Mysterious Figure/Mentions: Louis, Open
He couldn't read minds, and was too far away to make out any possible spoken thoughts, but Blank could tell when somebody was plotting maliciously. He knew scheming when he saw it! Grinning widely to himself, Blank decided to leave the other to his plans and melted back into the shadows along the streets. Hmmm, what to do now? He could go find someone else, or maybe loot that Lowes he'd had his eye on? Decisions, decisions...
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Adox Wesson/19/Male/Loner/Mentions: The Grocery Store Pals
His dogs were still riding the high of getting toys and a super-soft bed, though Reyna was much more subdued in her expression of it. She was only pacing around him, looking around at the scenery instead of scanning for zombies. Zapped, in contrast, was dancing about like a maniac, flitting around like a hummingbird. "Settle." Adox whispered, trying to keep him from making too much noise and attracting something. Ox did not want to risk either of them getting bit. Gods, he wouldn't be able to deal with that, much less if it happened to both. He might just shut down if they died, or do like he had when... 'Bad thoughts, bad thoughts, go away, back into your box' Adox shook his head to clear out his brain, his helmet rattling against his gorget. Focus on the walking, and the not-getting-eaten-alive, thank you very much! Ox should probably find some place to get food and water, but the area was mostly full of materials and hobby stores. There was the pet store he'd left behind him, some kind of tool shop, one of those war games stores, that kind of thing. He turned a corner and his eyes snapped towards a chain fabric-and-crafts store, the kind of place that used to cater to middle aged women looking to do something outside of their jobs. Zapped was staring into the building with what Adox had come to learn was his 'wistful' expression. Damn his soft, dog-loving heart! The sliding doors were shut, and the automatic sensor was offline, so Adox had to pry the plexiglass sheets apart enough for he and his dogs to pass through. Once they were all inside, he bit back a curse as two walking corpses made themselves known. Reyna was already growling, and Zapped was dancing on his paws ready to jump. As the closest dead man shamble-lunged at him, Adox swept out with his hammer-axe, crushing the thing's head beneath its steel. The second was farther back, and ended up loosing one of its half-rotted legs to a charging Zapped. The once-woman fell over onto its side as its balance was broken by the sudden onset of accute limb loss syndrom, and got its skull shattered beneath an armored boot. "Ewwwww..." He grumbled to himself, shaking off the offending shoe. Rotten, already clotted blood was just gross. Zapped was also shaking himself off, trying to get rid of the zombie residue from shoulder checking the corpse. Adox grabbed a decorated canvas throw pillow to wipe it all off. While the cloying bodily fluids were easily removed from Zapped's fur, the pillow also left behind an honestly worrying amount of glitter. Reyna was looking down her nose at the sparkly plastic bits now all over the other dog's shoulder and neck, while said canine kept twisting his head and neck to try to see the offending glitter. Once he apparently managed to catch sight of it, his tail started wagging like mad and Zapped turned to Adox to give him the puppy eyes. Adox may or may not be wrapped around his dog's furry little paws. So while he looked about for blanket fabric and other comfort goodies, Zapped ended up covered head to toe, or rather, muzzle to tail, in bright silver and gold glitter. It wasn't like his fur was completly buried in the stuff, but it was pretty obvious that his troublemaker had gotten into the glitter bags. Reyna was trying to keep her distance, and Zapped had, of course, taken this as a challenge. He was currently chasing her around the store trying to tage her with the glitter. Adox already had some sticking to his chestplate and greaves from 'accidental' brushes from Zapped. Adox ended up grabbing a roll of this really soft faux fur-fleece mix and a small canvas pillow. Hopefully these would last longer than every other blanket and pillow he'd tried since escaping from the Hunters. Since fully removing the armor was a long and painful ordeal, he wore the suit pretty much constantly. A metal encased meat block like himself was not the best for keeping soft fabrics in good condition. He'd torn up several pounds of fabric in the form of both blankets and pillows over the course of his survival. The stuffed canvas would probably last much longer than the simple cotton bags he'd tried before, at least. Reyna burst through a row of hanging bolts, jumping away from the still-chasing Zapped. Adox whistled softly to get both their attentions and made a 'cut it' gesture with his hand at waste level. The two dogs stopped it with the antics, though Zapped looked a little disappointed. One of the bolts, still swaying from Reyna's run-through, nearly fell before Adox caught it. Both his pups looked vaguely guilty at that. At least they knew the danger of noise. Adox was just really glad that neither of them were barkers. Or howlers. A beagle would probably have gotten him killed by now if it didn't learn to shut up. Doesn't matter right now though, because nothing was limping at them, so everything was fine. No harm, no foul. The blank canvas pillow was stuffed into his duffle bag, and the future blanket was rolled up to fit alongside it. Sometimes Adox was really grateful that his duffle was more bag of holding than backpack. Sometimes being so big he's incapable of stealth has its benefits. Like being able to carry around the equivalent of a fifty gallon drum on his back. The joys of storage space! Adox and his dogs left the store with more loot to cart around and one dog still covered in glitter. That was going to be a pain to clean out later. Ah, whatever, it wouldn't really hurt their survival chances and it seemed to make Zapped happy, so it was fine. The group wandered down the streets, taking turns at a whim. Zapped suddenly bolted ahead, , disappearing around a corner. Adox took off after him, swearing a blue streak under his breath. He chased after his dog's tail end for a while, until he and Reyna finally caught up with their runaway companion. Zapped was standing on his hind legs, paws placed squarely on a different set of double doors, clearly barricaded from the inside. So... There might be survivors inside? Adox unconciously straightened in his hope. Other people! Somebody to talk to! Maybe. If they hadn't died inside, or were currently suffling about as a mindless corpse. Don't get your hopes up, Adox, it might turn out that they're all dead, or it was uninhabited, or something like that. A weird mix of anticipation, excitement, and trepidation churned in his gut and made him feel kind of sick. Nothing to do but... knock, he'd guess? So Adox rasies a fist and kind of taps on the door. The metal of his gauntlet crashes against the surface decently loudly, so if anyone was inside they'd hear it, though it probably would carry and draw the closest zombies to him. Ox winced, already turning his back to make sure he didn't get a zombie on his back while he waited.