the best company lately. Anyway then I ran into Hayley who's gone completely nuts, just FYI. She started shooting at us and killed Jason. After that I've just kinda been wandering the island. Not sure what I'm supposed to do with me now," she finished up quickly.

Annaliese half listened to Alex's narrative. She felt really, really sorry for the other girl and her loss but she couldn't allow herself to focus on it. It was just too sad, losing the person you loved to the callowness of others.

Glancing back at the sliding door, she realized that this whole place was like the Swamps of Sadness. If you gave up, it slowly sucked you down until you were gone. She had to fight it before she wound up like Artax. She had to distance herself from the sadness before it swallowed her whole.

With a grunt, she jammed the first piece of the zombie barricade into place. Feeling a little satisfied that she was accomplishing something tangible, Annaliese looked up. Her eyes widened as she noticed the gore-covered person erratically surging towards their shelter. Heart racing, she fixated on the shotgun he carried, tracking it as he moved it from its passive position to a much more threatening stance.

A squeak of alarm escaped from her mouth. Oh God, he was heading right for them. What should she do?

He was covered in blood. Literally. Covered in blood. Oh God, what should she do?

The urge to run and flail was almost more than she could bear. Every fiber of her being was telling her that this was not a good thing and that they needed to get out of the way out this on-coming threat. She needed to get them all out of here. She needed –
Ray. She needed to get Ray. Ray would know what to do.

Trying to keep her voice even and calm to avoid panicking the others, she called for him.

"Ray? Ray, I need you to come here please." She looked over her shoulder at the direction he had disappeared in. Without giving him a chance to answer, she called again, unable to keep the panic out of her voice.

"Ray, there's a ginger rage zombie toting a shotgun who's Robert Patrick running towards us. What do we do?"

Ray had pulled out some of the drawers in the bedroom as Alex told what happened to her, going through several shirts before realizing they'd managed to rest in the house of what must have been a family of goddamned midgets.

He listened to her story, and he felt his heart go out to her. If Alicia had ever died, he would have been done. Game over, fuck life.

"You don't even need to know what you're gonna do. Just come with us." He called out from the room. "Ain't no harm in it."

Ray left out the part where only one of the people on this island was supposed to leave. He had forced himself to not think about it, and he continued to now. Being in the house, relaxing, like this was all some vacation, made it easy.

Ray held up the latest shirt, a tiny periwinkle tanktop that probably belonged to a girl about two feet shorter than himself, when Annaliese called out again, with no small sense of urgency in her voice.

"A what now?" Ray left the bedroom, figuring there was just another wayward soul out there and Annaliese was overreacting again. "I got it, I got it." Ray was fine with one more at the party. This house was becoming a shelter, and considering how well it was going, he didn't mind.

He threw open the sliding door, stepped out onto the deck again. He realized his mistake almost immediately. The wraith with the shotgun and the wild eyes was not another kid looking for friends and a place to rest.

It was too late to go back in. He was sure the kid

Jimmy Brennan. Angry little shit, I think.

saw him as soon as he stepped out of the house, and going back in would put the contingent in more danger.

"Fu...fuck."

Isabel sat half way up when Alex recounted what had happened to her. She didn't have siblings, much less someone as close as a twin so she couldn't imagine what it would feel like to lose a person like that. She leaned forward and swept some of her hair behind an ear.

"Wow. That's....really rough. I'm sorry your brother's gone."

It sounded super lame, but it was pretty much the best she could do to comfort her. Comforting had never been one of her strong suits.

But then she said something that happened to be particularly relevant to her. Isabel sat up completely now and wrung her hands together. And according to her report, Hayley's kill count wasn't going to go down any time soon.

"You saw Hayley? Where? Where did you see her? I've been looking for her for days. It's really important that I talk to her, especially-"

Annaliese came bursting back in, sounding quite concerned about a zombie outside. Was there really a zombie out there? Isabel was almost inclined to actually believe her. Be it a real zombie or not, she mentioned it had a shotgun so that was definitely cause for concern.

She looked at Alex for a second and then got up to go look out the window.

"It's.....Jimmy Brennan?" she said, somewhat confused. He looked in a bad way, bloody and ragged. And there was a girl with him. Isabel's face drained of blood.

"....and Rosa."

Silly as it was, she was equally afraid of Rosa as she was of the shotgun totting blood drenched boy.

"Let's just stay in here and-"

And looked back and saw that Ray had already stepped out of the house.

"..............."

"Oh God damn it," she muttered.

She ran back to her back and pulled out the jagged piece of mirror. It wasn't much, but it was the closest to a weapon she had, not that she wasn't appreciative of all that the trumpet had done for her. Slowly she crawled to the side of the sliding glass door Ray had stepped out of and crouched just out of sight with her improvised weapon.

((Allen Birkman continued from Make Your Own Kind of Music))

'Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap!'

It was a disaster. An absolute, unmitigated disaster. He'd lost her. During the run from that rock-throwing student, he'd somehow managed to get separated from Andrea. For the first time in several days, he was on his own.

That was bad enough by itself. However, on his travels he'd idly glanced at the duffel bag and his heart had damn near stopped beating when he spied the words 'Andrea Raymer - G077' stitched onto the side. Allen immediately went from worried to completely (thankfully not literally) shitting himself.

His grenades were no longer on hand. All of her belongings were instead. Her meager amounts of food, a can of that potent energy drink, her notepad, pieces of paper, the flask half-filled with gunpowder and some cigarettes. Oh, and there were drugs in her bag as well. Ritalin, Wellbutrin, some Adderall, all of which left Allen wondering what they were doing there in the first place. Ritalin, as far as Allen knew, was used for treating ADHD, or ADD, something like that. The others, he had no clue what they were exactly, or what they were even supposed to treat.

Pushing the thoughts of medication to one side, Allen could see many houses looming in the near distance. 'Oh for fuck's sake,' Allen mentally kicked himself as he realized he was on the outskirts of the town once again. He just couldn't seem to keep away from that place. It was like there was an 'Allen-magnet' amongst the buildings that kept on dragging him back, no matter how far away he wanted to be from town.

Sighing deeply, he shrugged his shoulders and pressed on. Try and stay positive, he'd tell himself. Maybe that generator was lurking inside one of the houses. Maybe Andrea had cottoned on to that fact and was making her own way back to the town as well. Maybe she was even hanging around there already, having taken a different route to get there faster. That would definitely be a stroke of luck, one that he desperately needed. 'If so, I'd better get her attention, just in case she really is here,' he thought.

Ignoring any risk or danger of what he was about to do, Allen cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered at the top of his lungs.

"ANDREA! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Jimmy swaggered. He didn't really know the technical meaning of the word, but if he did, he would characterize his walk as just that. Swagger. Big steps, balls swinging from side to side as he marched shotgun in hand up towards the door, a maniacal grin stuck to his broken face. Doubt had vanished from his mind. Jimmy was a hero from myth, Ajax, able to slay a thousand man with just a thought. Courage, balls, bravado, moxie. Mere words couldn't describe him anymore. There had never been a man like him, not on Survival of the Fittest, not in the world. Danya had found a diamond in the rough, and now the bastards would pay.

Fucking. Rock.

Fucking. Rock.

Jimmy was standing mere feet from the door when the boy appeared. It took him a second to realize what had occurred, that he'd been so quickly proven right. Yes, there were enemies here. Conveniently located in the closest house. Jimmy took a deep breath, sucking all the air possible into his lungs, despite the renewed pain, shooting through his body.

Not pain. No, no, pain isn't pain, pain is good. Adrenaline. A can of Red Bull, right in my fucking veins- keepin' me edgy- fuckin' awake, ALIVE, YES, ALIVE!

Jimmy spread his legs apart, like a cowboy preparing for a showdown. With a grunt he raised his shotgun up, his other hand out, flexing it, preparing himself. He threw one last glance over his shoulder. Rosa stood behind him, not comprehending, not understanding what he was about to do. His swollen face did him no justice, but Jimmy smiled anyway, winking at the girl.

"Stand back baby." He said softly, slurring his words.

He turned back to the boy... Ray. Raymond was his name. He was swearing, looking at Jimmy like he was crazy. Jimmy hated him already. He hated everything. He had an itch, a primal urge building up from within him as he stared down the boy.

J.J had beaten him down, like a little baby. He'd cried, dishonored himself. JJ's bitch had escaped, worse, had tried to take him down.

No, the audience couldn't think that. Jimmy was invincible. He'd have to win again, to remind them.

Say something. Say something cool.

He couldn't raise the shotgun anymore. Jimmy brought it down, catching the forestock with his left hand. He staggered weakly, aiming the shotgun up to point at the boys chest.

"This is 'n eviction notice." He snarled, eying down Raymond.

"Move or bleed... Motherfucker."

Alex flashed Ray a grateful smile and was more than happy to accept the offer. However, she had trouble believing what came out of Isabel's mouth. She was actually looking for Hayley! Had she just missed the part about the random shooting? On second thought maybe she should give her the information, and then she could experience Hayley psychosis first hand. Before she could make any kind of comment things suddenly got serious. While she didn't believe there were actual zombies outside someone was coming.

She got up to see who it was that Annaliese had seen out the windows, but Isabel beat her to it. Alex made a face, like most of the senior class she had had little time for Jimmy Brennan. She was more surprised to find Rosa in his company. Alex stepped close enough to hear Jimmy's threat and to see the shotgun he held.

"Ummm, I vote for doing what he says. It's not like we're super attached to this house, and I'd like to avoid getting shot at again. If we still want to hang out around here, there's not exactly a shortage of houses we can invade."

Annaliese cautiously edged past the two girls who had the common sense to stay out of the line of fire and stepped out to stand next to Ray. She nodded in agreement with Alex. There wasn't any reason to fight Jimmy for the house. Let the little ghoul have the place. They could move on without difficulty.

As she studied Jimmy, she felt a little less foolish for calling him a rage zombie. Based on his battered, gore covered appearance, Jimmy had not only embraced the nature of the experience, he was enjoying the chance to torture and kill his classmates. The boy had to be covered in bad karma to match all the blood of his victims. The sooner they got away from him, the better.

Moving slowly so as not to provoke the bloody little ginger, she rested her hand on Ray's shoulder. "Yeah, Ray. Let's just go. Little Big Man here as to provide for his woman. We can head out. This house is not special, and it's definitely not worth dying over." The wind shifted a bit, carrying the stank of Jimmy to her. Grimacing, she turned her head and began to breathe through her mouth.

"Besides, he's just gross. All that funk and his karma will contaminate the house," she explained in a low voice, hoping Jimmy wouldn't hear. "Staying doesn't do us any good anyway. There's nothing we can eat or drink here."

A random male yelling off-scene startled her and made her shy away from Ray. She swung her head around, looking for the source. Holy Hannah, when had this area become packed with people? If this really was a real, live horror film, they needed to vacate as soon as possible. Because when a bunch of people got together, the body count skyrocketed.