Dope of the Dead

[Babale]

Nope, not enough for a 3rd test. I'll post the next part tonight, but so I get it right: You're heading directly to the hospital?

[Hoopy Frood]

That is the plan.

[appleciders]

"Alvin-- cover that bite! The folks at that hospital are not going to be excited to allow someone with open bite wounds to enter!"

[Hoopy Frood]

The wounds Alvin has have already been dressed by Jordan.

[Babale]

Originally Posted by Hoopy Frood

The wounds Alvin has have already been dressed by Jordan.

It still shows up as a bloody bandage, though. Until he covers it up with his coat. It's still visible, but not obviously so.

Your group descends towards the road, guns at the ready. As you approach, you hear a strange sound: The creaking of hundreds of car suspensions. Something on the freeway below is moving, inside the cars or right next to them. Then, suddenly, you notice another, softer sound: The gibbering, moaning, and babbling of many, many Infected. It appears that not everyone made it to the extraction point, and that some people tried to get out of the city by car. It doesn't look like any of them made it.

[Hoopy Frood]

"So, either of you got any ideas? We could try to sneak past them and hope they don't notice us, but I don't know how likely that is. But since going back isn't really an option, we have to cross the highway somehow."

[appleciders]

"Overpass? Underpass? Maybe a drainage culvert?"

I know that Alvin's safe, but the guards at the hospital will probably not accept my voucher that he's uninfected if he's got a big bite wound.

[Hoopy Frood]

"Well, let's approach cautiously and keep our eyes peeled. I have a feeling a culvert is going to be our most likely choice. I'd rather go crawling through a dank drainage pipe than have to deal with more crazed plague victims."

[Mahaloth]

Originally Posted by Hoopy Frood

"Well, let's approach cautiously and keep our eyes peeled. I have a feeling a culvert is going to be our most likely choice. I'd rather go crawling through a dank drainage pipe than have to deal with more crazed plague victims."

"Oh, good, a sewer level. Next you'll want us to escort a girl through there. Seriously, though, do you really think we can find a sewer or some way in? If so, I'm for it."

[appleciders]

"No, I'm thinking drainage culvert. They run under the highway, keep creeks from washing away the road in flood season. A hundred feet of crawling might save us miles of trying to find an overpass."

[Babale]

Sorry for the delay; been a very busy weekend.

You walk along the bottom of the freeway, quietly as you can. It takes you a few hours of searching over about two miles, since you dare not make too much noise, but finally you find a drain running under the freeway. Luckily, it's summer, so there's nothing but dead bushes in the pipe itself. Marks on the walls of the pipe show how high the muck rises when it rains, and you're thankful you don't have to crawl through that. You make your way through the pipe, crawling over thorny bushes; but finally you reach the other side. The sun's first rays are coming up over the mountains to the east. Behind you, the zombies keep moaning as they shuffle among the wreckage.

From here, you can no longer see the hospital. You know the way, though. As you leave the tunnel, you hear a loud noise from the sky. You look up to see an old-fashioned military cargo plane--one from the late 50s, by the look of it--fly just overhead. It's clearly heading for the airport. Just before you leave the tunnel, you hear dozens of running footsteps. It seems that every Infected who was on the highway is running towards the plane; you see them jumping off the road and dashing away. None of them seem to notice you.

[Hoopy Frood]

Jordan whispers to the others:

"This might be our best chance. They're running opposite the way we need to go. Let's make quick pace to away from the highway while they're all still distracted. But try to be quiet about it."

[appleciders]

OK, but lets give them a moment to put some distance between us.

[Babale]

Man, time really flies when you're working too many hours a day. Each day lasts forever, but the weeks fly by... I'll try adding a reminder on my phone to check daily.

The horde passes, stumbling and running into the city. You wait for things to quiet down, then climb out of the tunnel. Behind you on the highway, dozens of Infected are still trapped within their aluminum and glass cages. Their hands thump against the glass like the beat of a hundred war drums.

You head away from the highway, making your way into the suburbs. The houses here are old, built in the 50's to house the growing American population. Dead bodies litter the yards of the classic American Dream like an over-the-top Halloween display. Most of the houses are dark, their windows broken and doors ajar. But in the middle of the block, you spot the first sign of life since you left the facility. A house, heavily barricaded by two by fours and sheets of plywood, is well lit. Flood lights on the roof show at least two dozen zombies wandering in the front yard. On the roof itself is a generator, steadily chugging along as the Infected moan. A number of empty gas cans litter the yard.

[Hoopy Frood]

"It appears we actually have another survivor. I can't see the infected keeping a generator running like that. He's also likely the owner of that house, which means, he'll know his way around this area better than we will. Unfortunately, there's a few handfuls of infected in the way. If we can distract them, we might be able to contact the guy. Let's slowly check around the abandoned buildings and see if we can find anything useful to make a few molotov cocktails or such."

Jordan starts slowly approaching the nearest building, her eyes peeled for any danger.

[Babale]

The building next door is riddled with bullet holes. It seems that someone stood on the road outside the house and blasted it with a few clips from an assault rifle. The door was chopped down with an axe. The other houses nearby were also broken into, although only one other house was shot at. The houses seem completely looted at first glance, but in the second house you check you find some teenager's stashed supply of alcohol. It's fairly heavy stuff, mostly various types of cheap vodka. The five bottles you recovered won't burn long, but they should burn bright.

[Hoopy Frood]

Salvaging any appropriate material for wicks she can find, Jordan make sure each is soaked in alcohol and then puts a wick in each bottle.

"All right, let's do this. Hopefully we don't have to use all of them, because keeping one or two as a backup weapon would be nice. But if we can toss them a good distance from the house, they might draw the attention of the infected away from there. Let's just try not to light any houses on fire. One--we don't want to cause the infected to panic since we don't know what they'll do, and two--we don't want risk the life of whoever is in there. One of you want to do the honors of tossing these things? You probably can throw further and more accurate than I can."

[appleciders]

"Give it here. I played enough baseball as a kid. I think we need to consider, though, that whoever's inside, if they're alive at all, may not want or need our help, and might even assume that we're looters. Let's make it clear that we're not hostile."

[Hoopy Frood]

Jordan hands a cocktail to Wright.

"I don't know if the light from the fire is going to attract them or the heat will scare them off. I highly suggest you throw it some direction that isn't directly opposite us or the house, and naturally, you don't want to throw it along the same lines the other direction."

[appleciders]

Wright lights the wick, lets it flame up brightly, and hurls it down the street, away from both himself and the zombies.

[Mahaloth]

(sorry for the absence)

Alvin prepares his weapon, ready to shoot any of the infected that are not drawn away by the vodka bombs.

[Babale]

The bottle crashes and erupts into flames further down the street. A number of the Infected are drawn to the sound and dash towards it. Five of them, however, notice your group and charge towards you. From within the house comes the sound of a high-powered rifle, and one of the zombies drops to the floor with a large hole where his chest used to be. Alvin fires a bullet, leaving him with eight, and takes down one more. You allow the last three to close in before dispatching them with melee weapons.

The Infected that dashed towards the flames are screaming in agony and rage, their tattered clothes and drooping flesh aflame. The claw at invisible enemies that only they can see, stumbling across the road until, one by one, they drop dead. You sigh with relief--your plan seems to have worked flawlessly. Perhaps you even grin a little. But then you hear an unearthly sound; screeching, moaning, and rasping from every direction. The Infected's dying screams have attracted the attention of the horde.

Based on the sounds of the incoming Infected, the only safe direction is back the way you came, towards the freeway. If you choose to go there, you may be able to lose any zombies trailing you once you reach open ground.

The lit house's door slams open, and you see a tall, bearded man wearing a Vietnam-era officer's uniform carrying an M1 Garand. He frantically gestures at you to enter his house.

[Hoopy Frood]

Jordan says:

"I say we accept the man's invitation. He clearly has resources and skills, and there's safety in numbers. Besides, there's not much for us behind us anyway."

[appleciders]

Let's enter. If he's willing to accept us, I think we're willing to accept him.

[Mahaloth]

"Fuck, yes, let's go in! Now!"

[Babale]

You rush into the house as the moans of the undead grow louder. The man steps aside to let you in, then shuts the door and pushes three heavy iron bars across it. Inside, you hear the rattling of the generator from the roof. Every once in a while, the lights dim for a moment as the generator hiccups. "The name's Sergeant Ray Jackson. Pleased to meet you" he introduces himself.

The man leads you to his kitchen and gestures for you to take a sit at a small table. "Tea or coffee?" he asks gruffly as he puts a kettle on the stove. After you answer, he brings out four mismatched cups and starts preparing the beverages. Then he says, "So, you're from outside the city? Where the hell did you crawl out of?" He adds, "It's a good thing you weren't outside when the Dawn Riders came by, or you would have been in deep trouble."

[appleciders]

"The Dawn Riders?"

[Hoopy Frood]

Actually, I'm from inside the city originally. Name's Jordan. I was a pathologist at a hospital when all this started going down. The CDC showed up. Then the military. And soon after, I'm carted away to some base somewhere where they start testing a bunch of us. Little by little people get taken away, until there were just four of us remaining. Then the facility apparently fell under attack by the infected and everyone except the four of us were either infected or fled. We didn't know any of this until after the power failed three days after the last person showed up. One of us, another female, killed herself in her cell rather than die of dehydration or hunger. Too bad she didn't hold out a few more hours, she could have escaped with us. But yeah, the locks on our doors released when the power failed. We were able to shoot our way out against the undead, and started making our way away from the base. We saw a helicopter land on the roof of a hospital on the edge of the city, so we were going to investigate that. We got a little sidetracked when we reached the highway and saw the craziness going on there. By sneaking though a culvert, we were able to avoid the undead on the highway and continue on and ended up in this town.

So that's the Cliff's Notes version of our story. What's yours...and who are the Dawn Riders?

[Mahaloth]

"Seargeant? Hey, I'm an ex-military man myself. You got any weapons here? We could use another trained person to help us out. Maybe between the two of us, we can train these civilians how to defend themselves."

[Babale]

"The Dawn Riders. After the dead started rising, most people turned against each other. Not the Riders, though. Before the Plague, they were members of various gangs. Probably would have shot each other on sight. But the undead brought them together. They ride through town, usually on a Humvee they found somewhere and a number of accompanying motorcycles. They go from house to house, putting down any opposition they happen to find and taking what they want. The only reason they let me leave is that I can provide them a service." He points to a row of batteries plugged into chargers. "I provide them with electricity, and they don't attack me."

The water boils, and he pours you your chosen drinks. "I've been getting low on fuel, though. Until now, I went from house to house and siphoned gas from cars in the driveways. But I've gone as far as I can in one day, and there aren't many cars left. I'm going to have to make a run for the gas station one of these days... Oh, but I'm being rude. We're talking about you now. So, where are you headed?"

[Babale]

To Alvin, he says "Sorry, but the Riders took most of my weapons. I've just got this one gun."

[Hoopy Frood]

"We were thinking of investigating the hospital with the active landing pad. I don't think the infected can fly a chopper, so there's clearly some form of civilization there. It's pretty much the only lead we have right now. You're welcome to come with us, safety in numbers and all that. Even with regular trips to the gas station to keep the generators working, you have the risk of running out of food, water, and/or bullets, not to mention if you get surrounded by undead on the way. If you'd rather stay here, that's your call. We'll see if we can send some help if we find any. Thank you for the tea, but if we might impose a bit more, can we sleep here tonight before heading out for the hospital?

[Babale]

I was hoping to get more than one response before continuing, but I understand if things are going too slow to keep interest. I will PM you all when I can commit to post regularly.