MSH Campaign story

[Boxofit]

Once, I got Vicious to play an MSH campaign with me, and this is the first part of the campaign turned into a story, I already have the whole story written, but I just don't feel like posting it right now.

Ramses

Vicious stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Holiday, and scanned the waterline with the scope of his M108 Sniper Rifle, and once again wondered about the wisdom of going ashore here. It was Midday in the middle of summer, and the skies were dark with storm clouds. The wind was blowing out of the west with a strong intensity that spoke of harsher weather to come. His hair was starting to grow a little since the beginning of the outbreak, and it now fell to the top of his shoulders, he scratched irritably at the fuzz he had neglected to shave from his chin that morning. He was about five feet and nine inches tall, and while not of an intimidating build, he was solid, and very capable of many forms of combat. He specialized in Ninjitsu, and trained with many bladed, and oriental weapons, he rarely used these skills lately though, his primary skill now was putting things down with his sniper rifle, or blowing things away close up with his P85 Rugers which hung in holsters on opposite hips.
He heard thunder in the distance, and counted off another zombie along their landing point. Seventeen were within easy sight of where they would land the boat. He was out of range right now, but he knew he was capable of picking them off from the dock, what he was worried about was how many more the shots would draw. It had been a bad four months, their original plan had gone terribly, but at least they had managed to make it to sea in a well supplied ship. Then came the mutiny…
It was dealt with very quickly, but it was devastating to the morale of the eighty odd people on the boat. Many of them had decided it would be better to leave the ship, and Vicious wasn’t the kind of person who could send them off empty handed. He didn’t hand over all of the supplies or weapons, but their supply store was severely depleted, and while the twenty-two people who stayed had enough to survive for at least another month, or three months if well rationed, he would rather it not come down to strict rationing.
Ramses was a trading town, and as such they should have enough supplies for twenty people easily. There was not a huge population in the area; Davy’s information showed last counted population was about 48,000. More zombies than he cared to fight, but zombies were dumb, and he was most certainly not. Davy was still below decks examining maps pulled by the still functioning GPS Satellites, and referencing choke points, and likely spots for supplies, and police barricades which would block roads. Vicious was glad to have Davy as both his Navigator and friend. Davy wasn’t very popular with most of the other guys on board because of his tendency to use them as unknowing zombie lures when on supply runs, but they all knew he was willing to get in and mix it up with anyone, and wasn’t afraid to do anything he asked his men to do.
Vicious settled down into a deck chair, and allowed the rocking of the ship to relax him, he didn’t like going into unfamiliar territory, especially with only one person riding with him, but at least that person was Davy. He removed his steel samurai sword from his back, and relaxed into the chair. He had the feeling it was going to be a long day. One hour until they left, one hour before he was facing down the undead again.
A wave that was larger than most of the others caused a lurch that would have made Vicious stumble if he was new to the ship, but after four months of conditioning he instinctively threw his weight against it, and didn’t even notice he was doing it. He closed his eyes, and prepared to rest pretending that the moans he heard were nothing but the wind. He managed to doze off after a few minutes, but was awakened forty minutes later by Davy.
Davy was exactly six feet tall, and had long brown hair that reached halfway down his back. He was a fairly built person who could bench press two hundred and twenty pounds, and had good enough balance to seem to not sway with the ship. He had a large beard which made him look wild and gray eyes that rarely betrayed what he was thinking. Davy was second in command of the ship, right behind Vicious. He was nearly as skilled in Ninjitsu as James, and not nearly as good with guns. This is why Davy was fully equipped with a Great axe hanging across his back, crossing a shotgun in a hand made sheathe, he had spare ammo for his single Beretta M92F in some of the pockets in his jacket which he wore over a Kevlar Vest. He held a fireaxe in his hands which was well sharpened, and had his Beretta holstered at his left hip. A large hunting knife was in it’s sheathe located at his chest, and a row of clips for his Beretta were on his right hip. He was wearing a large backpack which undoubtedly held some useful stuff, and yet despite his grim look, Davy radiated relaxation and happiness, and he had a big smile on his face, and looked like he was facing just another day at the beach.
This was because he suffered from Mania, causing him to be in a pretty much permanent state of happiness. This lent him his codename Maniac. This was how they referred to each other in front of the crew. It improved morale a little bit in battle for the men to refer to their commanders as Vicious-Maniac. The men knew very well that Davy suffered from Mania, but didn’t know the details of it, and as such and partially because of Davy’s reputation on the battlefield usually didn’t bring up their complaints or needs to Davy.
Davy studied Vicious, and noticed he didn’t have his bag on him, but assumed it was because Vicious had already put it in their boat. Vicious was always thinking ahead, and preparing while Davy was more of an action person. Not dumb, but perfectly capable of not over thinking things. Vicious was holding his Sniper Rifle, and looking at Davy with an eyebrow raised, Davy just nodded to him, and he rose.
Vicious said to Davy, “So, do you have our route ready, we need to scout the town for useful supplies, and survivors, we do not need to strip this town bare, and moving quickly is of the essence, I really don’t want to get surrounded by them again. I mean it, that’s not code for I want to go brawling but don’t let the men know.”
Davy responded, “Last time really was an accident…mostly. Anyways, I have our route ready, we’ll hit some grocery stores if the roads aren’t blocked and two Pawn Shops along the way because I figure that’s where we’re likely to find people. We’ll also stop at the police station, since that’s another likely place to find some folks, and I’d really be happy to make some new friends today. Also, as much as I hate it, I inventoried our medical supplies, and found that we absolutely must, I repeat, It’s a necessity that we hit a hospital for both medicines and supplies.”
Vicious grumbled at this, he hated hospitals, more than anything, and since the zombie outbreak they were a little worse. Davy smiled even bigger at his friends agitation, and said, “Lighten up James, it could be raining.”
With Vicious’ luck he was surprised it wasn’t, but another thunderclap seemed to threaten it. He decided to ignore Davy’s comment, and settled for, “How many times do I have to tell you to only call me that in private? I know you understand perfectly well why we use the codenames.”
Davy nodded and said, “Yeah I know, but they make all this sound so serious.”
Vicious responded, “This is serious.”
“As serious as the…MASTER SWOOOOOORD!!!!?”, yelled Davy at the top of his lungs while hoisting his fireaxe over his head, and causing some of the deckhands to look over, they had pretty much learned to ignore Davy when he was yelling in general, and usually only paid attention when his yelling was directed at something.
Vicious couldn’t help but smile at his friend’s exuberance, usually he wouldn’t leave the ship’s safety with someone so genuinely excited about being in danger, but Vicious knew that Davy wasn’t happy because of the danger, and would be able to make calm rational decisions in a pinch, he was just happy because he was happy. He responded to Davy after a second of thought, “Come on, let’s go.”
Despite the weather the water was fairly calm, and their boat only rocked a little as they boarded, and were lowered via the hoist into the water. They rowed clear of the hoist, and then started up the motor after a couple of tries. Davy steered the boat towards the city since they were a little way out from it, and led it unerringly to a small marina where they tied the boat up with no problem. Already they could hear shuffling around them as the undead were attracted to the motor noises.
James had spotted all the zombies near the marina with his sniper rifle, and kept track of their positions and likely movements in his head, and he figured they would have quite a few zombies on them in the next few minutes so they needed to find a ride pretty fast. He remembered seeing a strong barricade with cars built into it across the street, so he thought maybe some of the cars on their side of the barricade might still have keys and live batteries so that would be the first place they checked.
Davy went ahead up the dock, and out onto the street to scan for enemies, a couple moans told James that Davy had been spotted, but it seemed to be from a distance away so James finished tying up the boat before following. There were seventeen zombies visible in the street; the closest one was about eighty yards away and closing pretty quickly. James looked across to the barricade and spotted a few likely trucks. The first was a big blue Dodge Ram, the second was a small Ford Ranger, he was trying to decide between Power and Mobility as he headed over towards them.
Davy was headed over towards the zombie so he could take it out as quietly as possible. Davy approached from the front, and slammed the spike of his fireaxe into the zombie’s forehead with an audible crunch even to James who was standing thirty yards away. The first thing James did was try to start the Ram since the keys had been left in it, but he got nothing so he guessed that the battery was dead. Next was the Ranger which had no keys, and as he was about to start hotwiring, he heard Davy shout that he had spotted something. About sixty yards down the street was a warehouse complex, but sitting out in front of it was a cargo truck. It was tall enough so that the zombies couldn’t reach its windows, and it had double tires. It had a canvas top with an open back still too high for zombies to climb into. It was perfect for their needs, and Davy was already headed over to it.
When James arrived Davy was using a snake like thing, and feeding it into the gas tank, he pulled it out a second later cleaned it on his jacket, and fed it into the second gas tank, when he pulled it out the second time he told James,” Second tank is full, first is about three quarters. Good to go, is it unlocked?”
James tried the door, and it didn’t budge, when Davy went and checked the passenger side it opened for him, and he let James in. It was a standard shift vehicle, which luckily both of them could operate. There were no keys, but James pulled down the wires below the steering column, but didn’t immediately break any. Davy, who didn’t much care for the pause, asked, “What’s the matter?”
James responded, “All of these wires look exactly the same.”
Davy responded, “Hold on a minute, let me check something.”
At that Davy flipped the driver’s side visor down, and a set of keys fell out, James looked at him in an agitated manner and just let it go, Davy’s luck was unbelievable sometimes. James tried ignition, but nothing happened. He tried a couple more times with no result different from the first before he suggested a dead battery was the cause, Davy agreed. Davy then told James to shift to first, and duck into the floorboard so the zombies wouldn’t notice him. Davy had an idea.
Davy opened his door, and hopped out of the truck, slamming his door shut as he jumped. He really hoped this was a good idea since it could end with them surrounded. He began making noise, and yelling at the zombies making sure that all of them within earshot would come towards him. He was waiting in the middle of the street for them, and he dropped the first couple with his fireaxe since he was interested only in a large group of zombies. When the zombies closing in on him from East and West were about to converge on him, he started leading them South over towards the truck. He would occasionally stop and shout to make sure they didn’t get distracted by anything else or take time to notice James’ smell as he led them on past the truck.
James watched Davy disappear behind the walls of the warehouse cluster, and the zombies followed him, taking time to break down the yellow and black wooden bars at waist height that were supposed to stop cars somehow. Every so often he would hear Davy yell again so he knew the zombies hadn’t gotten him, and about four minutes later Davy reappeared at the opening of the walls, he had led them in circles inside the compound to group them together, James laughed as he realized what Davy’s plan was, and so he went ahead and shifted to first gear.
Davy called out to the zombies one last time, and climbed into the cargo area on the back of the truck. The zombies swamped the back of the truck trying to push past each other and climb into the back, but failing miserably due to their poor climbing ability. At first it didn’t seem like the plan was going to work, but after about twenty seconds Davy noticed the truck begin to shift. Slowly, but surely the truck began rolling, and after ten seconds of constant rolling the truck began moving away from the zombies. Another five seconds later James tried the ignition, and the truck roared to life. The alternator immediately began charging the battery and they were good to go.
Davy climbed back into the passenger seat by moving through the window that allowed drivers to look at their cargo. There were a few crates already back there, but Davy had for some reason not thought to look through them, and when James mentioned it Davy sighed, and said, “God, you make me do EVERYTHING.”, and he went back into the back. He pried the crate tops off with the spike on his fireaxe. One held stuffed animals, a second one held a bunch of nicely packaged shirts, and curious enough the third one held many containers of salt.
Davy dumped the stuffed animals and shirts out, and began throwing them off the back while shouting over the engine to tell James to take the first turn left towards the North. Their first stop would be Al’s Pawn Shop, which mainly dealt in sporting goods, and hunting equipment. James complied and kept a watch out, although you really couldn’t miss the giant AL’s Pawn Shop sign sitting out in the parking lot.
Al’s Pawn Shop was a squat brick building with steel shutters pulled down over the windows, and the door had heavy iron bars set over it. James honked the horn a few times to see if anyone would respond, when no one responded within two minutes he decided he would act before the zombies started closing in on the engine noises. He grabbed a pipe bomb from his bag in the seat, and slid out of the truck as Davy slid over to the driver’s seat. James rushed over to the door, and placed the pipe bomb between the door glass, and the bars, lit the fuse with a match, and decided to RLH. The bomb went off a few seconds later, and the bars flew outward from the door as the glass shattered inwards. James was confident the cacophony would bring every zombie within a mile to the pawn shop soon. He ran, and scrambled into the cargo bay of the truck as Davy backed the truck up against the doorframe.

[Vicious88]

I had to edit the ruger to be P85 - you'd accidently put P88 (which while neat, I am admitedly unfamiliar with).

And for anyone who happens to read this, the character discriptions (as far as physically are concerned), are oddly accurate - I am exactly 5'9", lol.

[Boxofit]

WOOT!!! I guessed your height. I'll blow this success way out of proportion now, and go be a height and weight guesser at the fair. Glad I let things go to my head.

[Boxofit]

Alright then, I feel like posting the rest of the story now. This will put the character limit on posts to the test if there is one.


Davy scrambled into the Cargo Bay as James hopped through the shattered glass door, and James threw himself against a wall as he saw a familiar posture in the darkness. The bullet was close enough to James that he had some hair singed, but it scared the crap out of him, why hadn’t these people responded. He rushed the man with the gun before he could crank the hammer back for another shot with his revolver.
Davy rolled a different way from James, and so came up facing a different aisle, Davy could see something at the end, and rushed, prepared to dive to the floor if it looked like a shot would be fired. The gun was raised faster than Davy anticipated, and so the shot took him in the chest, where his Kevlar was strongest, Davy decided not to slow down, and charged even harder, wielding his fireaxe like a spear he attempted to slam the blunt head into the shooter’s face. Davy reached across the counter with his axe, but the shooter dropped to the floor behind the counter to dodge, and Davy’s axe head sparked as it hit the brick wall. Just as Davy was pulling his axe back to him, a man in the back room busted the door open, and leveled a shotgun at Davy’s face, the man was only three feet from Davy, and there would be no chance to dodge the shotgun blast.
James quickly drew his sword, and slammed the not bladed side into his attacker’s knuckles causing him to drop his gun, James then bashed the crap out of his opponent’s face. The man stumbled back, and James pulled one of his Rugers loaded with incendiary rounds, and pressed it against the man’s temple, and called out, “Everyone drop your weapons or I’ll kill this man!”
The man with the shotgun tensed up when he heard James yell his warning, he could see James’ position, and knew James could fulfill his threat very easily. Davy seeing the man’s hesitation, lunged onto the counter, and kicked the shotgun to the side, and out of the man’s grip. The man looked like he was about to attack Davy so Davy slammed the spike towards him, but stopped an inch from the man’s face. He then said, “I wouldn’t advise doing anything hasty or rash now buddies. Just drop any weapons you have, and we should get along just fine if you want, I’ll even put my axe down.”
Davy punctuated this by setting his fireaxe on the counter, and showing both of his hands palms outward. The man who was still on the floor decided it might be best to drop his gun since Davy was in a prime position to stomp on his hands or face very quickly. The next person to speak was James, he said, “Alright, first off, we don’t want to hurt you-“
“Like hell.” interrupted the man whom James was holding hostage.
James responded, “I’m called Vicious, I came here from my ship out in the harbor, we are in desperate need of all sorts of supplies. There are other people on board too, including women and children. We are seriously undermanned, and that’s one of the main reasons we’re here. I’m offering the shelter of my ship to you in exchange for your services. If you have any family members or friends or anyone else who’s alive that you want to tell us about, we’ll be willing to try and find them. We really do need every person we can get.”
With that James removed his gun from the man’s temple, and holstered his Ruger, waiting for their response. The big man who had come from the back room was the first to answer, he said, “We’re sorry for attackin’ ya son, but we thought you was those raiders that come through here every few days, and kill people for their supplies. They’s a lot more of the raiders though. My name’s Al, and this is my shop, my friend here on the floor is Billy, and the guy moaning about his knuckles over there is William. He thought he could take this place for himself when the outbreak first started so we whooped up on him, and then didn’t have the heart to feed him to the zombies, we have some supplies here since we’ve made a good run, but I don’t think they’ll be enough for the people on your ship.”
Davy offered his hand to Al, and Al gladly shook it, Davy told him, “Any supplies you can bring would help a lot. You guys will boost our numbers to twenty-five.”
Al looked relieved at Davy’s friendly tone, and decided he’d much rather talk to the bearded man who resembled Jesus than the cold-eyed man with the Rugers. Vicious was definitely the one in charge, however, so Al supposed making the deals for safety would be with Vicious. They spoke for a few minutes while Davy watched the bottom side of the truck for zombies trying to crawl under the truck to get at the people inside, but so far all of them were dumb enough to just keep bumping into the truck over and over again. After five or six minutes, James tapped Davy on the shoulder, and told him to get to planning the next stop while they loaded supplies.
Davy scrambled through the cargo hold, and into the front seat where he pulled out his reference map, and saw the next stop was a little to the East. They would have to go one block north, and then take a right, after that it was three blocks to their destination. A small store called Grocery Outlet; they would probably have supplies because they were smaller stores, and wouldn’t be top on the list to be looted by other survivors.
It took seven minutes for James, and the other three to load the supplies from the Pawn Shop, among which a couple chainsaws were, a few gas cans full of unleaded gas, some imitation katanas which could be melee weapons in a pinch, some survival knives, one of which Davy took for the compass built into the hilt. There was a real swallow there as well, with curved blades on each side of its central handle, Davy loved that sort of weapon, but figured he wouldn’t test it against zombies until he absolutely had to. He’d stick to what he was good with.
When the truck was loaded, James shifted it into gear, and pulled out crunching some zombies underneath the front of the big truck. As James turned out of the parking lot, the man Billy offered his hand to Davy through the bay window, and said, “Hey partner, I didn’t catch your name.”
Davy gripped his hand tightly, and said brightly, “Oh I’m Maniac, and may I say it’s really nice to meet you guys, I hope we can become really good friends okay?”
Billy just nodded, and fell back to other two, and began whispering to them. James smiled, and said, “I don’t think they’re quite ready for that yet bud.”
Davy responded as they turned to the east, “Yeah, but the sooner they think Maniac isn’t just some nickname, the less likely they’ll be to argue with our orders, especially once they see us drop some zombies.”
James continued driving until Davy pointed out the small white building on their right. It was single story, with bars over the windows since it had been in a bad neighborhood before dystopia, and they decided to back up to the door like at the pawn shop, except this time Davy busted into the heavy wooden door with the spike of his axe, and then booted it off its hinges.
Davy and James were the first ones out of the truck, they could hear moans around them, and immediately headed for them, James heading down the northernmost aisle, and Davy taking the southernmost. James had his p88 Rugers out, and spotted two zombies coming at him. He aimed quickly, and put a bullet in the first zombie’s head, while the second went a little low, and took it in the chin. Most of the zombies face exploded, and it stumbled back, but it started to get back up. James crushed its head against the floor as he passed.
Davy had his shotgun drawn, and had three zombies coming at him down his aisle. He blasted the first point blank in the face, and its head exploded towards the others, the small projectiles traveled through its head, and forced the second zombie to stumble backwards, Davy then repeated what he had done to the first. He bashed the third zombie in the face as hard as he could with the stock of the shotgun, and knocked it flat. He then crushed its head in with his big steel bottom boots.
A shotgun blast roared from the middle aisle, and James assumed that Al had dropped one with his shotgun. James reached the western end of the store before Davy, and immediately kicked in the door behind the counter to be greeted by a lady zombie. He kicked her in the chest and felt her ribs crack as she stumbled backwards against the wall, and before she could begin her second advance on him, James advanced and crushed her head against the wall with a high kick.
It had taken less than thirty seconds to clear the store, but now they quickly scoured it’s aisles for things they needed. They grabbed beef Jerky, and all of the canned foods. Davy grabbed some canned sodas since he didn’t care if they were either flat or hot, he wasn’t picky. They loaded up all kinds of well packaged things like chips, and snack cakes, and loaded them all into the crate. One thing James was very happy to see was a whole bunch of different spices and seasonings. They would be a welcome change of flavor in the fish they caught.
It took them about ten minutes to spot everything they needed in the store, and then load it into the truck, with Davy lifting the crate since he was the strongest. They all scrambled into the truck after that, and then took off towards the next destination which would be another pawn shop. This second pawn shop was called J’s and they needed as little of a fight as possible since it was a gun shop. If a fight were to break out, it would likely end in death, as such James, and Davy would enter first since they were the most experienced in gunfights. It also helped that they were wearing body armor.
They studied the building from outside, and saw the steel shutters pulled down over the windows, but there were no bars over the front door, so Davy could smash it pretty easily. There was an obvious skylight on the roof so that would be James’ point of entry. Al backed the truck up to the door this time, James was standing on the canvas top, waiting to jump onto the roof, while Davy was just hoping Al wouldn’t drive off in the truck and leave them.
When the truck was in place, Davy slammed his boot against the door, and felt it shift a little, while James jumped to the roof, and headed for the skylight. Davy struck again, and it fell flat. Davy hopped through the door, and ducked just in time to avoid a rifle stock from smashing into his nose. Davy retaliated by busting his attacker in the forehead with his axe handle, and immediately felt his mistake when he didn’t hold back, and heard the man’s skull crunch. Davy hit the ground as James dropped through the skylight.
James landed with his Rugers drawn, and fired them in a circular spray through the store, screaming, “Get on the ground! Now!”
A man screamed in pain from behind the counter as an incendiary round took him in the collar bone almost ripping his right arm off. He was bleeding profusely while the guy Davy had hit wasn’t even twitching. Davy felt for a pulse, and it was very faint. This guy definitely wasn’t going to make it. James ran over to the man he had hit, and saw it was hopeless for the guy, who was sitting there choking on his own blood. James did the only thing he could to help the guy, and pistol whipped him to the temple, knocking him out, and ending his suffering. James felt terrible about the result of the fight, and Davy was hardly what you would call enthused. Neither had meant to kill their opponent, and they definitely hadn’t realized their enemies had been in such a weakened state.
They were both incredibly skinny with their clothes hanging off of them. Their skulls were visible through their skin. They looked like they hadn’t eaten in weeks, there would have been no way these guys could have fought off any zombies if they had broken in, and James was amazed they had been standing at all when they entered. As Al and the others hopped off the truck Davy met them, and said, “Two less zombies to worry about.”
William nodded, and said, “Good, I’d kill’em all if I could.”
James began to look around the incredibly dark store, when he realized it was hopeless he got his crank light out of his bag in the truck. Aided with a man powered light they quickly inventoried everything in the pawn shop. The poor guys in the pawn shop had been prepared to fight off anything that moved, what they hadn’t counted on was how long rescue would take. They had probably expected the military or police to show up after a few weeks, but were sadly mistaken. They had plenty of bottled water, but they had run out of food a few weeks ago, they had probably lived off of crumbs, and bugs or anything that happened by the parking lot of the shop such as birds or rats, but it hadn’t been enough.
There were guns and ammo all over, there were even a few pistol conversion kits, and things like that. James didn’t envy anyone who had to go three weeks without food. He was thankful for the weapons though, and gladly began to take them. There were five shotguns of different gauges, many assorted pistols as well as one equipped with a telescopic sight. There were kits to mount scopes to guns there. Twenty boxes of assorted handgun ammo, fifteen boxes of different rifle ammos including some .50 cal. There were two hunting rifles and a plethora of shotgun shells which Davy happily filled his pockets with. There was a battery powered infrared scope James could mount to his rifle, so he took it and put it in his bag. There was a directional microphone there with its battery gauge reading half charge and there were also some solar charging packs for batteries. They found some hand flares, and James even found two Laser Enhancement Kits that would attach laser sights to his Rugers. He did this while the others were grabbing their own weapons and starting to load supplies.
It took nearly half an hour to load the weapons into the truck, but James was incredibly glad they had done it. These weapons would allow him to heavily arm more guys on future supply runs. Having a good bit of ammunition would also be a welcome change. James had only three quarters of the incendiary ammo he used in his Rugers left, but he now had plenty of standard ammunition with which he would top off his clips. The other three guys loaded up, and Davy kept the directional mic. Finally they were ready to move on, both men died before they left.
After the pawn shop Davy started leading the truck in a very roundabout manner since as they moved further into the city there were more roadblocks they weren’t willing to risk smashing through so it took nearly ten minutes to reach the police station which wasn’t very far from the pawn shop at all. They were headed from the east when they spotted the police station to the north. The front doors were all smashed in, and zombies were clumping near it en masse. James decided to circle the building to see about another means of entry. They circled, and found a big steel back door that zombies couldn’t get through, but James didn’t immediately take it since backing up to it was impossible, and if someone guarded the exposed side, they wouldn’t have room to load cargo.
James went further around the building, and on the east side he found what he was looking for. A big steel shutter blocked the opening to the parking garage. It was halfway open, which allowed zombies to get inside, but not this big truck, and since James wasn’t keen on turning the truck into a convertible, he decided they would go on foot. This police station was the most likely place to have survivors, and since the undead were clumped so heavily around the door, James believed there was a strong chance that, there were still survivors inside, or at least what had until recently been survivors, which would mean food.
The plan was to split up. James and Al would stay with the truck in case they needed a quick getaway, while Davy would lead Billy and William down into the garage, and find some way to force that shutter open. The undead were likely to be pretty thick down there, and it was also going to be very dark, and for that reason, Williams’ almost sole purpose would be to provide light from some hand flares. Davy and Billy would protect him, and advance through the garage.
Davy was the first one out of the truck; the engine noises were already pulling zombies from the front door slowly, and pulling some from the parking garage. Billy hopped out next, and planted a shot from his new hunting rifle between the eyes of a zombie coming out of the garage. William was right behind him looking as frightened as usual. Davy had his Beretta in his left hand, and fireaxe in the right. He dropped a zombie with his first shot; the next one took a zombie in the forehead, but at its current range didn’t penetrate. He fired again to drop it.
They rushed towards the parking garage attracting more attention than before, and hoping there were fewer zombies in the garage than at the front door. William lit his first hand flare as they entered the garage; he also had a small pistol ready, and a few backup clips. The undead closed in on them from the front. Billy kept their back protected while Davy unloaded on the ones advancing. He managed to drop six zombies with ten bullets before they were at melee range. Davy holstered his empty pistol, and decided to rely on the fireaxe.
His first hit was with the spike which dropped a zombie with another sickening crunch. The second was a chop which went plenty deep enough with the sharpened blade. Davy booted one in the chest sending it sprawling into to others in front of him, and then turned to spike one flanking him on his left, while William dropped one coming up on his right. They reached the north wall as quickly as possible so that both Billy and Davy could focus on the same front. They moved along the wall busting up zombies with Davy’s fireaxe, and Billy’s rifle which had to be reloaded every ten seconds.
They followed the North wall to the east until they came upon a door, and Davy deciding that pretty much anywhere was better than this garage opened it. Billy and William went through, and then Davy went in, and slammed the door behind him. It was a heavy steel door with reinforced hinges, which told Davy that the holding cells were probably down here. He tried to imagine what the holding cells would be used for at the beginning of the outbreak. The police probably threw zombies in the cells, maybe alone, and maybe even with other people, by the time they figured out how the infection spread they would be throwing all of the bitten people in with the zombies. Davy really hoped the holding cell bars were still intact.
They traveled down the dark hallway remaining alert, and feeling a little spooked at the moaning and beating behind them, as well as the moaning and beating ahead of them. At the end of the hallway on the left Davy noticed some motion, and saw that there were zombies reaching through a giant barred door. Davy was glad they had thought to build the heavy gate that blocked the holding cells from the rest of the basement. In his mind Davy could see the zombies breaking free, and filling the whole precinct if it hadn’t been there. There was another big steel door on the right, that’s where Davy led his group. He hoped there would be a way upstairs through here.
They were in luck. Even though there was no way upstairs, they had stumbled upon the generator room. They worked quickly, surveying the room for fuel and supplies, and they managed to get the large generator started after about three minutes of effort. Some emergency lights blinked on with the activation of the generator, and Davy hoped that James and Al could see the lights coming on in the garage. Either way, it was time for them to go back the way they came, and raise the shutter. None of them knew exactly how many zombies were on the other side, but they had a very long narrow hallway to retreat down while fighting them. Davy though they could take about fifty zombies in the narrow space.
Davy approached the big steel door, with the other two standing back with their guns aimed at the doors. The plan was for Davy to open the door, and unload his shotgun into the garage, and then fall back to the other two where he would replace one or the other with his pistol as they needed to reload. Davy pulled the door inward as he reached through the widening crack to unload his first shot. He took a step back before firing his second shot, and then he was running. As soon as Davy passed Billy and William they began shooting, and making each shot count. Billy dropped six with his first six shots, and then had to step back to reload. Davy immediately filled his gap, and unloaded his nine shots bringing down six of them, and by the time he stepped back to reload, Billy was in the place next to him, and as soon as Davy stepped back, William took his spot. No sooner than Davy loaded his new clip did William step back, and Davy rushed forward to fill his place. They retreated halfway down the hallway before the zombies stopped coming, and Davy pulled his fireaxe to prepare to deal with stragglers.
There had been thirty-seven of them charging down the hallway. There were twelve more still in the garage, and since they were spread out or confused and lost amongst cars they were dealt with quickly and easily. As soon as the garage was clear Billy and William ran to the shutter, and activated the controls. The shutter raised, and James brought the truck in quickly. They set the shutter to close all of the way, and retreated back shooting at the zombies that had made it past the shutter while the truck was moving in.
James exited the truck to see Davy sweeping the building with the directional microphone. James didn’t care for the look on Davy’s face. He walked over, and asked, “How many?”
Davy looked over, and said, “Lots, and I’m not picking up any heartbeats either, so I don’t think there are any survivors here.”
James had expected as much by the sight of the front doors being smashed in. That would have to be their first objective. They would have to retake the lobby of the police station, and find a way to seal the doors. If they couldn’t do that then they would have to abandon the police station until they had more men and firepower. The good part was that most of the zombies by the front door were now massing around the big steel shutter blocking access to the basement. James didn’t know how long the generator would keep running, but he planned to be out of the police station before it shut off. James was already referencing in his head how many zombies he had spotted as opposed to how many he believed would have been lured by the truck as opposed to probable size of the police station lobby, and their current ammunition as opposed to group marksmanship.
He decided the way to go would be to storm the lobby with all guns blazing, and clear it out to the door. There he and two others would keep the zombies back with smart, controlled gunfire, while Davy and someone else worked on setting up a barricade. When the zombies weren’t an immediate threat they would all work on strengthening the barricade until they were sure the zombies wouldn’t break through until after they left.
He ran the plan by Davy, who shrugged and said something about finger lickin’, and then went off to prepare. James gathered the other three, and asked who among them was the best carpenter, and not really a surprise; it was Al. Davy and Al would be the barricade team while James, Billy and William covered them. James hoped his mental calculations were pretty accurate. He and Davy had been wrong before, and they had been swamped, not the most pleasant day of his life that. They had almost run out of ammo before the last zombie dropped on that day, and James had mentally thanked Davy every time he fired a shot for finding the Rugers he carried.
It took them four minutes to prepare for the execution. As soon as they were read they moved to the western end of the garage towards the door that would most likely lead them up to the first floor. They went through it, and James quickly dropped two zombies on the other side of the door with his Rugers, and they pressed on. They were in a narrow dimly lit hallway, and they were not alone by the sounds of it. The first corner had them facing north again, from there they could see a long hallway that would dead end further north, but a branch off to the west, made sure that they wouldn’t get stopped by a wall. They headed to the western branch, and spotted six zombies there. They were about sixty feet away so Billy dropped three with his rifle, and James used his sniper rifle on the other three.
They advanced down the hallway ignoring the rooms off to either side for now. They just wanted to make it to the ground floor, and then follow through with their plan. When they reached the western end of the hallway there was another northern face, but this wasn’t a wall, it was a stairway leading up to the ground floor. They climbed the stairs, and faced towards the east, and started down the eastern hallway since it was their only option. They could hear zombies moving just outside of the shuttered windows, and even though they had steel shutters stopping the zombies from pouring through the windows, they kept as close to the opposing wall as they could.
At the end of the hallway there was a door on the southern wall, they took this door, and came upon the police offices. The emergency lights shone in dim yellow from the corners of this large room, making the ten or so zombies in here just shambling shadows. James was struck with a faint feeling of unreality as their gunshots created a strobe effect in the room. They managed to kill the zombies without being bitten and moved west once again towards large wooden double doors. They tried the double doors, but found them to be blocked from the other side. They had no give to them, but James decided to heed Davy’s warning to get out of the way.
Davy took three steps towards the door, and landed a heavy side kick flat into the center of the left side door. The door came off its hinges with a huge cracking noise. No zombies immediately rushed through the new opening so James took the initiative, and hopped through the opening doing a quick spin to map the room. They were alone. The others came through after that, and James saw that the boards had been nailed from the western side, so whoever had boarded the doors up did so most likely to keep the zombies in the office from spilling out.
They headed south again with James thinking they should be almost on top of the lobby, and went through another heavy steel door on the west side to find themselves almost at the front doors in the lobby. There weren’t as many zombies as James had thought would be in here. Considering they were only outnumbered ten to one. Everyone immediately began to chose targets, and drop them. James switched on his aiming lasers, and began to drop zombies. Davy was taking careful aim with his Beretta. He was making every shot count. They moved slowly as a group making sure not to present any opening.
They made it to a statue in the middle of the lobby, and used it as a wall so the zombies couldn’t attack them from one side. Davy was unloading on the zombies coming from the west with William supporting him. James was dropping the zombies now coming through the front doors from the south. Al and William were facing east, and dropping the zombies as they came into site from around the large statue.
James surveyed the front doors to find them totally smashed, but there was a broken barricade immediately on their side of the doors. It was only broken in one spot, and the zombies had to awkwardly tumble through the remains of the barricade section. On the western side were more barricading materials including boards, nails, hammers, and furniture such as steel folding tables, and writing desks. James shouted for Day and Al to start building.
Davy and Al broke ranks, trusting the others to provide cover. They did provide cover, and very well too. The closest a zombie got to them was twenty feet while they were gathering tools and supplies. James, however, had a zombie push past Billy, and nearly bite him. He cursed his luck as he killed it. He couldn’t believe it hadn’t just gone for the closest human…no, it wanted the one that tasted the best apparently. James then broke rank, and left Billy and William to the clearing of the inside lobby. James switched to new clips as he moved, and by the time he got to the barricade he was ready with another twenty-four shots.
James quickly dealt with the zombies that were on the inside, and then climbed to the top of the barricade that was still standing so he could drop others as they came through the doors, and not get in the way of Davy and Al. Davy held the first board across the narrow opening, while Al quickly nailed it to the standing barricades on both sides. They had to stop for a moment to fire at zombies when eight stumbled through the door at once, only five feet from the barricade. James couldn’t stop them quickly enough, but both Al and Davy unloaded with the shotguns, knocking the zombies back out the door. James noticed two of the four pitched backwards came crawling back in, and he dropped them permanently.
Things were slowing down since fresh zombies were now tripping over the corpses of the dead ones, and making James’ job much easier. James would have been pleased if he hadn’t thought this turn of events was more from Davy’s luck than his expert planning. Even so when twenty zombies came spilling in at once, the barricade was now strong enough to hold them back while James dropped them one at a time even stopping in the middle to reload. Davy and Al were now nailing one of those steel chairs in for support, bending a few nails before they managed to get it secured. It was near the back to stop the boards from bowing outwards, and breaking in fragile spots. If the zombies were going to break through, then they would have to completely shatter the barricade.
James knew it was only a matter of time before that happened, but he planned to be gone before it did. He needed another plan now, and he was busy thinking. Counting the roof as a floor, there were three floors in this police station, and then a basement floor. They would need to completely search the police station and then work together in order to move the supplies out to the truck. James decided that they would once again split up. A team for each floor was required if they split up, because they would clear each floor simultaneously, and then converge on the basement rooms. He figured one person would be enough to handle the roof. If any zombies had gone up there, they would have fallen off by now, and if they hadn’t fallen off, then that just meant that there probably weren’t many of them.
Worst case scenario with the roof was falling back into the stairwell, and waiting for the others to arrive for a co-op assault. The second floor was unknown to them completely, while they had already explored almost half of the first floor. The question was which of them would go it alone. Not any of the three they had just picked up, that was for sure. Davy was a good choice; he didn’t scare at all, was a great fighter, and had been left by himself plenty of times to emerge just fine. Even with his good qualities, Davy would often pause in thought, even if danger was around; James didn’t want to lose his friend over one moment of carelessness. Davy also had a tendency to forget details of what he was doing, and James didn’t want to risk him missing something important that he hadn’t specifically been told to look for.
James figured he was the best choice to work alone. He had the widest array of abilities in their group. He was used to fighting against heavy odds by himself, and he was adaptable. The only problem with him going was that it would leave two of their new group unsupervised. James didn’t trust them enough to risk losing the truck to them, so he needed to think of a way to guarantee they wouldn’t just abandon the member of their group who was with Davy. James then remembered what Al had said right after they had met him. He said that William had tried to take their place as his own, but they hadn’t been able to feed him to the zombies. That meant that Al was probably the soft one of the group. James decided that Al would be one in the group that wasn’t with Davy. William didn’t care about the other two most likely, so he would go with Al. That left Billy to be with Davy. James thought that there was a small chance that Billy would abandon Al if he was left William, but based on what he had seen from Al so far suggested that Al wouldn’t abandon Billy, and if William wanted to run off in the truck, then Al would stop him because he wouldn’t abandon Billy. Billy most likely wouldn’t risk abandoning Davy because he would most likely be informed by Davy that if he did try to run away Davy would blast him from behind.
By the time James had finished this particular train of thought, Davy and Al were stepping back from the barricade. There were banging noises coming from behind it, but the barricade wasn’t even trembling. James thought that was pretty bad because it meant the barricade had no give, and would be more prone to shattering when pressure didn’t alleviate.
James quickly announced the plan, and as expected Billy raised an argument. Billy said, “How do we know you guys won’t just gang up on me, and then go kill Al and William, and then keep the police station for yourself?”
James answered, “First off, we have nothing to gain by keeping this place to ourselves. Davy and I aren’t enough manpower to maintain this place, and in a couple hours escaping from here will be impossible. Second, what would Davy and I gain from killing you? We can’t carry both your weapons and ours, and even if we could they would just slow us down since we could still only use one weapon at a time, and they would be heavy.”
Billy answered, “Well, I was thinking that maybe we should just all start blastin’ on you two.”
As soon as those words left Billy’s mouth Davy kicked the back of Billy’s right knee, and brought him down on the other with Davy’s shotgun resting on the back of his head. Al and William immediately drew their guns to point at Davy, while James pulled his Rugers at the same instant, and leveled his sighting lasers on both Al’s and William’s foreheads. Davy didn’t seem to care about the guns pointing at him when he looked up to James and said, “If they’re going to try that even though we already beat them once, do you mind if I even up the numbers right quick?”
Davy asked the question with the same tone he had used when he had asked James if he could get a glass of water the first time he had come over to James’ house when they were kids. James just said, “Ease up Maniac. I don’t think they’ll turn on us, they don’t have anywhere to go other than our boat, and they know it. I trust them for now, but that generator isn’t going to keep this place lit for long, and even if it does, that barricade isn’t going to hold forever. Before we’re lost in the dark, and have zombies pouring through the front doors, I suggest we work together and search this police station, gather any supplies, and get out of here. If they decide they don’t want to get on our boat later, we’ll take them outside of the city before we part ways. Don’t forget that I have contact with another colony of survivors.”
Davy hesitated a few seconds before he replaced his shotgun in his sheathe. He helped Billy up, and said, “No hard feelings buddy?”
Billy seemed confused, and just slowly shook his head no.
After this they relaxed, and after re-studying each of them, James didn’t think they would try anything else. They knew already that James and Davy were better fighters, and that if they were separated would have absolutely no chance in one-on-one combat, and if together they wouldn’t have a chance against James and Davy in a strange environment when they couldn’t stop them in an environment they were defending. James also knew that Davy wouldn’t be taken by surprise again now that he knew how many of them there were.
James quickly told Davy the frequency he would be listening in to on his hand radio. Davy quickly set his to the same frequency. The other two didn’t have a radio, so they wouldn’t be able to call for help unless they could scream loud enough. There were no more complaints, at the atmosphere again turned to one of only slightly eminent death. James ordered Davy and Billy to take the second floor, and Al and William finish searching the first floor. He told them that he would take the roof.
The only thing left to do was to find the stairwell. This was a very easy task seeing as how it was through one of the two west end doors. Billy James and Davy proceeded up the stairwell, while Al and William went through the other west end door. At the second floor James separated from the other two, and proceeded up to the roof.
As James exited out onto the roof he managed to get a slightly better scope of the destruction that took place in the city. He also noticed that there were many more zombies outside than before; he supposed some zombies had been chasing them since he had started the cargo truck. There was a chain link fence running the perimeter of the roof. The roof was gray cement with a blue helipad located in the center. There was another building on the roof that James was sure was used for storage. He would check it anyway just to be sure.
As he crossed over to the supposed storage room he drew his Rugers, just in case. He knocked very loudly on the big steel door, and listened carefully. He could almost swear he heard something in there, but couldn’t quite pin the sound. It definitely wasn’t a zombie, but didn’t sound human either. He tried the handle, and found it locked, so he took a few steps back, and carefully fired an incendiary round into the locking mechanism. It broke, and he waited a moment before opening the door.
He pulled it open, and as he did a huge swarm of flies exploded from the inside. There were so many that he actually struggled to close the door back. He had found scenes like this one before, but it never got any easier to see. The police station survivors had not thrown their infected the holding cells with the zombies. Instead James noticed that they had placed a bullet into their heads, and stored the bodies up here. Now that he had smelled their stink it had fastened itself into his nose so thickly that he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to smell anything else again. He choked and gagged as he stumbled away from the door, and sat down in the middle of the vacant helipad. He waited there for almost five minutes before his senses returned to normal. He wondered if Davy and the others were almost finished sweeping the floors. He had been hearing gunshots in no particular pattern over the last five minutes. He counted about forty of them, but for right now it was silent.
He pulled his radio, and said to Davy, “I found all of the infected people.”
Davy answered casually, “The survivors here groaned us a decent welcome.”
James said, “You found their supply store?”
Davy replied, “Yep. A few guns, some crates of MREs, and a bunch of Beef Jerky.
James replied, “Great I’ll head over there in a minute. The roof was a dud.”
Davy replied, “Don’t sneak up.”
James headed over towards the stairway once more, and left the roof. James headed a short way down the stairs, and opened the door to the second floor. He could see there had been pretty intense fighting. A few zombies lay dead only ten feet from the door. Davy’s axe had been the culprit. James thought it looked like Davy had chopped the first one in the forehead very deeply, and then spun out and spiked the one on the right. He had kicked the third in the chest, and then chopped it to the forehead.
James just followed the trail of bodies, and sure enough, Davy was at the end of it. He was busy doing an inventory of the supplies, while Billy was keeping watch for any zombies they might have missed. James walked up to Davy and said, “How’s it looking?”
Davy turned to him, and said, “Well, not many guns here believe it or not, but there’s enough food here to last us almost a month. A really good haul I’s say, and so far no casualties getting it, so I guess that’s a plus. I also found a stash of radios that would be really nice to have. There are batteries galore, and they modified two gas generators to run off of a bicycle looking thing, so we’ll take those as well. If you want to let me get back to this, it sounded like the other two were in trouble; they might need your help down there.”
James listened closely, and he could hear zombies outside, but it seemed quiet down below, maybe too quiet. He decided that he would go investigate. He bid Davy farewell, and then retraced his steps back to the stairwell. He headed down the stairs, and once at the bottom he exited out into the lobby where he could hear zombies banging on the other side of the barricade, it was holding steady as of right then, but James didn’t think that it would still be whole for long.
As if in answer of his thoughts there was a large cracking noise, and James’ first thought was that the barricade was breaking, and the zombies would pour over him. Then he realized it had been lightning. The rain started just then. James decided he had better things to do than hang out in a spooky dark lobby where he could hear the rain and the zombies trying to get inside, so he headed to the west side door closest to the barricade.
Immediately on the other side was a zombie corpse. James guessed they had at least made it this far, and continued inwards. He could hear a sound in the distance, but couldn’t quite recognize it. It was a bunch of thudding noises repeating rapidly, so James assumed it was just zombies trying to break in someplace, but he went ahead, and had his Rugers at the ready. It looked like there had been a firefight all through the hallway he was in after he passed through the first room away from the lobby. He guessed the police had had to clear many zombies out of this hallway before they could get the steel shutters down.
Halfway down the hallway he found a heavy metal door that was unlocked. He opened the door slowly, and knocked on it a couple times when it was halfway open. He did this not only to alert the two he was looking for to his presence so they wouldn’t blast him, but to draw any zombies in the room to him. There was no response so he went in. He was in some sort of file room. It was loaded with papers of all kind, including case files, evidence logs, damage reports, and other things of that nature. As far as he could tell there was nothing important in here so he decided to leave when he found the door at the other end of the room was welded shut.
He exited back into the hallway, and proceeded north again to the door at the end of the hallway. He opened it carefully and the thudding noises got louder. He quickly advanced down the hallway, and around the first right turn he saw about twenty zombies grouped around a set of double doors, they were packed so tightly in the narrow hallway that they couldn’t even raise their arms to bang on the door. The thudding noises were just their feet stomping over and over again as they tried to walk through each other as if they weren’t even aware that the other zombies existed.
James flipped on his laser sights, and opened fire. He took his time, and made sure that each shot hit. When he killed the first five, the others managed to unclump themselves, and start heading quickly for James. James retreated slowly, still firing, and he had dropped ten of them before he retreated into the hallway he had just left. He figured he had better drop the rest here or they might surround him in the significantly wider hallway.
He quickened his fire, and only missed two shots. Only four zombies reached the wider hallway, and none of those got within ten feet of him. He studied the corpses carefully, making sure that they were all good and redead before moving on to the narrow hallway again. He had no choice but to walk on the corpses. He noticed this hallway was lined with windows that were heavily boarded, but he couldn’t hear anything outside because of the rain. When he was almost to the double doors the zombies had been grouped around there was suddenly a splintering noise as an arm came through the boards, and latched on to his left hand, breaking three of the fingers on it. He dropped his left Ruger even as he blew the arm away with his right.
Pain shot through James’ hand and arm, making him dizzy, but he still had enough sense to check for wounds. Luckily the zombie had not managed to scratch him as occasionally a single scratch from a fingernail could lead to infection, and zombification. He quickly moved away from the window before more reached in, and then dropped his bag to fetch his gauze. There was no time to set the bones, so he just wrapped them up tightly, which hurt incredibly. He then fetched his Ruger off of the floor, and holstered it, he didn’t think there would be any more Dual-Wielding for him for at least a month.
Even with the distraction his curiosity about the doors hadn’t left him for long. He knocked loudly on the door and called out, “Al! William! You guys in there?”
The response was immediate, he heard a loud crash, some swearing and then Al opened the door to a classroom, or briefing room, whatever they called it in a police station. The dim yellow emergency lights barely lit the classroom, and it seemed that William had fallen over a desk. James asked them, “What are you guys doing in here?”
Al responded, “We hid in here when the zombies closed in on us from both sides, it was our only choice, and I’m glad there were only five of them in here.”
James said, “This is why you should always do a thorough sweep before moving on, so you can avoid getting attacked from behind. At any rate, did you guys find anything?”
William spoke up now, “Nope, nothin’ yet. Do you really think they would have kept their supplies on the first floor?”
James replied, “No. Not really.”
Al asked him, “Then why would you send us over here?”
James said, “Just to make sure, for all I knew there was another entrance around here, I’d hate to get swarmed from it. Anyway, I’ll stick with you guys until we finish with the first floor. Let’s go.”
James then turned, and left the room, he heard another crash as William fell over another desk, and then the other two were right behind him. At the end of that section of hallway was another right turn. Corpses littered the floor here, so James could only guess that this is where they first engaged the zombies. Beyond the corpses were a broken barricade and a shattered door. This led to another narrow hallway. The western branch of the hallway led to a wall, and there was a big wooden door with a sign next to it that said Dark Room. The eastern branch led to a big steel door, with a label that said Evidence.
James inspected the door to find it welded shut; they weren’t getting in there unless they felt like tunneling through the concrete walls. He figured that about did it for the first floor, and so they headed back towards the lobby, with no sound other than the rain and thunder. When they reached the lobby the barricade was still holding strong, but now if you pressed your hands against it you could feel a little give to it, the zombies were wearing it down quickly.
Davy and Billy reached the lobby at the same time as James’ group; they were loaded down with supplies too. They dropped their supplies in the middle of the lobby, and Davy said, “We’ll start bringing the supplies down, and you guys can carry them down to the basement. As soon as all the supplies are in the lobby, we’ll start helping haul some stuff down there too.”
James nodded at this, and started grabbing as much as he could with his good arm, and he got a few bags strapped around his shoulder, and started off towards the basement. Al and William followed, also carrying supplies, while Davy and Billy went back up the stairs. It took half an hour to get all of the supplies down to the lobby, and by that time the barricade was bulging and trembling. Another fifteen minutes, and they had the truck loaded with everything of value to them in the police station. Water was flooding under the steel shutter, but it was draining just as rapidly into the large grates placed at regular intervals in the garage.
James showed Davy his fingers, and told him that he would have to drive from there. James thought he could still drive just fine, but he figured with his luck, there was no point in taking that risk. Davy hopped in the driver’s seat, while James went for the passenger. Al and William jumped in the back, while Billy went to the shutter control. He hit the button to raise the shutter, and ran for the back of the truck as zombies came flooding in. There were about eighty zombies in the garage. Davy waited for them to kind of separate before he rammed through them. He didn’t want to risk totaling the truck on a dense crowd of them.
Davy already knew their next route, and started to the west. They drove through the torrent for about twenty minutes before they reached the outskirts of the city. Davy figured that this hospital on the edge of the city would probably have seen less patients or refugees than the inner city hospitals, which were sure to be packed full of zombies. Even so, he was pretty sure that this one would be packed. The only question he couldn’t answer was how they were going to do it. James was fully aware, as was he, that the front glasses on all hospital windows were bulletproof. They might just destroy their truck, and get eaten by zombies if they smashed through.
They might also just get eaten if they went on foot, but if by some miracle they didn’t, got to the hospital, found supplies, and made it out, they would probably come back to find zombies mobbed around their truck like a satanic mosh. There were problems with the plan alright, but he decided he would just roll with what came to mind when he got there, and trust in his luck. Maybe his luck knew something that he didn’t.
They could see the hospital now, it was standing menacingly in the torrent despite the fact it was only four floors tall. Davy decided to go off-road for a minute, and pull onto the grass around on the side of the hospital; he made three quarters of a circle around the hospital before he decided to back up against the hospital literally to the point where the truck ran into the wall. He had picked out a large window that opened into a small waiting room of some kind. He clambered into the back after switching the truck off, and got his fireaxe ready. Once he had decided on his angle, he took the spike of his fireaxe, and bashed the crap out of the window as hard as he could. The spike just hit, and slid, and the lack of balance almost sent Davy sprawling.
James just looked over from the passenger seat and raised an eyebrow in question. Davy ignored the small feelings of doubt creeping up in him, and managed to convince himself that those feelings weren’t there, the same way he dealt with large amounts of pain. He struck over and over again before finally, he struck at a perfect angle, and the spike stuck into the window a little bit. After that it took about five minutes for Davy to bash the window and mesh all of the way out of the frame. He had picked a window large enough to move supplies through, but they were going to have to lift all of their supplies into the truck which would be complicated since the supplies would need to move forward at the same time. That would mean that when they got the supplies back here, if zombies were following them they would still have to split into three groups to load the supplies.
It would take two people receiving supplies from the inside of the truck, two people loading supplies from the outside, and that would leave one person to cover them while they did it. With James’ hand in the shape it was, there was no way he was going to be a loader, so he would be the person covering them. Of course this plan was assuming that no one of their group died in the hospital. Davy supposed that in a pinch he could hand the supplies to the other two in the truck by himself, he would most likely be strong enough to lift anything they were taking from the hospital.
Davy clambered through first, and saw that the coast was clear, but he could already hear shuffling around him, and there were many dried bloodstains covering the floors and walls. It looked like a massacre had taken place in here, so much for a peaceful waiting room environment he though to himself. He kept his fireaxe ready, so he could take down anything that moved instantly, and as quietly as possible. He considered pulling the great axe off of his back, and maybe using it, but decided against it. The great axe was really a weapon wielded when going solo.
After breaking himself away from memories of being the worst hackie-sack player of all time even though he could keep a soccer or basketball going forever, he noticed James had come in through the window. He had a Ruger at the ready, but didn’t have the laser switched on yet. Davy didn’t even know if James would be able to use his katana with only one hand. Then he thought about it, and realized that James was still perfectly capable of wielding a two-handed katana. He just couldn’t operate two triggers at once, or fire left-handed with any accuracy.
It was dark in the hospital. Nearly pitch black thanks to the storm outside. At least the torrent and thunder would help mask their noise. James whispered to Davy, “So. You got a plan for this place, because I’m drawing a blank right now.”
Davy grinned and said back, “Of course I have a plan. We’re going to get what we need, and then get out of here, and once we get back to the ship, I’ll curl up in my bed with an Douglas Adams book, and we’ll all live happily ever after until next time we leave the ship.”
Davy never recognized when he was nervous because of his Mania, but James had known him long enough to know that when Davy started getting giddy like he was getting now, it was because he was either incredibly enjoying himself, or he was starting to feel a little nervousness, and he didn’t like it because it intruded on his two dominant emotions which were happiness, and anger. James also assumed from the lack of details before getting out of the hospital that they were going to make it up as they went. James knew Davy would formulate a plan once he had some information about the place, but Davy was terrible at thinking without prior notice, which was why he had come to rely on his luck and gut so much.
They were on the western side of the building in a waiting room for some kind of scan. As soon as they exited into the hallway, now with the other three following they found that the stairs were only three hallways away. They needed to advance north for one, and then go east through another, and finally the third hallway along the northern wall would have the stairs. As they passed a Nurse’s station there was also a floor map which listed the pharmacy on the third floor. That’s where they needed to go.
As soon as they got to the end of their first hallway they ran into zombies. Not a mob of them like Davy was constantly expecting to fall out of the roof or air vents or storm out of rooms, but nothing to take lightly at their proximity. They were twenty feet away, and there were fifteen of them. They were moving as a group, and well aware that lunch had arrived. Davy assumed they hadn’t eaten anything in months as well, and they would most likely complain about the service they received and since Davy and the others didn’t want to go out like that, they threw stealth to the wind, and opened fire.
Vicious’ laser came on already in the center of a forehead as Davy fired his first shot. Davy dropped one, and Vicious dropped another. Billy dropped one with his rifle, and Davy thought about complaining about how his rifle really hurt Davy’s ears, but he held it in. William killed a fourth with his pistol, but Al couldn’t really see to aim since he was behind two lines of people, and it was dark.
Only three of the zombies got to melee range, and as they did, Davy raised his fireaxe as James raised his katana. Davy spiked one in the forehead, while Vicious stabbed the second. The third grabbed for Davy, and he managed to bash it back with the axe handle as James stabbed it through the eye. They figured they better get moving before they got swamped. They couldn’t risk running blindly through the hospital with only their flashlights to see by, so they settled for a brisk walk.
They encountered ten more zombies in the next hallway, and that didn’t come down to melee range and twelve in the last before they could make it to the stairwell. There were no zombies in the stairwell, but they could all hear them moaning, and shuffling around throughout the building. The zombies were restless at the sounds of live prey. Zombies would occasionally feed on dead corpses, but only if there was nothing else available, which was strange considering they had no actual need for sustenance.

They advanced up the dark stairwell, all the while expecting zombies to lunge out of the shadows, but nothing attacked them. They were in luck when they got to the third floor. There were no zombies crammed up against the stairwell door, although there was one wandering aimlessly past it. Davy quickly rushed through the door, and spiked the zombie before it even realized it had an attacker. There were eight more in the immediate hallway, but they were a good hundred feet away from their group, so they decided to go the other way, but when their flashlights illuminated the other end of the hallway, there were six more at the other end, already advancing on them.
Davy linked back to back with William as James linked with Billy, Al just stood to the side looking lonely and confused as the others opened fire. The zombies didn’t get close to them, but they could immediately hear stirring all around them, and they hoped that their ammo and nerve would last. The pharmacy was along the eastern wall, almost perfectly opposite from, and two floors higher than where the truck was parked.
Since the hospital had a symmetrical layout, they had only to go through three hallways to get to the pharmacy. There were no zombies left in the first now, the second was empty as well, but the third looked like a warzone. There were corpses all over the floor, but there were many zombies here. There were at least one hundred of them. They all realized that this was now or never, and didn’t wait for the zombies.
Davy fired into the crowd, choosing his targets, knowing they had enough ammo to take the zombies down, but he was wondering if they had the accuracy or time. They would have to fight while retreating from the zombies, they could be killed if they got pushed all of the way back to the stairwell, or if they got attacked from behind. As it was, there were four downing zombies like their lives depended on it, and Al would fire blasts with his shotgun to drive the front ones down, and slow the progress of the crowd.
Davy emptied two and a half clips while retreating, and wasn’t sure how many he killed, but they ran out of room, and was forced to retreat back into the stairway. William and Billy tried to retreat down the stairs, but James called for them to head up the stairs with Davy, Al, and himself. Vicious figured they would fight them on the stairs, and he really didn’t want them pouring down on his head. They managed to clamber up the stairs with Billy losing a piece of his shirt, and being clawed through his skin so he started bleeding from his back.
At least they made it to the top of the first flight of stairs; they had three more flights they could retreat up to before they came to the roof access. Davy opted for the fireaxe once they were that close, and he laughed crazily as he would spike a zombie, and then booted another in the chest to send it flying into the ones below it. They managed to rip part of his shirt, but his Kevlar protected him in the chest, and since his arms were constantly moving they couldn’t grab those as well.
They had to retreat up all of the stairs, but they could see the end. For a wonder the roof access wasn’t locked, and they exited out onto the roof, and put down the foot holders on the bottom to keep it wide open while they fired at the remaining zombies advancing through the door. The wind and rain up here was immense, and James couldn’t even see his laser point so he decided to switch it off. Not a single zombie made it through the small doorway.
As they killed the final zombie, the wind seemed to suddenly die down, but the rain continued unabated. They examined the surroundings from the top of the hospital to see a large mob still at the front door, there were zombies pouring out of a window on the fourth floor, and dropping below while still reaching for them, but they had also made a great discovery. There was a life-flight helicopter up here, and after James made a few checks he told them it was operational.
When he said that then Billy said, “Well, can you fly a helicopter?”
James answered, “Yes, I can.”
The William said in a panicked manner, “Then let’s get out of here, there are too many zombies, we’ll never be able to get anything out of here. Let’s at least escape with our lives.”
Davy responded to this one, “We can’t.”
William looked at Davy in a flabbergasted manner, Davy took note that this was definitely the most flabbergasted expression he had see up to this point, and all of the other times he had thought he had see flabbergasted, the people had merely been heavily confused. Even so Davy managed to respond, “We can’t leave the supplies in the truck, and besides that, I didn’t come this far just to turn back with our ammo wasted, and no medical supplies. I’ve still got about forty shots left with my pistol, another forty with my shotgun. If I happen to run out of fire axe ammo after that, then I still have my great axe, but god help you guys if you’re near me when I use the great axe.”
William’s look persisted, and then Al continued for Davy, “Besides that, we’re going to be living on your ship from now on, or at least until there’s a safe place on land, we need to do everything we can to help. There are people who need that medicine, and I’m not going to let them down. I know Billy’s with me since we already talked about it, but you were never really one of our group William, so I guess it’s your decision if you want to split from us. I don’t think Vicious or Maniac will try to stop you.”
William looked at Davy pleadingly, but Davy shook his head no. It was obvious William was going to be no more help at the hospital, the big fight had broken him. Davy didn’t want to keep him around any longer so he took James to the side, and asked, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Vicious grinned and said, “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, because I’ve been thinking it since we opened the door to the roof.”
Davy had to give him that point in his mind, but since he wasn’t one to be outdone, he said, “Well I’ve been thinking it since we saw the three-fingered thing.”
James thought a moment, and then replied, “You know I had forgotten all about that. The thing ripped those dogs and cats apart. I wonder what happened to it.”
They both knew the plan. James would stay up here with William to prep the helicopter for takeoff while Davy, Billy, and Al went to the pharmacy for supplies, and then headed back down to the truck. They would get the truck back to the docks after that, and once that was done, Then Al, and Billy would load into the helicopter, and land on the helipad on the ship. They would then send a larger party to collect the supplies from the truck in their larger boat, while Davy piloted the smaller speedboat back to the Holiday.
The plan was finally coming together, Davy quickly thanked god for his luck after they confirmed the plan with the other three and dared Loki to show his face. After that James got to work prepping the helicopter, which he said would take about fifteen minutes if all went well. When he was ready to take off, he would toss a hand flare off the west side of the building, if they couldn’t take off for some reason, then James would toss two flares at once to signal that they were heading down to the truck.
If James and William hadn’t made it to the truck in thirty minutes after that then the other three were to leave without them. William would stay with James to assist with anything he needed. He didn’t seem particularly rebellious, and seemed vastly relieved at the prospect of not going back in to the hospital.
Davy, Billy, and Al headed back down to the third floor and retraced their steps to the pharmacy, meeting only five stragglers from the large group on the way. Davy thanked god that the ICU’s were on the fourth floor, and they wouldn’t have to go there. Davy had the list of medicines they needed in a waterproof baggy in his backpack. He was glad he was one to plan ahead or it would have been soaked through on the roof. They went into the pharmacy to find all of the medicines behind a locked door, but Davy broke it down after a few kicks, and some hits with his fireaxe spike.
There were no zombies in the pharmacy back, and Davy quickly brought his list out, and they all started searching by flashlight to find everything they needed. They loaded up on painkillers, antibiotics; they got a few depressants as well as some stimulants. They ended up stripping about eighty pounds of medicine from the pharmacy including supplies like bandages and syringes from a supply closet located in the pharmacy. Then they were ready to go.
Al was carrying some of the medicine in a shoulder bag on his side, and Davy had the rest in his backpack, the only thing that could stop them now was a bunch of zombies. They all hoped that wouldn’t happen. Above them they heard the helicopter engage, and the blades start to hum, and they decided it was time to get out of Dodge.
They ran for the stairway even though it was dangerous, and Davy dropped three zombies along the way. Once in the stairway they locked the push bar lock from inside, and then headed down to the first floor. There were five zombies grouped around the door, so Billy, who was the fastest, jerked it open, and ran up the first flight of stairs as Davy dropped them with his pistol as they slowly navigated the stairs.
Their group pounded down the hallways ignoring the chance of running into zombies, they were all feeling the stress of the place, and wanted to escape the hospital more than anything now. They made it to the waiting room to find it still empty, and so they clambered into the back of the truck to feel it rocking as zombies ran into it repeatedly, unable to reach the windows on the doors or reach the back to climb into the back of the truck.
Davy shed his backpack, shotgun, greataxe, and put his fireaxe in the passenger seat, and when he tried the ignition it roared to life like it was brand new. Davy looked around and spotted the flare like a beacon in the gloom, and went ahead and took off. Feeling bumps as he ran into zombies, and ran over a few that were already under the truck. It was not near nighttime quite yet, but it seemed to be pitch black except for the headlights’ illumination as they tore through the silent streets, seeing zombies left and right, and occasionally weaving around a clump of them so as not to risk damaging the truck. Now that the route had been traveled by a large and loud vehicle once, there seemed to be many more zombies on the street.
It took another half hour to reach the dock, and Davy was just starting to feel the adrenaline crash as they backed up to the dock, and saw James land in an open area where a crane used to drop cargo, the crane having been toppled out of the way by a semi crashing into it. They all got out, and Davy dropped a zombie on the way to the helicopter, but the zombies that had been in this area had been drawn well out by their leaving in the truck earlier and all the subsequent fighting must have echoed for miles in the new silence of the world. He kept his fireaxe, pistol, crank flashlight and two spare clips, and tossed his backpack into the plane with Al and William. He yelled goodbye to James, and headed back towards the docks to get the boat. He found a zombie waiting for him on the docks, and cheerfully, although wearily spiked its head, and then climbed into the bouncing boat.
The wind had stopped completely, but the rain still came in torrents, but Davy didn’t really care, he had boated crappier vessels in worse than this, and decided to head out to sea, where he could see the blinking lights of the helicopter already settling onto the ship. He started the motor after rowing a little way from the dock, and started outwards. When he got there, the hoist was already waiting on him, and he rowed the boat into it, and they started lifting him immediately.
Vicious stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Holiday, and looked out at the sea. He saw rain and tons of it, he had already given orders for other men to go secure the supplies in the truck, and they were already outfitting. They would be heading out in the larger boat in less than ten minutes. They would soon be stocked with more weapons and ammunition. All that were left were the people who had stayed with him through the mutiny because they believed he could give them a better life. Maniac would stay with him, unless he became boring all of a sudden.
The men who hadn’t been with him before had now proven themselves, although he was a little hesitant about William, who might still decide to leave, he finally felt he had a real team. This was only the first phase though. Pretty soon, things would heat up, and he would need his men to be razor sharp if they were to survive what the future held. They would need training, which he and Maniac could give, but he wouldn’t waste his time training people who wouldn’t become nearly as good as he was, and Maniac would hurt too many men in his training, besides, Vicious didn’t feel the need to have a bunch of berserkers like Maniac who only used their brains when it was absolutely necessary.
The future would be hard, and he needed to be hard for it. If they were going to survive as a group, then a lot of planning would need to be done.

[Tom]

I had to edit the ruger to be P85 - you'd accidently put P88 (which while neat, I am admitedly unfamiliar with).

And for anyone who happens to read this, the character discriptions (as far as physically are concerned), are oddly accurate - I am exactly 5'9", lol.

Hehe. I'm 6'1" :P

On-topic, I'm about to start reading the second part of the story - I'm impressed!

[Boxofit]

Thabks a lot, it took me longer than I thought it would to type this. This is probably the longest thing I've written since high school when I had to do a HUGE report on Native American Reservations and the abuse of the 16th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The story I meant, and not this particular post, I've had to edit two posts in a row now, I'm going to blame it on my fever, and not negligence.