Timmons Mackelroy awoke in a panic. He'd hit his snooze button one too many times, and the alarm clock had decided not to go off any more. There was no warning on the alarm clock letting the user of said device know that there was indeed a limit on the number of times the snooze button could be slammed by a semi-comatose human before it would simply not go off.
Timmons was aware of this limit, as it had cost him his last job, and was about to cost him his current job. T.M. pried his bleary eyes open to look at the ridiculous set of numbers on the clock. None of them were remotely acceptable.
Naked, and filled with a sudden rush of psychotic anger, Timmons clunkily blundered out of the bedroom into the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room and back into the bedroom, repeating all of the above in many different combinations, simultaneously accomplishing nothing and breaking many things. He also filled the air with violent curses and buck shot scattered blame towards the makers/manufacturers/distributors of the clock, seven of his ex-girlfriends, his parents, the communists, homeless people, AIDS, four ethnic groups and various other people who were not him.
When indeed he had finally draped some clothing around his nakedness and stumbled outside of his apartment, Mackelroy started to notice there was something odd about the noises and general vibe in the apartment building.
"I don't have time for this shit!" he screamed at no one and nothing in particular, then shuffled angrily out of the front door.
Timmons Mackelroy immediately realized he would not be losing his job today. He also realized he had to very quickly go back inside his apartment and gather up some things and make some very serious decisions. Timmons Mackelroy had slept in and stumbled outside on the morning of the apocalypse. Not one of those fake ones where everyone buys lots of canned soup and water and shotguns for no reason and then go home disappointed. Nope, this was the big one. With no survival skills, no weapons, no preparation and no friends, escaping the city was not going to be easy, but on the plus side at least he didn't have to look for work. His new job was to not get killed by his fellow crazed humans. And by the looks of things, it was going to be a very hard, and ongoing challenge. Everywhere he looked, Timmons saw somebody killing somebody else. Often in large numbers.
"Fuck!" screamed Timmons as he tossed horribly crude excuses for weapons and food into an even poorer excuse for a satchel.
Surprisingly decent strength Dollar Store butchers knife. Bag of Ikea Tea Candles. Spray bottle of Febreeze. Suddenly he realized it didn't matter what sorts of useless items he had in his apartment. "His" and "Apartment" were no longer relevant concepts. What mattered were three things, which became crystal clear to Timmons in a surge of clarity.
1. Weapons
2. Transportation
3. Food/Shelter
In that order.
With this newfound perspective, Mackelroy took the butchers knife, stuffed it into his cargo pants (the pair with the most pockets, and the ability to zip off at the knees and become shorts) strapped into his toughest steel-toed work boots (figuring strength and durability were more important than speed), a toque, a snowboard jacket and fumbled with the front door. He looked back at the Febreeze bottle, let go of the door and dumped out the contents, refilling the bottle with an awful, pungent mix of Drain-O and Toilet Bowl Cleaner.
Timmons figured he could spray this concoction in the eyes of an assailant and blur their vision. What Timmons Mackelroy did not figure was just how prepared some people were for a sudden apocalypse. So when Timmons brandished his half assed Febreeze bottle full of household chemicals in a feeble attempt to fend off a teenager in the alleyway behind his apartment building, he had no idea what was about to happen. The teenager was merely a decoy in a rigidly trained and finely tuned apocalypse survival team known as The Crimmons Family. Kyle Crimmons was the oldest of Gary's children, his top skill set was psychological and manipulative in nature. While Kyle could kill with the same mercenary skills as his father, he worked best on the front lines, as he proved with the Mackelroy murder. Gary Crimmons adhered to the philosophy that successful leadership of any kind could be boiled down to one simple phrase:
"Put your players in a position to succeed."
It was tattooed on every member of the family's left bicep. The basic belief was that every person had strengths and weakness, and the recipe for group success lied in recognizing and assessing these attributes and applying the personnel accordingly. Gary was one of the most lethal snipers on the planet, and certainly the best within the city limits. With precision and poise, the Crimmons' had moved from city block to city block, picking off unsuspecting and unprepared humans like Timmons Mackelroy.
