Turn 7
Day -4
Zako
West Side
Three Bedroom House
You start out toward the nearby 6th Avenue commercial district, avoiding zombies when possible. You’re following a number of tire tracks in the snow. You pass a zombie leaning against a wooden fence convulsing, a screwdriver stuck in its head. You pass it by like the others.
One set of tracks enters a hardware store, and as you pass by you look in and see a pickup truck with a camper shell over the bed. A big man in some kind of black armor is walking out, carrying an axe and a can of soda. You just stop and stare for a moment. He’s just standing there looking at you? Maybe he hasn’t seen any other survivors either. You wave. It looks like that broken him out of his daze, and he hurries up to let you through the gate.
The hardware store has a big concrete swath in front, where there are six huge lumber racks, two stories high, just like in normal hardware stores but outside. Each has a roof over it but is open on the sides. There’s also a building with some tools and such. There’s snow everywhere, and the afternoon is wearing on to evening.
Amazing! Zako and Torak have found each other!
The streetlights buzz to life as the sun begins to set.
Torak
You break into the soda and snack machines, and totally pig out. You come outside again and look around. There are six huge lumber racks, two stories high, just like in normal hardware stores but outside. Each has a roof over it but is open on the sides. There’s snow everywhere, and the afternoon is wearing on to evening. A young man crunches along in the snow down the street, looking at the ground. He looks up at you through the chain-link fence gate on wheels. He just stands there for a second, and raises his hand. At first you think he might be a zombie, but as you approach it’s obvious he’s just cold and shocked to find you.
Amazing! Torak and Zako have found each other!
The streetlights buzz to life as the sun begins to set.
---
Nilocy
You drive toward the garrison. The boy and the dog in the back seat are doing well. Downtown is made up of concrete and brick canyons lined with airy parking garages and tall many-windowed office buildings. Every other block contains a coffee shop. The streets are teeming with zombies. They clutter the streets enough that you simply must drive over some of them. And you know walking through this mess would be suicidal. You would be exhausted long before you could hack them all down with a hand weapon.
The garrison is the size of a city block, built on a hill, with the main entrance on the street above and a parking lot on the street below. It’s all of red brick, three stories high, on a tree-lined street. There are a few doors. They’re all solid metal, very heavy, and very old. The windows are covered with metal basket-shaped grilles.
There’s a small guard shack and a raised line of tire spikes controlling entrance to the parking lot, but you can just walk through if you like. The parking lot contains a number of regular cars, and a big olive-green Army transport truck. There are many tire tracks in the parking lot.
Across the street from the garrison are a hotel and a convention center. You recall that the convention center was used for emergency shelter, and it’s completely packed with zombies.
You cruise around and gather all this information. It’s unlikely you could just drive through in this car. The mass of bodies would slow you down and stop you.
Suddenly a zombie lurches out into the street. You hit it, and it rolls up over the hood. Its jaw catches on the base of the windshield wipers. As its body rolls up and over, part of its gums and a bunch of its teeth are pulled right out of its head with a sound like a piece of wet bark breaking. You pull off above the downtown Garrison, a bit away from the mass of zombies. There are still too many to stop. You drive a short distance uphill until it levels off at the west side of downtown and there aren’t so many zombies. Seems like they don’t prefer walking uphill in the snow.
But how will you get into the Garrison?
The streetlights flutter on as the sun sets.
Pnx
Caitlin drives toward the garrison. The boy and the dog in the back seat are doing well. Downtown is made up of concrete and brick canyons lined with airy parking garages and tall many-windowed office buildings. Every other block contains a coffee shop. The streets are teeming with zombies. They clutter the streets enough that you simply must drive over some of them. And you know walking through this mess would be suicidal. You would be exhausted long before you could hack them all down with a hand weapon.
The garrison is the size of a city block, built on a hill, with the main entrance on the street above and a parking lot on the street below. It’s all of red brick, three stories high, on a tree-lined street. There are a few doors. They’re all solid metal, very heavy, and very old. The windows are covered with metal basket-shaped grilles.
There’s a small guard shack and a raised line of tire spikes controlling entrance to the parking lot, but you can just walk through if you like. The parking lot contains a number of regular cars, and a big olive-green Army transport truck. There are many tire tracks in the parking lot.
Across the street from the garrison are a hotel and a convention center. You recall that the convention center was used for emergency shelter, and it’s completely packed with zombies.
Caitlin cruises around and gathers all this information. It’s unlikely you could just drive through in this car. The mass of bodies would slow you down and stop you.
Suddenly a zombie lurches out into the street. You hit it, and it rolls up over the hood. Its jaw catches on the base of the windshield wipers. As its body rolls up and over, part of its gums and a bunch of its teeth are pulled right out of its head with a sound like a piece of wet bark breaking. Caitlin pulls off above the downtown Garrison, a bit away from the mass of zombies. There are still too many to stop. She drives a short distance uphill until it levels off at the west side of downtown and there aren’t so many zombies. Seems like they don’t prefer walking uphill in the snow.
But how will you get into the Garrison?
The streetlights flutter on as the sun sets.
---
Sir Edmund
The two of you continue to work on the barricades. You leave spaces that aren’t large enough for a zombie to reach through, but through which you could shoot.
Aq continues his irritating rambling in that outrageous accent.
Near the end of your carpentry stint, the power goes out for a moment and comes back on.
Aqizzar
You don’t really know what you’re doing, but there’s plenty of lumber and Jano seems to be giving you simpler jobs. The truck can get through the retail entrance so long as someone is inside to move the forklift.
Speaking of, the forklift runs out of propane halfway through and you find other canisters in the back areas of the store. You easily replace the canister and keep the work going (Skilled: Mechanics).
Near the end of your carpentry stint, the power goes out for a moment and comes back on.
---
Dreadfang
You take some supplies from the fire station. You put on your armor again, and set out to loot and find someplace else to sleep. It looks like Erik is leaving too, but in a different direction. Josh is staying put.
You leave, and see that the pyre has stopped burning. Kim’s body is still there, mostly skeletal, and you doubt any zombies would want to eat it. You move on toward the east, where you know there’s a landfill and hardware store. You’re in a convoluted neighborhood of dead ends and one-way streets. You eventually just start busting through people’s fences and cutting straight through. Dead tired, you spot the hardware store on the hill and decide to find someplace to rest before making for it. It’s getting dark, and you wouldn’t reach it before nightfall. You break into a house and find two zombies that used to be an elderly couple. You quickly dispatch them with your sword (Skilled: Melee) and barricade the door you broke.
The house, clear of zombies, smells like medicine and old-timey perfume. Their bathroom cabinet is full of stuff like bag balm, Epsom salts, and laxatives. They also have an extensive collection of pornography and a healthy supply of pot.
You settle in for a long winter’s nap, on the second floor behind a barricaded bedroom door.
---
Little
You barricade the fire station a little, but you don’t have much material and you don’t really need to. The only side door is metal and very sturdy, the two roll-up garage doors are closed, and the first floor has no windows.
You make sure the upper floor is secure, there is no basement, and there are no zombies inside. You gather all the supplies in the entire place upstairs where it’s warmer. You plug in an emergency radio and leave it on the Garrison message channel, and another plugged in and set to the channel Erik and Gregory are using.
---
Keiseth
Gregory is leaving. He puts his armor back on, gathers his supplies, and leaves without a word.
You look around until you find a solid red adjustable wrench, a length of metal pipe, and a fire axe. Weighing your options, you go for the wrench. You drop your old wrench, which was much smaller.
You head out. It looks like Gregory crashed straight through to the east from backyard to backyard. You decide to take the street north until you get to a cross-street that can take you downtown. You trudge north about twenty blocks, and find a set of tire tracks in the street. More tracks turn east, so you follow them. It’s a long, long walk and you avoid any large groups of zombies. When you come across a single zombie, you time it just right and whack it in the head with your wrench two-handed. Along the way you take down eight zombies this way. You get kind of good at figuring out the distance they’re at when they lunge at you (Skilled: Melee, Strong). All the zombies on the street are slow-moving, shambling around, and you can often maneuver around them a little or trap them against things for better protection during that first whack.
You get about halfway to downtown, by your reckoning, when the sun starts to set and the streetlights buzz to life.
---
Dwarfaholic
Near Landfill
Two Bedroom Apartment
You lived here in this apartment with your caregiver Michelle. She left two days ago to find one of her friends. The plan was to get a few people together, get a big van or SUV, gather supplies, and get out of Westhaven. She said if she wasn’t back in two days, to leave on your own. You look back at your watch. It’s been two days and eight seconds.
You leave your apartment and look around. There has been some fighting around here, and some zombies lie dead in the street. There’s also a body on the ground near the front gate, completely torn apart, its blood soaked into the snow bright and red like a snow cone at the fair. You stand and stare at the body for a while. It’s very cold outside. You begin to shiver, and hold yourself with both arms, and cry a little.
You pick up the shotgun from its cold hand, the axe strapped across the back, and the messenger bag of shotgun shells slung across the shoulder. It looks like whatever committed this murder has moved on.
Out front, there are a few tire tracks. You look back at the corpse. You decide to follow them into the city, and they go toward the landfill.
A couple blocks later, you stop to check out the gun. You quickly figure out how to load it and fire it (Dextrous, Smart). And you look up to see three zombies shambling toward you in the waning afternoon sunlight. You snap out of your gun interest and run off down the street.
About 15 minutes later, the tire tracks lead into an auto body shop and turn up the street toward the landfill. You check out the auto shop. It’s dark inside and nobody is moving around. There are two bays for the cars, and two garage doors, and two side doors. Two floodlights out front. And the address has a pair of “2s” in it.
You ponder all this as you walk north toward the landfill. The streetlights buzz and light up. The plan is to get some people, get a car, get supplies, and get out of town. You spent two days looking at your watch waiting for her. Michelle tried to come back for you, but now you’re on your own. It feels lonely, and cold, and you need to find some people to help you. You couldn’t even help Michelle. She was thirty one steps from the apartment when she died.
---
Tuv
Near the Park
One Bedroom House
You pick up the supplies you decided to take with you and peek out the door. It seems your chain-link fence was no match for the zombie who got in and ate your guard dog. The dog lies dead on the ground, and the zombie shambles around your front yard with its arm hanging loosely. You’re angry that it killed your dog, and you stride right out and blast it in the head with your shotgun. Black ooze splatters everywhere. You stagger back, tasting vomit, and run back inside to wash up. This zombie-hunting business is filthy work.
Attempt number two. You peek outside and see your dog up and moving, its side torn open, tearing at the zombie who killed it. It hears the door open, spins around, and rushes at you. You slam the door shut on its neck, but it snaps and snarls at you and you leap back. The dog takes a running lunge at you, moving impossibly fast, and you barely have enough time to raise your shotgun and blast it. It falls down next to you, still biting, but virtually torn apart. You grab a kitchen chair and start stabbing it with the thin metal legs. It finally dies, spreading black goop from its head wounds all over the floor and you. “Chyort voz'mi!” You wash up again.
Attempt number three. You peek outside. There are a couple zombies shambling around, but they’re all in the street. You slip out with your equipment and get out into the street. You head east toward the nearest industrial area. When you arrive, it looks like this is more of an industrial dock rather than for manufacturing. The gate has been broken open. The sun is setting, and the streetlights buzz to life. You’re very cold (sickly). You decide to break into a warehouse’s front office and warm up. You shoot out the lock, get inside, and check it for zombies. It’s clear. You close the door and prop a chair under the handle. It’s not the most secure place, but it’ll have to do for now. The warehouse in back appears to hold mostly produce. It’s cold but the food won’t last forever. You might be able to salvage some electronics from the forklifts out there, and the big warehouse delivery doors have motors that run them. There’s probably a room around here with the air conditioning system in it too. But the quick look in back showed multiple zombies shambling around the produce.
---
Mulch Diggums
Northeast
Asylum
You work your way down from the asylum on the hill, to the street at sea level. You can see the bulk of Westhaven across the water in the waning daylight. You walk along the water, and occasionally spot a zombie hanging around up on the bluff above. You follow the strip of street until you just hit the corner of the large industrial Tideflats District. There’s a bar at the back of a big gravel parking lot called the Shipwreck. There are a couple lights on inside and it looks like the windows and door have been smashed. There are a couple bodies lying out in the parking lot.
You grab a length of piping near one corpse. You walk up and smash in the corpses’ heads one by one. None of them seemed unusual. You continue walking along the water until you see a small bridge where workers cross the channel beside you. You break open the lock on the gate with your bloody pipe and walk across. You look around and decide you’ll have to walk around the shorter inlet because there aren’t any other bridges across it. But it’s getting very dark, and you spot a boat you could appropriate. You don’t know anything about boating, but boats with cabins inside tend to have some food or something, right?
You step onto the boat and open the flimsy plastic door leading downward. Inside there’s a pair of bunks, a small kitchen, a toilet, and a desk with a laptop. Nobody’s home. You loot a few things, take a dump, and generally just live it up a little. It’s definitely getting dark out.
---
Immortal
You find a directory and get back to the elevator. The doors open, and the bloodsplattered interior beckons. Grudgingly you step inside and push the button B2 for the second basement level underground.
Halfway between B1 and B2, the elevator jerks to a halt and the lights go out. In the darkness, the lit buttons flicker and the power comes back on. The elevator display has an ERROR message now. You push a couple buttons but the elevator doesn’t move.
You pry the elevator doors open. The doors for the floor below are still closed, and you hear groaning noises behind it. You can’t reach the floor above, because the elevator is too far down and the floors are thick below ground level.
You check out the elevator ceiling panel. It’s screwed shut with those weird triangle-head bolts. You try it with your pocket knife, but you can’t get enough torque.
The intercom crackles to life and a gravelly man’s voice says, “It’s dangerous to fool around up there. You’re much better off going down!” and laughs a wild, coughing, high-pitched cackle. The elevator display flickers, and the ERROR disappears. The elevator snaps down once, twice, and suddenly you’re falling. It ends with a crash, and you’re in darkness. You only fell one floor, but it was still a hard fall. You check yourself out and nothing’s broken. Your elevator door is still open, but the door on this floor is closed.
The intercom comes on. It’s a whispered, feminine voice. She seems scared. “I don’t have much time. He’s gone to do something in the computer room. Listen to me, he’s not going to let any of us out of here. You have to save me! He has me tied up here in-” and the intercom cuts out.
---
Kagus
You quickly realize the lab holds nothing you can use. There’s a blackout for about half a minute, and then it comes back on. You head back to the elevator and push the call button. You notice the elevator is stuck between B1 and B2, the first and second of three basement levels.
You try the door to the stairs. It’s locked. It also looks pretty strong. You bash it a couple times, and verify that you probably wouldn’t be able to break it down. You pry at it with your crowbar. No dice. You back off and get behind a desk and cubicle wall, and squeeze off a shot from your pistol at it. The shot rings out in the dark, glass-walled laboratory. You get up and check out the hole. The bullet made a serious dent, but did not penetrate, and you can’t find the bullet. The power goes out for a moment, then comes back on. You hear the magnetic locks release with a sigh and snap back all around as the power returns.
The intercom crackles. A gravelly man’s voice says, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” and laughs a wild, coughing, high-pitched cackle. The security cameras are pointed directly at you.
The recessed lighting above you brightens to full, and you hear the magnetic locks on all the office doors opening with a rapid-fire exhalation. The two zombies who had been fussing around trying to get out now lurch into the hallway. They see you across the lab through the glass walls. You move aside to get out of the light, but the previous light dims to nothing and the light you’re now under brightens to maximum. Your night vision is ruined, and you can’t see anything farther than about six feet away very well. The man cackles again and the intercom turns off.
You hear them shuffling around, working their way towards you. Suddenly you hear a creak from the elevator and a crash in the elevator shaft. The lights above the elevator blink out.
You shoot the camera, and move out of the light. You see the red dot of an active camera and shoot it just as the lights change. You move around this side of the floor, knocking out cameras, and suddenly you come face to face with a zombie. It lunges at you, but you were already moving and dodge it. You turn and shoot it twice, hitting it once in the side of the head. It drops immediately. The lights have stopped changing; they’re now turned completely off. You don’t hear any more zombies, but you know there was more than one. You stand still and listen carefully.
All the computers boot up. You never realized before just how noisy those things can be. You hear a grunt from close by, and something being slammed around. You back up and run into the water cooler, knocking it over in the darkness. One by one the computers start playing the Windows boot-up song over and over again. The zombie roars and smashes through a glass wall, and suddenly you see it silhouetted against the light filtering through the tinted windows. You fire off the remainder of your magazine, and it staggers back a bit and drops to the ground. You frantically reload with a fresh magazine and drop the spent one in your pocket.
The lights come up, blindingly bright, and fade to dim. The voice on the intercom says, “Well done chickie chickie chickie. But you had it easy. Your friend downstairs?” He cackles. “He has a lot more to think about. More on his brain maybe? I make you a deal. You kill this kid, I let you into the armory and you get to go free. Sounds like fun, chickie?” And the intercom cuts out.
The stairwell door’s magnetic lock unseals loudly.
The intercom comes back on. “Oh one more thing. This place has an emergency fire system just full of lovely gasses. In the event of a fire, observe the warning notices and get out of the building. If you cannot evacuate, use the life safety systems located next to the stairwells and elevators. They should keep you breathing until help arrives. Have a nice day!”
You look next to the stairwell. There’s a cabinet built into the wall marked with a hazard symbol and the words “When alarm sounds vacate at once. Halon 1301 being released.” You open it and find empty racks. You can just feel the bastard laughing at you.
Amazing! Torak and Zako have found each other!
I have started grouping people who are with other people. I was doing this during my writing process because it's easier, but here you can tell the people who end their turn with someone else.
For example:
Loner A
---
Friend 1
Friend 2
---
Loner B
Author
Topic: My Little Zombie Apocalypse (Read 42492 times)