First Steps Being the Most Important....

As Brant pulled up to his house a small feeling of dread, like a cold mass in his stomach, began to sink in. Whether or not he told his mother, this might be the last time he saw either her or his brother. This was of course assuming a worse case senario, but with a level 3 Outbreak, it was a rather large possibility. This didn't mean he wasn't ready to die for his friends; just that he was loathe to leave his family with no idea of what happened to him.

'There's always the chance this story will get out', Brant thought. 'Then if I died, it would be a hero's death. No straw deaths for me.'

Brant chuckled at that as he walked up the walkway to the back door. He went right up to his room and began packing a change of extra clothes or so, the knife his brother had given him, all the batteries he could loot from his stuff, and his flashlight. By this point, his mother had heard him come in and wondered what he was doing.

"Hey, bud. Whatcha packing for? Are you staying the night at Steven's?" She asked as she entered.

"No," Brant replied slowly. At this point he warred with himself whether or not to tell his Mom what he was about to leave safety to do. It took him what seemed to be a much longer time to decide but he thought that honesty, at least at first was the way to go.

"No, Mom", he reiterated. "I'm going back to Purdue to help T-Rex with a zombie problem. There's been an Outbreak in West Lafayette."

"A zombie problem", his mother said with a quirk of her eyebrow. "Can I come?"

Brant's jaw dropped. "Um, I'm being serious, Mom."

"I know and I'd like to come too." She replied with a perfectly straight face.

"Well... I don't know Mom. I think we'll only have enough provisions for the Fools. Besides, you have to take care of Todd and Dad. You know how they flew apart at the seems. So, wait you just believe me. Just like that?" Brant asked.

"Of course, I know you wouldn't just say stuff like this unless you were pretty damn certain. Since I can't come is there anything I can do to help you?" She asked with only a small downcast tinge to her voice.

Brant looked around and over the stuff he had put in the suitcase trying to think of anything he had forgotten. Then he looked at his shoes. They were at least a year old and at this point he was better off avoiding any puddles because of the gaping holes they had, not to mention they squeaked with every step he took. With where he was going he was going to need some reliable shoes to be able to run and sneak around.

"Well if you could get them for me, I need some new shoes", Brant said with a slight wince.

"I suppose so, how long do you have till they come to get you?", his mother asked as she walked out of his room. After checking his watch Brant said, " About 40 minutes now."

After his mother left, Brant did a once over on his room to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything and then decided it was time to go for the weaponry and wait for his mom. He looked over the swords he owned and decided that rapiers would be rather useless, but his bow and arrows might make a difference; if for nothing else than to hunt food for the group. He wished he had his friend, Andrew Delchambre's, bastard sword. It would be useful for zombie cleaving. He took his stuff down to the living room then walked into the den and looked at his father's gun cabinet. He thought about stealing one of the shotguns or maybe a pistol or two but he realized that he didn't have much of a taste for guns. As he was turning to go back to the living room and wait for his mom, he saw his mother right there beside him, also looking at the cabinet. She then went up to the cabinet and took out a hand pistol and the matching ammo clips. It was her Taurus .45 Magnum. She offered it to Brant and he stared at it.

"Take it, your going to need a gun if you're fighting zombies", his mother said as she pushed the gun at him again.

"You know I don't like using guns, Mom. It's just I don't know...."Brant fell into silence as his hands fell to his sides.

"Well if I was going with you I'd be carrying the gun, but since I'm not going you are going to carry a gun and I'm not giving you any of Dad's gun, so here you go." She said as she grabbed Brant's hand and put the gun and two clips in it. "Promise me you'll use it."

"I...um..., *sigh*, alright, Mom. I doubt I'll have to use it, but if it'll make you feel better, I'll take it."

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Brant Got Taurus Magnum (1x)
Brant Got Taurus Magnum Ammo (36x)
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+

"What about the shoes?" Brant said as he walked back into the living room and put the gun into his satchel.

"Well I know you wanted cross-trainers but all I could find is running shoes." She handed those to him already out of the box.


"They'll have to do Mom. Here is Peace and Beard. I've got to go now...I love you, Mom and I'll be back safe; really Mom." They hugged and Brant grabbed his satchel, his bow, and arrows , and ran out to the car.

"Alright. guys. Let's go save our fearless leader." He said as he jumped in the back seat and buckled in next to Steven.

The drive to Purdue was relatively quiet but tense. The roads had yet to be closed, but they were pretty empty. Things were getting edgy and it was only going to get worse. They pulled up to Ryan's house. It looked decently protectable, or at least Brant hoped so. Beard walked forward of the group and knocked the door. After a short pause, the door opened and it was Ryan, who looked noticably relieved at the sight of them.

<<"Have a seat, guys, I've got a few things to talk about." >>

"Calm down Ryan, you look like you've seen a ghost," Brant said with a small smile as he passed and walked into the living room. He knew it was a bad pun but he knew Ryan had an appreciation for such things. All he could do was try.

Back Home Again

Every now and then, Brant realized it was worth going back home. This was not one of those times. After having been to Ireland, Brant just really wanted to hang out with the rest of the Fools but he supposed it would be a good thing to see his family too... at least for a little while. At least he would not be completely isolated from the Fools. He still had his best friend and fellow Fool, Steven, or Angel Hair, to talk to since they lived only two blocks away from each other; as they had since 7th grade.

While he was there he was visiting all the relatives he had missed for the intervening year. He was talking to his grandmother when he got a call from his mother.

"Hey, Mom, what's up?” Brant asked.

"Not much, bud, Steven called and he sounded kinda worried. Said something about Plan Zed, or something."

If the reader had been looking at Brant, at this point, then they would have noticed only a slight twitch in his eyes upon hearing this. He was sorta proud of this upon retrospect, really.

"Plan Zed? No, I don't know what he's talking about but I'll go talk to him about it." Brant replied trying to keep his voice as steady as possible.

"Okay, well just thought I'd tell you. He seemed pretty shook up, whatever it is." His Mom went on, apparently not noticing.

After hanging up with his mother, Brant said his goodbyes to his grandparents and quickly drove to Steven's house. Brant pulled his trusty red '93 Chevy Cavalier up beneath the crab apple tree in front of Steven's house. Steven was waiting out front of his house, expectantly, when Brant pulled up. Steven's house was a joke amongst the the Nerd Herd and it was almost as iconic of Steven as his big nose, long hair, and unique sense of humor. His house was an ancient brick house that had been whitewashed so long ago that the brick red had bled through and had changed the whitewash to a shade of pink often reserved for Pepto Bismol.

As Brant stepped out of his car, he saw Steven's face, and it was not one that inspired Brant's hopes that this was some poor attempt at a joke. Brant tried to remind himself that Steven was an Acting major and could work his face to a greater extent that most people, but it was a very small hope that seemed empty to Brant even as he thought of it.

"I got the call, Brant", was all Steven said once Brant had sat down next to him on the front door concrete steps.

Brant sighed slowly as he took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. He replaced the hat, leaned back onto the step above the one he sat on. Then he looked over at Steven and said, "I was afraid of that Steve. So who made the call, and how are we going to get there?"

Steven leaned forward, probably just to contradict Brant. He rested his head on his hand and said," Well, Beard made the call to me, but it was for Ryan. It seems that the outbreak is back at Purdue. Beard said him and Peace would be coming over here to get us in about an hour or so. Apparently its might be up to a 3 as far as the Outbreak."

Brant heaved another breath and said grimly, "Well that explains why we're going I guess. I wouldn't want to deal with an Outbreak 3 by myself if I could help it, that's for sure. Wow, well...seriously?!"

"Yeah man," Steven replied, "seriously. You better go home and make some excuse quickly; and get ready. We only have, like, 50 minutes till they get here."

"Yeah......I mean yeah you're right. All right then, catch ya later then. Don't forget to bring anything that might help, eh?" Brant said as he stood up and started ambling slowly towards his car.

"Tsch. Like I don't know." Steven said, actually smiling this time. Brant was happy they could still smile, they would need to smile as things got worse.