Upon reaching a small house overlooking the the warehouse the salvage team last radioed as their location, William and his four companions stop to set up camp as the sun begins to set. William walks into the house to clear the area before motioning his team inside. Once inside, the five begin moving anything needed for the night into the front room as William begins sorting his gear for the bare necessities. As he outfits himself, Marty walks over to question the next moves in the rescue.
"Mr. Daniels, everyone is curious what your plan entails so we can prepare." William turns to face the young woman still intrigued by her lack of fear in him. The other three had given small hints during the trip, but this young lady showed none.
"First of all, William is fine. Second, I will have you start prep work and rest as I go down and assess the situation. No night scopes means one of us has to go down there and check things out. Just finish setting up the rest area and figure out shifts for watch." He continues ripping through his gear leaving behind any weight he will not need. After twenty minutes of prep work, William walks into the room the four have set up for the night.
"I will be heading down to see what we are dealing with and any clear paths to save your friends. Try to get a few hours sleep each and be ready when I return." William drops one of the bags he carried with him along the way, "Part of your prep work requires camouflage. This bag will help so long as you four can keep your emotions in check. Saturate your clothing in the perfumes and continue steady thick layers of the lotions. They will mask you enough to go undetected for a few hours."
"Excuse me sir" The younger boy, Alan Nelson interrupts,"How is perfume and lotion decent camouflage? I thought we had to do something like zombie guts to hide in plain sight." The young man, barely twenty in appearance, pushes his shoulder length brown hair back as he pins it out of his face as he eyes the man who will be leading them in this endeavor.
"If you would like, I can go find you something to cut up and smear over you. It will work to an extent, but sounds quite disgusting if you ask me. The infected don't smell fruits and flowers like you would, so for a few hours this will make you invisible to them as long as none of you begin shooting or making any other loud noises. When we start this, I will need a sniper, a driver and two of you with me blades only. I should only take about five or six hours to check the area, make sure you are all rested completely." William picks up the baseball bat in the corner by the door as he exits, leaving the four to recharge and be ready.
After walking a path around the area they will be walking in to, William Daniels begins walking softly into the area around the supermarket finding only a few stragglers at first he leaves to ramble along as he makes his way to the abandoned store. Reaching the parking lot, William finds a few hundred infected lying dead around the store. Some have been shot, some beaten down but the majority have been burned. Walking along through the bodies, he begins quietly taking down the few stragglers that have wandered back into the parking lot as he makes his way to the front doors of the market. The doors have been battered off the hinges from outside as he enters the store. A handful of stragglers ramble around the shopping floor as William draws two icepicks and quickly and quietly dispatches the obstacles. Making his way to the back store room the group radioed from, the steel doors have been ripped off from the outside. Flipping the doors over, William finds a chain was wrapped around the handles and quickly realizes what has happened. A raiding party from Saint Louis came down this way, possibly corralling more infected and the swarm of infected told them something or someone was in here. Entering the store room, he find three bodies all executed by gunshots to the head. William knows the ritual of burial is still important to the people of Oasis and decides he should find something to wrap the bodies in. Before he can turn, a voice rings out from behind him.
"Guess Big T was right. These losers had someone coming for them." William turns to see the nearly hulking man dressed in makeshift armor holding an automatic rifle. The lack of lighting in the area does little to hamper his ability to quickly observe and assess the large white bald man that towers nearly a foot over him. As the man holds the rifle trained on him, William quickly surveys his frame looking for weak points in his armor or potential injuries.
"You must be some kind of bad ass for them to send you in alone. Either that or the rest of your people are hiding out. Tell you what little man, you lead me to them and you get the same fighting chance I'm giving them." The large man's smile should be intimidating, but his prey seems less than impressed as he begins to slowly sidestep as he slides the small hidden blades he has in his arm pads.
"You don't want to be firing that gun in here. The echo of the shots will have us overrun in a matter of minutes. Be smart and put it down, smarter still and walk away." William's cold gaze at his opponent does little to shake the man as the lighting makes it near impossible to see the dead look in his eyes. The hulking man does smile at the fearless comment and sits his rifle in the corner before drawing a machete and charging his prey.
As Marty finishes the prep work William had instructed and begins dressing, the sight of lights fills the room as the she quickly awakens the other three who quickly grab weapons and take aim at the door. The lights shut off and are quickly followed by footsteps coming to the door followed by three quick knocks as William opens the door slightly bloody with a gaping wound on his shoulder that slowly heals in front of them. As they lower weapons, Marty walks towards him as the small of anger comes from her sharply filling William's nose.
"Who's blood is that? If you..." raising her gun as he quickly raises his hand while reaching for a towel to wipe his healed wounds and face clean.
"It's not. I have the three dead outside, as for the rest of them.... things just got worse."
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