Fiddle with the radio, going up and down the frequencies around the message in as small increments as possible to find a clearer signal.
Chuck often remembers school lessons about Earth history-if they were true, there was a time where men actually used orbital satellites to communicate with other men, all over the world, instantly...the Tarrak knocked those down not 24 hours into the first invasion, however. Since then, communication is limited to landlines (nearly all down now, in this part of the world) and radio devices like his.
He picks up the first clear signal on 92.5 FM. Some man is crying about his family, and playing dopey music from the distant, terrible past. His ancestors may have had some amazing technology, but their taste in music was questionable at best. It's a female vocalist on now-she's singing something about fireworks, and plastic bags and...how do you feel about being buried...da da da dee...After a hurricane comes a rainbow. It's all really quite depressing.
...
The group decided taking the risky journey the airport was the best bet. Traveling on the bridge is, at least, fairly straightforward-Chuck scouts ahead, as usual, checking under cars for 'grabbers'-sedentary Rotters who lie in wait for prey to get close-and, the party travels in a single file line, not speaking much, keeping an eye out. The bridge is in fairly good shape, at least to start, though it begins to degrade the further they go...eventually, they are checking where they step as well as what's in front of them.
Abandoned cars line the way, making travel slow-nearly all of them stripped of anything useful before their owners left on foot...it's easy to note that nearly all the cars face inward....
...
The first sign of trouble comes near the half-way point-where there is what looks to be a jumble of crashed, burned cars. Some sort of chain reaction explosion, a fire...and what was probably a deliberate attempt to barricade the roadway. There's something of a ladder located to one side that a man could use to climb over, thought it is laying on it's side.
In any case, they see their first sign of rotters in a few days, at least. A group of them-likely wandered the same way you did, then were trapped her like bugs in a pitcher plant, too single minded...too relentless...to ever consider going back.
...
Your basic Rotter is something of an paradox-they don't actually look rotten. If anything, they look healthier than any of you-the same thing that brought them to life keeps them from suffering long term damage or wounds, allows them to regenerate from nearly anything, but completely immolation...their wandering, twitching movement is always unnerving, not to mention the burnt yellow eyes-they are not slow and corpselike, but restless. Angry. Ready to tear someone to pieces. They'll even tear each other to pieces to get at a kill. The stronger ones, however, can lead the weaker ones and make them work together...
There's about a dozen of them, in front of you now. All your standard shamblers-no mutes or specs. They seem to have been blocked by the pile of wreckage. A few are relentlessly looking for a way through, climbing, bashing, whatever works. By the look of it, they've been at it for awhile. Others lie listlessly on the ground, or stare out at the ocean. A rotter that was a young woman jabs relentlessly at a black object in her hands that was probably a radiophone, looking lost and scared, making sobbing noises like a wounded bird-mimicking her last actions in life, trying to call someone for help maybe, lost in whatever thoughts Rotters have...the fresh blood on her hands, however, dries up any pity you might have-these ones that seem to retain emotions, that repeat their previous lives, are most violent if disturbed from their reverie.
Most are unarmed (thought the normal rotter is easily strong enough to kill a human being), but at least three have picked up tawdry weapons (a trailing car muffler, the broken end of a baseball bat, and a block of concrete) and are holding them in their dirty hands-from what you've all seen, the basic Rotters don't really so much as use weapons, as pick things up and forgot to put them down. They're just as likely to toss them aside as use them. An equal amount of men and women, no identifying marks or uniforms on them-most of them don't even have clothes, clothing no doubt scoured off their back by the sea storms.
It's pretty clear you will have to move them aside, though, it's possible you may be able to work your way under the bridge somehow.
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Topic: Reign of Rot Rebooted (Day 1/Fear of whats next) (Read 8325 times)