Panic Induced
A few days pass and everything was fairly calm. Penny has talked to a girl who looked to be in her mid 30's with light brown in, very tan skin and a pretty face covered in freckles. Half of her face was covered with a dark red scar from where she was burned years ago. Penny figured out that the girls name was Pippin and she still looked shook up and she told Penny her version of the monster story. Penny didn't have the heart just yet to tell her that she was the one who accidentally created the monster her and her buddy had seen. Penny liked talking to Pippin, the girl seemed pretty sweet. Later on Penny decided to talk to the man that was with Pippin when they saw the creature as well. She had to wait awhile cause he was sleeping but at dusk the red haired lady, what did she say her name was? Right Elizabeth, that woman sent the douche with a cowboy hat to go wake him up. Penny wasn't a huge fan of the cowboy, he was very rude and got mad over the littlest things. She has gotten into an argument with him but Mama Williams had to tell him to go take a walk to calm him down.
Finally she went and talked to the other guy about his encounter with the monster. He was tall and very muscular. Looked to be around 6'7 with short grey hair. There was an x scar on his face that reached from his forehead to his bottom jaw. He said his name is Xavier but everyone just calls him X. He looked to be in his early 50's and he had slightly sunken in blue eyes. Penny wanted to check the scratches on his neck to make sure they didn't get infected or anything. She didn't know if him being scratched would've spread the mutated infection but nothing looked wrong with it so she wasn't too worried about it. They talked for awhile and tried to hide the shock in her face when he told her he was only 35. "Don't look so surprised" he chuckled and Penny quickly apologized. He seemed like a really nice guy and very calm. They talked for awhile and she did tell him that she studied genetics and epidemiology before the apocalypse started. He seemed pretty interested in that but looked very confused when she explained it more to him. She found out that the job he had was babysitting, he was only 15 when the apocalypse started after all so this didn't surprise her.
Later on she found out there was also another boy in the camp. He was 19 but looked only about 13. He was very small, only about 5'2 and he was very timid. He stayed close to Mama's son and the drag queen, often clinging to them for dear life like he was about to be taken away. He had poofy black hair and dark brown skin. The boy also had big brown eyes that were almost black. She figured out that his name was Charlie but she had to ask around. The boy refused to talk to her and always hid when Penny approached him. None of the group really knew much about this kid other then the fact that he was initially adopted by the well known monster of the Deadlands Cypher Matthias. Everyone knows that Dead End came down a year a go and all four of the leaders are dead but it still surprises her that one of them actually took care of a kid. She tried to ask why but all she ever got was a mere shrug from whoever she was asking.
During the fourth morning Penny was with them she noticed Lasso staring off in a direction. She walked over to him but as usual he ignored her presence. He seemed to be squinting at something so she tried to follow his gaze but it looked like there was nothing where he was looking. "Is there something there?-" she asked and he glared at her, meaning for her to quiet down. He seemed to be focused on some of the vine covered buildings in the distance. Penny for now shrugged it off then went back to help Mama Williams. He didn't move from his spot for a solid hour, even when he was called over to eat he just shook his head. Mama tried to ask him what he was looking at but he claimed he wasn't entirely sure but something seemed off to him. Everyone then left him alone for awhile.
Lasso didn't know if he was just seeing things but he could have sworn one of the vines had slithered like a snake off the side of the building. He wasn't sure if he had actually seen it or just imagined it. Lasso had slept about three hours fully these past two weeks so he could have easily just imagined it. The vines do look suspiciously bigger then usual too. "Lasso come eat" Shiny called for him but he just shook his head. Shiny sighed and got up. He walked over and tried to see what he was looking at. "Come on bub there's nothing there" Shiny gently nudged him but Lasso refused to get up. Shiny finally just rolled his eyes and hooked his arms under Lasso's and dragged him up. "You gotta eat" he told Lasso who was trying to yank away. Shiny just dragged him over to the others and gave him something to eat.
They were packing up to leave that day when Lasso so happened to be looking in the direction he was this morning and saw another vine move. He quickly nudged the closest person to him which so happened to be Pippin and pointed that direction. "Do you see that?-" he asked and Pippin saw the vines move as well. "What the hell..." she mumbled and stared at the vines in the distance. They looked like they were slowly wrapping around the building tighter and the concrete began to crack on the building. "Mama-" Pippin called and Mama Williams walked over to Lasso and Pippin to see what they were looking at. The building then came crashing downs getting dragged underground by the vines. "Let's go!-" Mama quickly yelled and they gathered their stuff and took off running the opposite direction. There was no reasonable explanation of what they just saw but Mama Williams wanted to get her group as far from it as possible. She didn't know how dangerous it was and she was not willing to find out.