I felt the earth shake inside me, I run forever but I won't get far.

[the_marshal]

WHO| Wyatt, Maximus, and R
WHAT| Bringing home the bacon.
WHERE| Arena 2... somewhere... cliffy
WHEN| Backdated to Week 6, 3/4 days after this.
NOTES| Badassery abounds! 8D Seriously tho, animal death. Sandworms.



After the feast of the previous week, the parachutes had all but stopped. After the strange, dark glasses had come for him - with the equally strange note - the skies had remained empty and they were slowly depleting the store of supplies. The goods from the Cornucopia all but gone, water levels worryingly low.

A part of Wyatt worried that maybe he'd upset the sponsors, laughing at their requests.

He didn't care what they thought, but if he'd unintentionally put Max at risk....

As their situation deteriorated, and the Cornucopia remained resolutely hidden, he brought up his idea for a hunt. He'd never done it himself, not like that, but Bill had told him the story often enough - The Buffalo Jump was his favorite way to pass the time around the campfire. They had everything they needed: he'd gotten rope amongst his haul, he'd scavenged a pelt from a long dead buffalo, and the weapon was ready made, carved from the very land.

He only needed their help.

R to drive the herd, to send them in a panic. Max to signal and to pull him back up when it was finished. (And to keep R from eating him if it failed.)

All they needed, was for a herd to position themselves close enough to make the jump possible.

He wouldn't be able to outrun them for long.

Comments

[shambler]

So here he is. Doing something useful.

It beats stuffing himself with Max watching, judging him with that quiet, steeled look in his eyes as he cleaned the blood off his weapons. When R overheard Wyatt and Max talking about this...plan (he couldn't help swaying there and listening - privacy wasn't something zombies came easily to), he'd been in a hurry to volunteer. Help out however he could. Show the two men he wasn't another messy mouth to feed. R still hasn't worked out how he feels about Wyatt and Aunamee. In a way he's glad they're trying to pull this off and he can stand there, distracted worrying about pulling this off right, and not thinking about how he should've shuffled there earlier. Pulled Aunamee and Wyatt apart. Done something better, basically, then falling on his friend vulture-style.

R tries to focus on the here and now. With that girl he ate buzzing around his corpse - he'd lie if he said he felt alive now - R sways there, waiting for the signal. He even tries to fix his posture, stand up straighter so he can see. The buffalo in the distance are grazing, these big piles of fur and muscle that look like they'd squash Wyatt before he got this thing even underway. Where is he, anyway?

Jesus, he hopes Wyatt hasn't given him the signal already. Has he? Has R been drifting away in his head again?

[gluteus]

Maximus thought the plan was stupid.

He didn't say so outloud. He had to admit that they needed food, and fluid, and they needed it as quickly as possible. That didn't make the plan any less completely stupid, however. He'd been watching the buffalo graze, and being anywhere in front of that herd when it started moving...

He could see a hundred thousand ways that this could go very badly, very fast. (He could easily picture having to kill R as he fell on Wyatt's body at the bottom of the cliff, nothing left but shattered gore.) He let out a tight breath as he shoved the thought from his mind.

He had too much respect for Wyatt to outright refuse to participate. Wyatt needed his help and seemed determined, so Maximus had relented, without protest. (Save for the sharp, questioning look in his eyes).

He wished he had a horse, right now, out of the way where he could see Wyatt slowly crawling into the herd, buffalo skin on his back. His machete was at his side, ready to flash the signal once Wyatt was in place.

He was here. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

[the_marshal]

The buffalo hide smelled of death. Even scrapped clean and left to dry under the baking sun, the scent plugged Wyatt's nose, coated the inside of his mouth as he belly-crawled across the burning sand.

He hoped it wasn't an omen.

Sweat rolling from his brow and dampening his palms, he wriggled his way up to the herd, the hide heavy and stinking upon his shoulders, silently questioning the wisdom of his decision. There were many, many ways this could go wrong and none of the endings were pretty.

As he neared the herd, he did his best to push the broken, bloody images away, trying to calm the fierce drumming of his heart. Would they sense him? Know him for the impostor he was? (A flash of steely hooves, a wild bellow thundering in his ears... would he even have time to feel it?)

Easing onto his hands and knees, he moved carefully into position, and shifted the hide just enough to flash the knife at his belt.

The herd grazed on, untroubled.

[gluteus]

He was watching Wyatt like a hawk, so as soon as he saw that small flash of the blade his sword was up and out, twisting under the sun to flash a much brighter signal at the zombie.

Hoping that R was paying enough attention to actually notice.

[shambler]

The sad thing was he almost did miss the cue. The zombie would squint if he could, his nearly-sightless eyes catching what might be the signal. A brighter blur across the sand and the big brown buffalo. Sunlight glinting off something. Metal. Probably Max's sword.

Hoping he had this right and he wasn't jumping the gun here, R started shuffling forward as fast as his mummified legs would allow him. He even raised a stink with some grade-A moaning. Nothing like an old-school groan from a corpse to get the ball rolling.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt couldn't see R from his position low amongst the forest of furry legs and gleaming hooves, couldn't hear him over the wet chewing, the gentle swish and slap of tails, but he knew when the animals spotted him.

Like ripples, awareness spread over the herd, heads coming up, feeding slowly, stopping. One, on the far side - closest to R, Wyatt imagined, picturing in his head - bellowed low. A second taking up the call before the first had even finished.

Then, chaos.

A great, dark wave rolling toward the shore, they turned, massive bodies twisting with surprising grace. Wyatt had only a heartbeat - less - to find his feet, to push off before the thunder roared.

The herd roaring to life, dust and sand billowing, barring down in a deadly charge behind him.

[gluteus]

Maximus had never seen anything quite like it.

It made him think of the giant flocks of birds he'd seen on the shores of the ocean, moving and twisting as one as they fled some unseen predator.

But he could see the predator, now. And the prey.

His lips thinned, fingers tightening around his machete as he stepped up bank to be able to get a better view as he saw Wyatt take off.

There was nothing for him to do now but wait.

[shambler]

R could barely see the wave of buffalo but maybe he didn't need to - he felt the ground trembling under hooves, the panicked snorts and grunts, and that electric feeling of animal fear spiking in the air like an invisible cloud. It was never the same as a human's "oh shit" reaction, the kind that made zombies zero in on them first before, say, their pit bull who was supposed to be standing lookout. Still, it made R's lurch speed up just a little bit faster, his hands even up and clawing slowly at the air (he'll groan later it was for emphasis. You know, to sell the whole performance).

Was Wyatt's still alive out there? This much noise and dust and he wouldn't even hear any death screams. R could only make a guess how big these things were, but the blurs were impressive already and it probably wouldn't take much for a hoof to come down and shatter bones into pulp.

R continued lurching and groaning, the buffalo herd massing together even closer as they followed after the "leader".

[the_marshal]

There was enough time for Wyatt to wish for a horse, to appeal to the long dead spirits of all those braves who'd made the run before him... and then there was only enough room in him for the sprint. His whole focus narrowing down to the pounding blood and ragged rush of breath in his ears. The thunder of hooves, echoing in his chest.

The cliff's edge stretching out before him.

He swore, just for a moment, he could feel them. The hot breath, their wet muzzles, on the back of his neck....

Then the ground was giving way and he was flying -- falling through space, reaching blindly.

The rope burned through his hand, his body jerking to a stop, his shoulder wrenching in painful protest. The cliff face smashed against his side.

And his whoop cracked across the rocks. A crow of relief that he was still alive. Surprise, that it worked. Awe, and gratitude, as the buffalo tumbled after him, their bodies crashing upon the rocks.

[gluteus]

Maximus was already running, full tilt, towards the cliff once Wyatt disappeared over the edge of it, cursing to himself as he ran, watching the beasts fall to their deaths. The ground shook with the thunder of their hooves, with the crashing of their bodies upon the rocks below. If Wyatt had gotten himself killed--

The earth moved. Maximus nearly fell over as the ground shifted below him, as there was a deep, thunderous sound. Something was alive below him and he could feel it.

He kept running for the cliff. "WYATT!" He yelled but his voice was lost over the din, as he was thrown back as the earth erupted under his feet, and suddenly an impossibly huge worm burst upwards into the sky.

[shambler]

This thing was so insanely big even R could see it: a giant, worm (snake?) burst from the ground, way bigger than anything he'd ever eaten. Look, even a blur like that was impressive. Give credit where credit was due. He stopped in the middle of his shuffling to gape, distracted, his loud "I'm a big scary zombie" groan gurgling into nothing. The Plan oozed away as he stared. So much for being the go-to guy today.

The worm had other ideas. Its massive body arced in the air as it wheeled in on itself and snatched one of the buffalo, ripping into it like it was nothing. A bloodied haunch smacked into the ground right where Max would've been seconds before.

[the_marshal]

The already terrorized herd broke, even the drive to follow as one, the innate knowledge that there was safety in numbers, lost in their panic. Like water escaping through fingers, the animals scattered in every which direction, mouths foaming with panic, eyes rolling white.

Hanging over the edge, clinging to the rope, to the very cliff face, Wyatt was, at first, unaware of the new arrival. He couldn't hear anything over the thunder of hooves, the mournful wails of the buffalo, the smash of their bodies against the rocks. The rumble of the stampede explanation enough for the way the word trembled and jerked.

It wasn't until the bodies stopped falling, until a great whip of red arched past him, splattering across the rocks below that he realized that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Twisting on the rope, he scrambled for purchase, trying without hesitation to pull himself up.

"MAX!"

[gluteus]

He slammed into the ground, breath rushing out of him, unable to hear or see anything, his entire world thunder and sand. He didn't stay where he was, rolling to the side until he could get up again, until he could once more start running.

He flashed the machete in the air, hoping that R and Wyatt would see the signal. Hoping that R would be with it enough to start running, hoping he could get to Wyatt in time to haul him up--

That was when he saw the beast shake itself, saw the great, endless length of it curve and arc in the general direction of Wyatt, reaching after the Buffalo. His blood chilled and he let out an incoherent yell of rage.

He would need to distract it.

I'll probably stick to NPCing for the worm since R's being useless :|a

[shambler]

it probably worked too well - the worm continued to emerge from the ground, more and more sections of it writhing out of the dirt. Chunks of the buffalo it scored splattered to the ground as it gave a shiver and began to follow that light flashing off the blade, turning whatever counted as its back to Wyatt.

Max would have a damn good view of that mouth as it bore down on him, rows and rows of teeth stained red in the desert sun.

[the_marshal]

Face set in grim determination, Wyatt managed to twist himself around and get his boots up in between himself and the rock face. Straightening his legs - rope sliding through his already burning palms - he pushed himself upright and pulled.

Walking himself up the cliff toward the ledge above.

And toward the roaring unknown.

[gluteus]

Maximus slammed into the sand a few feet away just as the worm's mouth slammed into where he had been, sending sand flying in a huge fountain around him.

Out came his knife as he scrambled back out of the dust and ran - not away from the creature but toward it, thrusting his knife deep into the worm's tough hide.

It didn't even bleed. The knife was too small to pierce to flesh, but still the blade caught, and Maximus held onto it tightly.

[shambler]

The worm reared up, taking its new stowaway with it. Maybe it was the long buffalo, the stragglers who were still near Wyatt and stampeding along the sides of the cliff. Maybe it just had a hankering for human flesh - rare, compared to the other animals here. Either way, the worm changed directions and began zeroing on the other Tribute by the cliff's edge, its body twisting before the sun.

[the_marshal]

His mind raced, supplying him with increasingly terrible visions as he climbed, but even the wildest one was sufficient preparation for what was waiting at the top.

Muscles straining, he started to haul himself up over the lip -- and nearly tumbled back over the edge when the massive creature whipped toward him, it's yellow teeth bared as it snaked through the air.

"Holy mother of--" His fingers dug in, scrabbling at rock and dirt, and he pulled himself up as quickly as he could, throwing himself to the side as soon as his boots found purchase.

[gluteus]

"No!" Maximus yelled, incredibly loudly, as he hauled himself up, gripping the scales with every ounce of energy he had, his wounded body screaming mutiny.

He pulled the knife free and dug it in hard, again, and this time he could feel the snap of hide under his hand as the knife punched through it into the muscle beneath.

The worm let out an unholy sound as it twisted and screeched away from its intended target, trying to get the painful fly off of its back.

[shambler]

That did it. The coils smashed, belly first, several meters away from Wyatt, grit flying. The worm was big, stupidly big, and one thrust of a knife wasn't going to send it diving for cover. It hissed and tried to double-back on itself on Maximus, finally noticing it had an unwanted passenger.