"Cake! I almost forgot... Come back after you see the doctor, 'kay? You deserve a little treat." She leant over to kiss him on the unharmed cheek.

 Hector was out of the diner for perhaps five minutes; at the ending of which there was a slamming of the squad car's front door, and a swear so loud it could be heard for likely a couple blocks around, before a very frustrated looking Hector bursts back in.

"Geoff I'm only getting static out there, could you check your com?"
This message was last edited by the player at 22:03, Wed 17 Sept 2008.

On this beautiful day, the day that his life would change forever, Nephi Swanson, dressed slightly better then usual (he'd even combed his hair), had been called by the high school's PE teacher, who was in a bit of a panic.  "Thank goodness I caught you!  I need you to go in today and teach my fencing class for me.  I can't make it, I have to take my daughter to the hospital."
"Of course I'll do it," Nephi replied.  "When does class start?"
"Second period."
"I'll be there.  Look after your daughter, okay?"
"Of course.  Got to go now."  *click*
Nephi finished his daily routine, and quickly packed his car with the fencing uniforms, masks, and foils needed for the class, plus his rapier, mumbling unnoticed to himself the whole time.
Still quite early, Nephi decided to have a nice quiet drive before the class started, and took the scenic route.  A short burst of thick dark rain dampened his enjoyment of the drive, but he thought nothing of it, at least until he was driving past Monica's shop.
Seeing a police cruiser parked outside, he looked at the time, thought 'I'm still far too early, and Monica's a friend - I think.  I'll see if I can help.' and parked across the street.
As he stepped out of his car, the stench of burned cabbage assaulted his nose, and he saw puddles of the dark rain that he could almost see the smell coming from.  'That can't be good,'  he thought, as he stepped around the puddles towards the shop, 'better avoid that stuff.  Who knows what chemicals are in it?'

As Nephi opened the door to the shop, he stopped in shock at the strange sight to greet him - some guy squirmed on the ground, as he tried in vain to get out from underneath a cop and Monica's friend Jane, while another cop loudly complained about only getting static.
"Uh, Monica?  You need some help here?"

"Nephi? Is that really you?!" Monica smiled brightly at the newcomer, whom she greeted with a kiss on both cheeks: "What are you doing here? I thought you were in Europe or something..."

With the corner of her eye, Monica saw Hector assume a very professional expression (of the "move-along-nothing-to-see-here" kind), and hastened to add: "Ah, Hector, this is Nephi Swanson, he's an old friend of mine. Nephi, this is Hector DeSanto: you know how we seem to attract weirdos of all sorts? Hector takes care of them, and he takes care of us too." She winked at the large cop.

"Hey Nephi!" Jane waved with a big - yet, uncharacteristically, not at all suggestive - smile.

"Good to see you again! Uh... You didn't hear me... Speak my mind, did you?" She bit her lower lip and looked like a little girl caught with her hands in the cookie jar.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:42, Fri 19 Sept 2008.

"Uhh, no?  So, what's going on?  Saw the car outside, and thought I should come in and see if I could help."  Nephi said as he continued to look around in some confusion.  "Should I help the officer keep that guy on the ground?"

Geoff checked his radio quickly, "I'm dead too." he said, he looked up to see the suit walk in. Not a suit, a member of the LDS if he was right. A solid witness at least, "Monica, Jane, I'm reluctant to just throw the perp in the back of the car as it might hurt him and leave us open to a law suit. However, if either of you or this gentleman feel that where he is he still poses a threat to your well-being, or is causing you mental distress, we can use "the public good" as a defence and, given the unusual circumstances, we'd be in the clear." He locked eyes with the visitor, "If we do this, I'd appreciate if you'd act as an observer when we do. We really don't want to hurt this guy, but given his actions, it may be unavoidable. We've exhausted other options, there's no way of getting backup so until he's in our patrol car he's still a threat."

 Hector raised and eyebrow, bent down, and said as quietly as he could to his partner "You know you're being awful considerate to a guy that attempted to assault at least two woman that we know of, and just tried to bite your face off. Besides just look at his eyes; I'd be surprised if he even knew who he was, let alone how to call a lawyer. But if we simply must do this by the books I haven't exhausted calling this in."

He then stood up and approached the counter, "Mon, I'm going to have to borrow your phone. I can hope at least a land-line still works." he said with a smile.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:19, Fri 19 Sept 2008.

"Of course! Right over there." She pointed at the phone, which wasn't all that visible amid the large amount of cra... Merchandise and paperwork covering the bench.

"Yeah Monica, I was in France on a mission until recently.  Great country, great people.  Good to be home though, despite only being a Teacher's Aide at the High School.  How have you been?" Nephi asked while he considered what the other officer had said.  He thought for another moment about the squirming guy, then said to the officer (who had not been introduced) "Well, the guy's not bothering me.  But since you're sitting on him and he's still thrashing around like that, maybe you should just throw him in the car."
This message was last edited by the player at 10:09, Sat 20 Sept 2008.

Well Hector didn't just try one number but at least three, and by the the increasingly aggravated expression on his face they were all with the same result.

"Shit!" he exclaimed as he slammed the phone down, "I can't even get my answering machine! Looks like we're back to carrier pigeons and smoke signals!"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:30, Sat 20 Sept 2008.

As if to personally defy Hector, the phone rang as soon as he had spoken those words. Monica picked it up: "Queen's Gambit's Pawn Shop."

She blinked as she heard the voice at the other end of the line: "Eddie? What... Of course I'm OK, I'm with Hector and Ge- Huh?"

She frowned, then she frowned deeply, then she frowned more deeply, then: "Edoardo Caruso, is this some kind of joke?"

And then someone started banging on the door.

"Man, what is it with people today? Can't anybody read anymore?" Then, loudly: "You have to pull it to open it!"

Nephi looked out the shop window.  'Wonder if I should have brought my rapier in with me.' he mused to himself.

Through gritted teeth, Monica called out: "Everybody, stay away from the door! Jane, get me a knife. Eddie, where are you exacly? No, listen! No! You are going to tell me exactly where you are, or so help me, I'm going to turn every stone in the damn city until I find you." By now Monica was shouting in the phone.

"Good boy. Don't get yourself killed, Eddie baby: the cavalry's coming."

Jane handed a knife to Monica, who kneeled down beside Geoff: "Now, geoff, I have a very important question to ask you: does the department have any policies about arresting the dead?"

Before he could reply, she swiftly slid the edge of the knife on the prisoner's arm, leaving a deep cut... That wasn't quite bleeding as it was supposed to.

Geoff looked at what Monica had just done to his prisoner and paled, whether at the act or it's result, he didn't really know, "You don't have to arrest the dead, Mon, they're... dead. What the hell did you just get told?"

Looking at the barely-bleeding gash on the arm of her first (but most certainly not last) zombie, Jane shook her head in disbelief: "Okay, so... We just got cast in a George Romero movie, right? Would that make me the slutty blonde who's gonna die horribly in the first act to make the point that having sex is bad?"
This message was last edited by the player at 12:49, Sun 21 Sept 2008.

"Well if it's Romero I should be safe. Black guy always lives to the end!" said Hector with thematic flourish, "But seriously I'm going to have to ask you to stop doing that, Mon. I don't like the guy much either, but I can't just let you torture him. And could you please tell us what exactly Eddy told you, and how I can call him again?" ended Hector in his 'big-bad cop' voice.

As the beating on the glass double door continued, Monica looked at Hector and replied calmly: "This guy's dead, Hector. Living people bleed when you cut them, and he's not bleeding. Eddie emptied his clip in another of these things, and it just kept coming. Now he's out of ammo and surrounded."

She looked at the door: "And I don't think that whatever is trying to knock down the door instead of simply pulling the handle and opening it has a working brain any more."

Geoff thought about Monica's last comment, pull not push doors had given him some tricky moments over the years...

Awareness dawnwed on him, "Eddie's in trouble? Where is he?" he looked over at Jane and said, "You're not slutty, anyway, I'm the black cop's partner so I'm bound to get it first."

And I've been bitten, he thought to himself, I wonder how these things spread whatever it is that makes them dead?

"Uh, Jane, Monica?  Sure hope you can use those guns of yours.  But if I can't get the stuff out of my car, I'm going to be completely useless against these zombies." Nephi said as he looked out the window.  "On second thought, you wouldn't happen to have any fencing gear around here, right?  And if the movies are at all true, aim for the head."

"Nobody's gonna die on my watch. Jane, break out the good stuff."

Jane nodded and opened a cabinet that contained the shop's safe.

"Now, gentlemen, don't even think about firing this thing in here: my ears are still ringing from Hector's nine-mil! Thank you, honey." Taking the huge silvery handgun with a satisfied smile, she raised it so that the others could see it.

"This baby is a .50 caliber Desert Eagle. You can sum it up with with five words: if it moves, it doesn't. Who wants to try it out?"

While Monica spoke, Jane was taking out the rest of the "good stuff", under the astonished eyes of the three men.

First there were five 7-round clips for the Desert Eagle, followed by three boxes of .50AE ammo, for a grand total of 95 hand-cannon bullets.

Mere seconds later, there came a 64-round box of .45 ACP ammo, along with three 13-round clips designed for Jane's beloved Glock 21, totaling 103 bullets.

Finally, with four 15-round clips, and a 100-round box of 10mm Auto ammo, Monica's own Model 20 may have been the least powerful of the lot, but it certainly won the Energizer Bunny prize...
This message was last edited by the player at 14:04, Mon 22 Sept 2008.

"Clearly we're going to have to have a conversation on the legality of a private citizen owning most of the items in that safe, Monica." said Hector with increasingly widening eyes, "But a more pressing concern is: what your planning on doing with said items. You can't possibly be serious. I mean, zombies?! I'm no doctor but there has to be dozens of good, valid, medical reasons for why this guy isn't bleeding in a way that you deem 'proper', besides jumping to the conclusion that he's a member of the 'walking dead'. Your not suggesting we just go out there, 'guns blazing', are you?"

Monica stored the four 10-mil clips in the pockets of her jeans, and slammed the last one in the gun itself, loading one bullet in the barrel and looked Hector in the eye: "There are maybe three people in the world whom I'd believe if they told me that the dead are walking. Eddie Caruso is one of those people. He wasn't kidding, he's in danger, and I'm going to find him, simple as that. By the way, each of these weapons is perfectly legal, as long as it remains in this shop... I think that means another minute or so. You done sweetie?"

Even as she addressed Jane, Monica didn't take her eyes off Hector.

While Monica was giving little speech, Jane was efficiently loading her own .45, and safely storing the ammo in two backpacks, along with the contents of her and Monica's bags.

"Who's gonna take the BMF? I'm no good with it, too much recoil." She casually put the .45 clips in her pockets, and the backpack with the .45 ammo on her shoulders.

The Desert Eagle - also known as the BMF, apparently - remained on the shop's desk, along with its five clips.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:52, Mon 22 Sept 2008.