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Post by SHILOH SUMMERLAND on May 24, 2011 21:47:58 GMT -5
CASTLE ROCK, COLORADO
A red '67 Chevy Camaro roared down the long black stretch of road that made up the local highway. Though at the moment the only thing that could be seen from the road were semi open plains with a few rock faces and tree spread out here and there. It was not much as it seemed that Shiloh was driving through the most boring part of Colorado. She passed a sign which caught her attention, and informed her that in exactly one mile was a rest stop. She pushed her foot down a little harder on the gas pedal to get there faster.
In not time she saw the little open area with the only building in sight were some public bathrooms and a few gazebos spread out near some barbeque grills. She pulled into the area and scanned around for a open parking spot without any trouble at this particular stop as she seemed to be the only one there. Finding it a bit odd but she pulled over her car into the nearest spot anyway and applied the break. Even with the car stopped she glanced around to see if the rest stop might have had at least one other person there, but she saw that she was indeed the only on there. She chalk it up to the fact that not many people would probably choose this road to drive on as there was not much to see.
She would not blame the people as she herself was on the verge of going stir crazy from having to sit for so long in a car without much to look at every once in a while. Now that her mind was not focused with keeping her eyes on the road she noticed how her body ached with pain here and there. It did not surprise her as seven hours of sitting in the car would do that to the human body. She grimaced as the pain shot through her from every little movement that she made. I really need to move my legs, she thought to herself as she knew that would return the blood circulation in her body back to normal. But she was not looking forward to it at all.
Knowing that she put it off for long enough she reached for the car keys and turned them killing the car's engine. Reaching over she pressed the latch button on her seat belt and felt the tough material release and slide away from her. Sliding over in her seat slightly she turned so that she could reach into the backseat area and started rummaging around for something. It took a while but she finally found what she had been looking for; which was a slightly rumpled and tattered road map. She reached a hand to open the car door before she stopped herself and grabbed the plaid winter jacket that was sitting on the passenger seat. Then she slowly opened the door and slowly climbed out.
Once she was outside the car she was hit by a very strong and very cold breeze that burned like hell. What did not help that she was wearing a cotton v neck shirt that had short sleeves which meant that there was more exposed skin for the cold air to attack. Quickly she stuffed the map between her teeth to hold it as she shrugged on the coat and zipped and buttoned it closed it shut. She took the map out of her mouth and nearly sighed with relief at the feeling of the soft wool lining of her coat comforted her stinging skin.
"Smart move there Summerland." she grumbled out loud to herself at her very poor choice in attire for that day. But her winter coat did a good enough job at keeping out the cold. So once she was ready to do battle with the Colorado moutain wind she shut her car door to keep from any more cold air getting in and made her way onto the near by sidewalk and looked around for somewhere to sit. She spotted a near by picnic table and headed towards it while the wind kept slapping her in the face as if it did not want her to make it to the table. She gritted her teeth against the slight pain and kept walking thought part of her had wondered why she did not stay in the car. Walking around was the easiest way to get the blood pumping through her legs again before they began to feel dead. Not to mention that her butt had started to fall asleep as well from all the sitting, and that was not the most comfortable thing to feel while driving.
When she first started out hunting by herself she learned the hard way many times to pull over and take a break and stretch the old legs. Which meant that she would end up pulling over somewhere and walking in little circles and giggling oddly to herself at the tingling feeling crawling up her legs from where they had fallen asleep on her. It was one of the few things she looked back sometimes and laughed at how dumb she must have looked doing that though she did not actually know if anyone had seen her suffer through that.
She walked around the picnic table a few times to make sure that her legs were feeling a little better before she carefully climbed onto the bench and promptly sat in the top of the table. She made it a point to face her car so she would be able to keep an eye on it while she sat there. The last thing she wanted was for something to happen to her car. Which she prided to being the closest thing she had to a bad from all the care and work she put into taking care of it. She made sure to keep up with it and have it looked at whenever it made a weird noise. If she had the knowledge to fix up her car herself she would guess that she would never stop working on it to make sure it was always in top form. But sadly she was not a mechanic in any way shape or form, which was also a good thing as well since hunting took up enough time. Constantly working on her car would mean that she would have even less sleep and she would be the world's bigest bitch and rip people in half out of crabbyness.
Carefully she tried unfolding the map but as soon as she did a breeze attempted to snatch it out of her hands, but she managed to hold on. She hoped that the damn thing would not rip in half in her hands and quickly tried folding it down so that she could look at the area where she was. It took some time but she managed to and then focused her attention to the assorted shapes, colors, and lines that made up the map. With a finger she attempted to trace the route she had been taking to find her exact location and how long it would be to the next town.
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Post by WIL CROFT on May 25, 2011 12:02:18 GMT -5
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The sound of another vehicle pulling off the road, and then a black SUV pulled into a parking space two down from the red Mustang and cut the engine. The slightly dusty Escape was entirely forgettable--just another suburbanite kidmover with California plates and tinted windows through which it could be seen that there were plenty of bags and what looked like camping gear piled in the back. Family on vacation, all very generic and uninteresting.
But the pair of people who climbed down out of that SUV didn't quite match the impression the vehicle itself created. The girl was about right: eleven or twelve, dark-haired, with a face more face more attractive than pretty and dressed in jeans and Chucks, her hoodie had some incomprehensible anime thing on the back. The guy was all wrong, though. Too young, young enough that he probably got carded in bars. A little too metropolitan despite his flannel and jeans--those jeans were designer, and his haircut probably cost two hundred bucks. He might have been an older brother, maybe, but they didn't really look all that much alike and his tone when he spoke to her was more Dady than either brother or boyfriend.
"Go on then," he told the girl, digging into his pocket and pulling out a wallet on a chain so that he could retrieve a five and hold it out to her. "Coke for me. But you get juice or water or something, none of those diet sodas. That shit's made out of petrochemicals, it'll kill you faster'n bullets."
The girl rolled her eyes, very tween though she never lost the smile as she took the five. "Like you even know, you just read that on the internet somewhere." She went dashing off toward the building to hit the bathroom and the soda machine and the guy leaned back against the front of the SUV and lit a cigarette while he waited.
He looked over at Shiloh after a moment and smiled, lazy-eyed and friendly. The way he was leaning pressed the edge of his Uncle Mike's inner pants holster up into visibility through his jeans--it was a subtle thing, but if a person knew what they were looking at it was distinctive. Still, his voice was nothing but casual and polite as he said, "Good day for driving. In that the road is boring as shit, but at least you know you're not missing any good weather."
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Post by SHILOH SUMMERLAND on May 25, 2011 14:52:40 GMT -5
Even though she had kept her eyes on the map in her hand she was fully aware of the new comers to the rest stop. She did her best to watch them out of her peripheral vision, as she did not want to draw attention to herself by openly staring at them. It was easier for her to play dumb so that people left her alone since they tended to stare at her thanks to her oh-so-obvious handicap.
She was long past feeling embarrassed because her eye patch and now she found it just damn annoying when people stared or god forbid to even ask about how she got it. So she usually pretended not to notice people in hope that they would walk just by her and go on with their own business. But something seemed quite off to her about the person standing by the black vehicle.
She could not entirely make out the gender of the person, as she was not looking directly at them. She thought about maybe probing the person’s emotions and contemplated it over for a moment. But then a voice interrupted her thoughts. From the tone she could tell that it was a male voice, and that they did not sound too old, which meant that they were young. She managed to suppress a sign, as she never had much good luck with young men. If they were not staring at her eye patch then it was her breasts that their eyes were glued to. Either way most of the time the ones that approached her were people that she wanted to punch in the jaw. Maybe she could pretend that she did not hear him, but doubt it would work, as his voice had been pretty loud.
She looked up from the map and tried to keep her face free from its normally moody expression that she had when people that irked her. As soon as she looked up she saw that the person that had spoken to her was in fact young and male. Which did not ease her at all, but she put on a small polite smile.
“At least isn’t raining or anything the last thing you’d want with this cold weather is water hitting you.” She laughed slightly. Inwardly she was cringing as she had always felt that she was bad at small talk. So far no one had called her out on it, but still she felt as if people knew that she was trying to hard to seem normal. At least she was good at keeping her face pretty unreadable to normal people.
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Post by WIL CROFT on May 25, 2011 17:25:25 GMT -5
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Not in fact being the callow boy he looked like, Wil noticed the patch (and the boobs) and felt no need to gawk at either. Instead he concentrated on his cigarette and kept a vague eye on where Tish was off at the cinderblock building getting her potty break and her drink. She'd come back with something lo-cal, he was sure of it. She'd decided recently that she was getting fat. He had no idea where it was coming from but would have cut her off from fashion mags and Disney Channel tween sitcoms if he thought he could get away with it.
"Snow." Idle chitchat didn't bother Wil a bit. "I can take anything except snow. Or sleet. Or freezing rain. Or basically any weather where you end up shivering and wet and with that feeling like even if you get warm you'll still be cold down on your bones." Yes, he had grown up within spitting distance of the Arctic Circle. This was why he had opinions about the matter.
He grinned and glanced over sidelong at the girl, deciding he kind of liked the bangs. They were cute, and different, and gave her a sort of tomboyish/puppyish look that didn't seem like it would be appealing but was. "I added too many 'ands' there, didn't I? Now I sound like kind of a pussy. That happens to me sometimes."
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Post by SHILOH SUMMERLAND on May 28, 2011 0:32:45 GMT -5
"I think you're fine as long as you don't add in a ton of 'likes' and 'totallys'." she replied to him with a brief laugh as she had found his comment a bit funny. "But I can understand about the snow. I can never really go out unless I'm completely covered in layers. I don't think I was made for that sort of weather." she joked thought part of her comment had a bit of truth in it. She really was not good with dealing with severely cold weather and usually had to bundle up good to deal with the stinging cold air that came with snowy regions.
The current weather was not too horrible since her wool lined jacket did its job to block out most of the cold air. There were a few times where she felt herself shiver slightly, but it was not too unbearable for her. Plus it was not like she was going to be spending the entire day out in the cold air, but a little bit of time. Maybe she would try and build up some sort of resistance to the weather by facing it head on.
"Have you been out on the road for long?" she asked hoping that it was a safe sort of question to ask the stranger. Especially since there was not anything else to really talk about as she glanced around the rest stop. You could not really ramble on about the weather forever either she thought to herself. |
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Post by WIL CROFT on May 28, 2011 0:59:01 GMT -5
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"A hundred and forty-seven years," Wil said with a little laugh that contained both the weary exasperation of the sarcasm that it was meant to convey, and his real amusement because actually it was a totally honest answer. He'd started wandering sometime in the last third of the eighteen hundreds and hadn't finished yet. He grinned over sidelong at the girl with the cute bangs. "Or, if you want to be really literal about it, about six days. We started in Maine and we're not stopping until we get somewhere with a beach. Fifty bonus points if there are umbrella drinks and girls in bikinis, too."
He hit his cigarette, tilting his head a little to watch her through the partial screen of his falling-down gelled hair, a very little-boy maneuver that was both natural habit and a tiny bit stagey. It was important that Wil never behave as though he was older than his face, something that got both harder and more important as Tish got older.
"So how about you?" Little puffs and curls of smoke escaped his lips with every word, like ideas made briefly visible. Or like the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland; all he needed was curly-toed slippers. "You heading toward or away from?" He'd been on the road for over a century, there were really only the two answers. Even people who thought they were traveling for some other reason were generally fooling themselves because they didn't want to admit that the answer was 'running away'.
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Post by SHILOH SUMMERLAND on May 28, 2011 15:30:35 GMT -5
"Well if you're planning to hit a beach then you still have a long way to go." she replied with a laugh as they were nearly smack in the middle of Colorado. Which was quite a few states away from any sort of beach, and sure there were lakes probably somewhere in the state. But it just was not the same thing as being on a beautiful sunny beach kicking back and maybe trying to soak up some sunrays. Shiloh could picture the scene in her head and could not stop herself from smiling at it a little. Right at that moment she would have love to go and visit a beach, but it just was not in the cards at the moment.
"I'm headed to a little town not to far from here. Visiting an old friend who needed a favor." she told him making sure to heavily edit out any major details about her trip. She had learned earlier on that the vaguer she was about details dealing with herself the less people seemed to ask. Unless they were the nosy sort of people who wanted to know each and every little detail. She had rarely run into people like that but when she did she simply lied her way through the whole thing.
As Shiloh looked at the young man she was talking to she felt that there was something about him, but she could not exactly place it. She looked him over again this time a little more closely but he seemed like a normal enough guy, and an exceptional dresser. But still the feeling bothered her a little as she felt it was on the edge of her mind, but she just could not remember. |
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Post by WIL CROFT on May 28, 2011 16:31:50 GMT -5
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Wil was mostly watching Tish browse the caged-in soda machines and enjoying his smoke, the conversation was nice enough but largely idle. He wouldn't smoke in the car with Tish, humans are so heartbreakingly fragile.
"It's worth the drive," he said with a smile, he was still watching Tish and so the smile was more affectionate than he entirely meant it to be. "We've been in the cold for way too long, it's time for a break." It had been nonstop hunts for months, ever since the rumors hit the grid about some idiots opening up a Devil's Gate. Tish claimed not to mind, but it wasn't good for her to go flat-out for too long. Changing motels every two or three days, washing blood out of his shirts in laundromats, sitting around pressboard motel tables loading salt and iron shotgun rounds and eating cheap pizza. She was still just a kid, she needed some fun in life. Some good. So he tried to manage these breaks sometimes. Used to be every two months when she was younger, these days it stretched longer between. But it was time, they were going to walk away from the hunting for a while. Lay around on a beach, she could go shopping in L.A. Maybe they'd go to Disneyland.
He glanced over at Shaggy Bangs Girl, he hadn't gotten her name and it hadn't yet occurred to him to ask. "This trip of yours count as a business trip or vacation?" Tish came back over and presented Wil with a Coke, she had a bottle of water and a baggie of trail mix. Wil eyed the crinkly plastic bag and informed the girl that, "That aint lunch."
Tish gave her father a look that was bright with scorn. "It's nutritious. Better than fast food."
"We'll stop someplace with a salad bar," he said firmly. "You gotta eat real food."
"Wiiiii-iiil." That teen girl whine, universal all over the world, along with the eerie ability to turn short words like 'Mom' or 'Dad' or 'Wil' into polysyllabic complaints. "This is real food. It has almonds in it."
He nodded. "That's just fucking fantastic, glad to hear it. It still don't count as lunch."
She flounced off with her trail mix, putting her stuff into the car and going back out to the seedy lawn with the picnic tables. They were experienced travelers, she knew not to waste a chance to stretch her legs.
Wil glance over at Shiloh, grimaced a little in apology. "Sorry 'bout that. She's chasin' toward teenagerhood faster'n I can keep up sometimes." A slightly strange sentiment when he looked barely seven or eight years older than her, but he didn't recognize it as such.
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Post by SHILOH SUMMERLAND on Aug 22, 2011 13:00:30 GMT -5
"I wish it was a vacation..." she said with a bit of a snort "Friend called me up and needs me to do them a favor, so that's where I'm headed now. But when this is over they are going to so owe me big time." Though it wasn't as bad as she was making it sound, as she had been a state over when the call had come in about the job. She wasn't about the let this stranger know that little tidbit, even if he seemed to be a rather charming and a little bit handsome.
She had watched the interaction between Wil and Tish. As she watched them argue a little she couldn't help but smile at the scene. Wil seemed to be a really good big brother, or possibly older cousin. She couldn't quite guess, but from what she could see she knew that he cared a lot about her. For a moment it reminded her of her own cousin, as kids the two of them had fought pretty much like cats and dogs. At least from what she remembered it seemed like it.
She let herself get sucked into one of those deep thoughtful moments where she wondered what her cousin was up to and how the rest of her family was doing. It wasn't very often that she got into one of those moods, as she learned that it didn't help to stay in the past. Especially since she still had a perfectly good upbringing from the Gitanis. She still had hope that maybe somewhere out there they were still alive as they two of them were quite experienced Hunters. So far she hadn't gotten wind of any news about them.
She mental slapped herself back as she probably looked as if she had zoned out. But when she refocused she heard Wil apologizing for the little moment he had with Tish.
"Yeah they grow up so fast." she said a bit with a laugh.
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