A.S.D. Final Intro- Lloyd.

You can tell a lot from a handshake.

You can tell whether someone is a grafter or a slacker. You can tell whether they are humble, strong-willed, arrogant, timid, even eager to please or dis-trustful.
And always look into their eyes. Always.
This is why I insist on this otherwise redundant tradition everytime a new member joins our fold.
I need to know who I'm letting in, and 8 days ago I let in Lloyd.

Lloyd's handshake was... ugly.

It was cold and sweaty. His skin felt like he was wearing latex fucking medical gloves and his grip was far too hard. Even the most musclebound behemoth knows that a handshake must be firm but if you squeeze too hard to the point where you're actually trying to hurt someone's fingers, then that's offensive.

As I shook Lloyd's hand, I looked into his eyes. He met mine with a stare and I didn't like what I saw.
It was like looking into dead eyes.
Not the eyes of a zombie, but the eyes of someone who'd "switched off".
Not just since all this crap had happened but years ago.
There was no emotion of gratitude for saving his nasty fucking arse, there was no "fuck you, I was doing okay" sort of arrogance, not even a look of self pity. Instead there was this dirty, crafty look of deceit and this stupid fucking smirk in his mouth. I ended up hating that smirk to the point where I wanted to smash it off his filthy rat face. But I digress...

The thing that really gave him away was, when the handshake came to an end, instead of just letting go of my hand, he pushed it down and away from him, almost throwing it back at me. It was totally subconcious on his part, but it told me all I needed to know.
It told me that he didn't respect my authority, despite the fact that I had directed Rampage to save his hide.
It told me that he didn't respect our situation and the sanctuary we could offer him.
And as I am, to all intents and purposes, the Head Honcho of our happy little gang, to treat me with such disrespect was essentially throwing every effort of help and friendship back in all our faces with a big "Fuck You!"

All this from a fucking handshake.


Everybody fights. Everybody works.
Except Nana and Joy.

And Lloyd.

He claims regular bouts of plurasy restrict his efforts to either train to fight or lift a slimy finger to help with the regular maintenance, or building, or harvesting, or any fucking job that needs doing, no matter how small.

What he does do is leech. He'll eat our food and drink our water and sleep in our bunks and let us do everything for him but he refuses to even try to ingratiate himself with as much as a polite word or the occasional "hello!".

Instead, he walks around or sits in his bunk looking... watching... with that fucking sickening smirk on his face.

He scares Joy. She says that when we went on clearance last time and she and Nana were tending the vegetables, Lloyd was up in the crow's nest watching them. Or, more accurately, watching her.
Everytime she looked up he was watching her until Nana noticed and told him (in her best "do as I say, sonny" tone of voice) that "a boy in his condition should be inside, out of the sun."

When Joy told me this, I wanted to skin that prick alive and throw him out for the walking dead to suck on but that would be murder, and I'm not that monstrous. Yet.

Wanker raised a good point- How the Hell has he survived, alone, for this amount of time?
He says that he's been living day-by-day, running, hiding, scavenging, but it doesn't add up.
He can't fight, he has no personal fitness and he looked entirely too healthy to have been on the run for the past 6 weeks.
I have a theory that he's been living with another group all this time and, for reasons known only to them, they banished him.

I want to do the same, and I'm just looking for a reason to throw him out the door with my boot firmly up his arse. I reckon he knows this too and he's keeping his head down.

So, unforunately, he stays. For now at least.


Well , that's the last of the introductions.
Hopefully there is some tactical merit in what I've written and if you find you have similar characters in your group you might be better equipped to recognise and nurture their abilities or, in Lloyd's case, fuck them off before they get a foot in the door.

The next post will be the briefing that took place concerning Jubilee Beach.

See you then, I suppose...