Day -4
Turn 6 (Afternoon)
Kagus
You decide it would be a good idea to head south to the police headquarters of Westhaven. But you’re not a very good driver, and you’re tired. Jimmy looks really freaked out still by the hospital incident. Bernadine is in no condition to drive. You look over at Agnes. Her clear, determined eyes are unreadable. Her small mouth is set in a grim line on her lined face, framed by her wiry gray hair. She says in her quiet voice “I’ll drive”.
There aren’t any better options. At least you think she won’t drive you all off a cliff or something. You get out and pull a Chinese Fire Drill, with Bernadine abstaining. Now you’re in the passenger seat, Agnes is driving, and Jimmy is in the back seat with Bernadine.
You ride south, then turn right to get to the police headquarters. It’s on the same double-size city block as the jail and the courthouse. You park on the side street under a snow-covered tree, and shake the tree to drop snow on the car to camouflage it. You tell Jimmy and Agnes to stay with Bernadine. Agnes is already mothering her.
You get out and walk up to the front doors of the police headquarters. You find the front doors, made of thick ballistic glass and with powerful magnetic locks, are open slightly. The locks seem to be deactivated.
The foyer has a seating area, and there is a horseshoe-shaped ring of open office spaces all around it behind a wall of glass. Three pairs of double doors lead farther in from the foyer, straight ahead at the base of the horseshoe and on either side. At the far end of the foyer, between you and the farthest glass doors, there is a broad reception desk. Above there is a gallery looking down into the foyer, with more space up there. Hanging directly above you just beside the glass windows is a giant hanging chandelier of hundreds of red blown-glass spheres. It looks alien and very expensive.
There is an elevator ahead of you on one side of the doors leading into the office space. On the other side is a stairwell.
There are two zombies in police uniforms shambling around. You avoid them and jog up to the elevator. You push the button, prepared to dance a wide circle around the zombies to lure them away so you can wait for it to come, but it opens right away. It’s empty but bloodstained. The security cameras sweep back and forth above you, seeing all. You decide to take the stairs instead, but find them locked. The elevator doors close. You open them again and get in. There are three basement levels and six aboveground levels. None of them are labeled. The doors close as the zombies get around the wide reception desk.
You decide to start at the top and work your way down. You hit the “6” button and feel the elevator glide upwards smoothly. The doors open and you find yourself in a laboratory setting. There are corpses lying around, and you quickly crowbar them to make sure they stay down. None were zombies. You search around this level for a while, and encounter two more zombies separately which you avoid because they’re locked in their offices.
Immortal
You pick up a shotgun and load it up with rubber rounds. You sling over your shoulder a bandolier of 20 more rubber rounds. You also grab a TASER and a bag full of dart cartridges. Finally you grab a walkie talkie and turn it on, flipping through the bands. You hear the garrison message on the same frequency it was before, repeating endlessly.
Now wearing some decent riot gear and equipped with something stronger than a katana and a locked pistol, you get back out into the hallway and look around. The place seems pretty secure still. Down from the area of the cell block you hear a cacophony of moaning and banging around. You really don’t want to see all those prisoners dead. Sure, they threw urine-soaked wads of toilet paper at you every chance they got, but they didn’t all deserve to die.
You work your way out to the roof, and shimmy back across to city hall. You spend some time using your katana to make sure the corpses on the roof are all really dead. You end up killing 8 zombies. You notice that slashing isn’t working terribly well, though you’re making do (skilled: melee, skilled: athletics). You decide to start stabbing in the head instead, and it seems to work better.
Then you shout down into the hallway below, and the zombies from the cafeteria start shambling up. You meet them at the top, stabbing as they climb the steep stairway. The stairs are quickly becoming choked with zombies, so you back off and let them come up onto the roof. They spread out a little in the open, but you still manage to single them out and drop them all. Another 20 zombies litter the roof before they stop trickling out.
You carefully descend the stairs, and find that there are still a couple zombies in the cafeteria. You jog down the short hallway and into the stairwell leading down to the ground floor. You manage to work your way out of the courthouse building and go next door to the police station. You find the front doors, made of thick ballistic glass and with powerful magnetic locks, are open. The locks seem to be deactivated. Inside are a couple zombies in police uniforms shambling around knocking stuff over. You enter and pull out the shotgun to test out these rubber bullets. You aim carefully just as the zombies seem to perk up, and fire a shot, hitting it in the chest. It staggers a little, and keeps coming. You fire again, missing, and again, hitting the face. The zombie’s limbs straighten in shock and it falls to the ground, black blood pouring out of its mouth. You shoot the other twice, the second time hitting it in the face. The same thing happens. The two zombies seem seriously injured, but not killed. You look around and see nothing else coming, so you reload from your bandolier and finish them off with your katana.
The foyer has a seating area, and there is a horseshoe-shaped ring of open office spaces all around it behind a wall of glass. Three pairs of double doors lead farther in from the foyer, straight ahead at the base of the horseshoe and on either side. At the far end of the foyer, between you and the farthest glass doors, there is a broad reception desk. Above there is a gallery looking down into the foyer, with more space up there. Hanging directly above you just beside the glass windows is a giant hanging chandelier of hundreds of red blown-glass spheres. It looks alien and very expensive.
There is an elevator ahead of you on one side of the doors leading into the office space. On the other side is a stairwell. You go up and hit the elevator. It comes down empty but bloodstained. The security cameras sweep back and forth above you, seeing all. You decide to take the stairs instead, but find them locked. The elevator doors close. You open them again and get in. There are three basement levels and six aboveground levels. None of them are labeled. You decide to start with the second floor, since it’s still exposed to the foyer. You take a smooth ride up one floor.
The doors open and you find yourself in another office level. It’s a mirror of the horseshoe shape of open offices below, but all around the outer wall there are small enclosed offices. There’s still a wall of glass around the entire thing, with three large pairs of glass double doors. The stairwell door is still locked. You peer down into the foyer and search this level. There are a few zombies locked in their offices, and you avoid them.
Sir Edmund
Aq helps you modify the retail entrance to work like the garden entrance – a forklift moves it forward and back. You move the fleet of carts back into an aisle. Aq drives his truck into the store and parks it where the carts used to be.
The two of you get some rest. When you wake, Aq busts out some food and drink. The hardware store also has two vending machines in the retail entrance – a soda machine that also has bottled water, and a junk food machine that contains candy bars, chips, cookies, gum, etc. Nothing too nutritious.
You search the garden section. There isn’t anything edible growing, at least that you can recognize.
Aqizzar
You help Jano modify the retail entrance to work like the garden entrance – a forklift moves it forward and back. Jano moves the fleet of carts back into an aisle. You drive your truck into the store and park it where the carts used to be.
The two of you get some rest. When you wake, you bust out some food and drink. The hardware store also has two vending machines in the retail entrance – a soda machine that also has bottled water, and a junk food machine that contains candy bars, chips, cookies, gum, etc. Nothing too nutritious.
Jano returns from searching the garden section and glumly reports that there isn’t any food growing out there.
Pnx
The two of you finish packing up the car. Caitlin gets in the driver’s seat and rolls down the ramp into the street. The powerful car glides through the snow, and you mention that you noticed it has on snow tires. Caitlin just nods.
You get out onto the open street. Caitlin seems unused to driving a car like this. At first she goes to shift a lot, too early, until she realizes that the car has a lot of room in first gear. She drives carefully, but she does slide out a couple times. No crashes, though.
You get back to your teriyaki shop and retrieve the boy. He’s a wreck, and he’s so relieved that you returned he refuses to be apart from you. The two of you sit in the back while Caitlin drives back toward downtown. The boy still won’t talk, but he cries constantly.
Caitlin drives up and down the streets downtown until she remembers where the garrison is. It’s three blocks uphill from the old train station, which has been converted into a museum and a federal courthouse. The car has trouble getting uphill in the snow, so you take a longer way around where the hills are shallower. You get Caitlin to stop so you can grab some hose from the front of a house along the way.
Nilocy
You’re relieved to find another survivor. You start to ask him why he wanted to get the vests. Then you realize you grabbed one also. After all, people will still shoot each other no matter how bad things get. For you, though, it was more an issue of personal security. The vest makes you feel safe.
The two of you finish packing up the car. You get in the driver’s seat and roll down the ramp into the street. The powerful car glides through the snow, and Drake mentions that he noticed it has on snow tires. You know the reason. The three undercover detectives who might have used the car were all shot during a drug operation during a cold snap a few weeks ago. They had thought it would snow, so they had the mechanics change the tires. It didn’t snow. They never got changed back.
You get out onto the open street. You don’t want to drive too fast, but it’s difficult. The car is a puma ready to pounce. The fastest you go is 30 MPH and you never need to leave first gear. But you don’t want to spin out and wreck it, so you keep it down as much as you can.
You get back to Drake’s teriyaki shop, and retrieve the boy. He’s a wreck, and he’s so relieved that Drake returned he refuses to be apart from him. Drake and the boy sit in the back while you drive back toward downtown. The boy appears to be mute.
You drive up and down the streets until you remember where the garrison is. It’s three blocks uphill from the old train station, which has been converted into a museum and a federal courthouse. You have trouble getting uphill in the snow, so you take a longer way around where the hills are shallower. You stop at Drake’s insistence to grab a length of garden hose from the front of a house. The man seems to know a lot about stealing gas.
Torak
You decide to armor up your truck a little. You stop off at the hardware store on 6th Avenue. You don’t know much about welding or anything, but you’re pretty sure it isn’t that hard.
It’s pretty hard. The small soldering guns don’t seem to make anything stick right. Even after you read the instructions the little puddle of metal either cools off too quickly or it flattens out without sticking two things together.
The larger welding tools seem really dangerous. You decide it isn’t worth burning or electrocuting or blinding or poisoning yourself with fumes (inept: mechanics).
You end up cutting 1/8” sheet metal with the manual tools in the store to kind of fit the windows of your truck, and you slip the pieces in between the rolled-down window and the inside of the door. So now your side windows and the rear window of the camper shell in the back of your truck are covered with metal. You get heavier metal pieces and drill them onto your bumper. But it doesn’t do much since your truck’s bumper was already pretty tough.
It looks like this hardware store hasn’t been seriously looted, but you’re not the first one here. You don’t see any zombies wandering around inside. The break room has a vending machine with snacks and soda.
Dreadfang
You search the fire station. There is the normal firefighting gear present: fire-resistant suits, fireman’s helmets, stout boots, axes, tools to pry open wrecked cars, oxygen tanks and respirators, and a recharging tank for hand fire extinguishers. There are also some emergency radios that can talk with each other if you use the same code chip.
The medical supplies were all brought upstairs by Kim.
Josh the Paperboy asks you and Erik what you know about the zombies. You all share your knowledge. Head attacks appear the only effective way to kill them, though burning seems to work too. They move slowly until they get close, when they lunge at you. They don’t seem to communicate, but a perked-up zombie will perk up nearby zombies and gather into a larger group moving in the same direction.
Josh seems to want to hole up in the fire station even if you’re going to the garrison. Josh takes one of the emergency radios and wants you and Erik to take two more. That way, you can contact him if you find a way to safety.
There aren’t very many zombies around. A few were attracted by the fire, but they are just shambling around now and aren’t interested in it.
Little
You ask Erik and Gregory what they know about the zombies. You all share your knowledge. Head attacks appear the only effective way to kill them, though burning seems to work too. They move slowly until they get close, when they lunge at you. They don’t seem to communicate, but a perked-up zombie will perk up nearby zombies and gather into a larger group moving in the same direction.
You tell them you want to stay in the fire station. It seems like they want to get to the garrison eventually. You get them to take one of the fire station emergency radios each, and you keep one.
Gregory searches the fire station pretty thoroughly.
All the people who wanted to join, I’ll add you in a bit. I need to smooth some things out first
Luckily, I have about the same creativity load that I had before because people keep meeting up so there's really just the scene from each perspective. But all the added perspectives add time of course.
Sorries!
Author
Topic: My Little Zombie Apocalypse (Read 42488 times)