"Yeah.  Stocking up for a situation like this." Nephi replied thoughtfully.  "I'm just idly wondering how many stockpiles we could expect to find, given how faithful, or not, the local members have been."

"They look like they're still among the living to me," Monica said, as she lowered her gun. Monica slid into the chair next to her friend, Jane, and casually rested her feet on the coffee table. After listening to Nephi she said, "I dated this guy once who used to say that everyone should have a "zombie plan". I just thought he was a weird role-playing nerd that had read one too many comic books."

Nephi chuckled a little.  "I don't think the church leaders wanted us to have a 'zombie plan'.  It was more in case of a war or major natural disaster where supplies would be hard to come by, like an earthquake, hurricane or major storm.  But it'd work great for us anyway."

"Those stockpiles might well come in useful at some point," Geoff agreed, "but right now, we need to decide what we're doing."

Allan led Xynthia to the chair next to Monica, when he noticed the young doctor sitting on the couch next to Mrs. S. "Tony! It's good to see that you're alright." The Reverend sat in the chair next to his wife. He pulled a map out of his pocket and spread it out on the coffee table. "The officer is right, we need to come up with a plan, and we need to do it quickly."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:51, Thu 25 June 2009.

A look of surprise crossed Anton's face: "Allan? Xynthia? I haven't seen you in ages! Are you guys alright?"

Xynthia smiled at him: "Never better: I made lots of new friends today! Pity we couldn't stay and play, but I'm sure we'll get another chance."

Anton blinked once, perplexed: "Um... Okay, sure. Anyway..." He hesitated only a fraction of a second before continuing: "Geoff. I came here to bring some important information to my father, and ask for his advice, but I guess you guys have a right to know. For starters... There's no help coming."

"You mean the army doesn't know, or it's just not coming?" Karen asks from her position on the couch next to Nephi. "If not, then how do they not know? Wouldn't someone have contacted them?"

Nephi added his opinion "I'd be inclined to think the army's already infected.  Any zombie outbreak in the movies always hits the armed forces or the emergency response people first."

Anton sighed: "Actually, this is more of a bureaucratic screwup: see, the original plan for an outbreak called for the emergency teams to be equipped with chemical weapons that could render the zombies harmless without damage for the population."

Doc S raised an eyebrow: "What do you mean 'the original plan'?"

Tony shifted uncomfortably on the sofa: "Well, as you know, silver nitrate is heavily poisonous to fish, so there were pressures to come up with a plan that would not endanger the marine environment. When our studies proved that the zombies cannot survive more than three days without a source of food, the plan was changed: the goal now is not to eradicate the threat, but to contain it until it takes care of itself."

"Why would something that's already dead need a food source? Or are you talking about a food source for the parasite that's reanimating the bodies?" Monica looked from the older Dr. S to his son. "Please don't say it's brains."

Geoff had just put his pistol away when the good doctor's son tolhim there was no help coming.

"So, the people of the town have been abandoned to their deaths because people are worried about fish?" Geoff shrugged, "I guess it figures."

He looked over at Hecto and Eddie, "OK, so up to now, I've not been what you might call a paragon of the force, but this sucks big time. The people we've sworn to protect and serve have been left out to dry."

He sighed, "As far as I can guess, running for the hills isn't really an option if the Government have decided on containment rather than active attempts to save us, the city will be cordoned off, and my guess is we're too late to beat the blockade. That leaves us two options, we hole up somewhere safe and hope that after the infected starve to death, the authorities won't just wipe us out to be on the safe side, or we try to save as many people as we can. To do that we'd need a minimum of three steps: securing a suitable site, getting people there and letting people outside know what is going on, if the authorities can keep this under wraps, we're toast."

He looked at the civilians, "Given the Szczedrzykowicz connections with the research programme, anyone sticking with the family might have a chance of surviving by hiding, there may be enough residual influence in who they know to stop any mop-up squads eliminating you. Now, given the situation, I think we need to make some decisions quickly. anyone got any ideas?"

Tony looked apologetically at Geoff: "I'm afraid I'm not done with the bad news yet... First to answer Monica's question: yes, the reanimated corpses need a source of energy; as they reanimate the bodies, they consume them for sustenance, so to keep them moving they have to replace what they eat with other human cells of the same kind."

He paused for a moment: "That mostly means muscles, but the... Menu... also includes bones, tissues of various kinds, and yes, brains. That's why they go after the living, and why it was considered a viable option to secure the area, possibly evacuating the population for a brief period, and then let the infected bodies die, again."

Looking back at Geoff, he finished: "And here's the last of the bad news: as there are no other reported sources of the parasite, all the plans foresaw an outbreak in close proximity to the lab, with a realistically small number of infected, for the first few hours. I don't think this is what we are having here: whatever happened, it seems it's not local. Could be the entire State, possibly even the country."

Nephi summed up the situation in his words.  "So we're basically on our own, against who knows how many infected, and you're eventually going to run out of ammo.  And to make things even better, they can somehow sense the living.  Remember what happened at the shop?  They kept gathering while we were on the ground, and started wandering off when we got high enough." He took a breath, and continued "Pretty high odds against us, but we will survive."

Allan looked at Geoff. "You're assuming they had time to set up their blockade before things got out of hand. Getting through a police barricade in and of itself shouldn't be a problem. It's not like we're going to find any armed soldiers actively manning it at this point. I suspect they've either all been killed or infected. It's the walking dead that we need to worry about. But you're right, if we're going to get out of the city, we need to do it soon, before it's so overrun that we're trapped." Allan looked at the others in the group. "I don't think we'll be safe if we stay here. Xynthia and I encountered a creature that was different from the other animated corpses we've seen. It was far more powerful, and I'm sure there will be others like it."

He pointed to the map he had. "If we go to the mountains, we'll be away from the populated areas and have a lot less infected to deal with. Food and water won't be a problem. There's an unlimited supply of fresh mountain streams and plenty of fish and small game. We can live off the land indefinitely. I've got some hunting and fishing gear of my own, but I'm sure we'll find even more in some of the cabins up there. I've got a vehicle that is large enough to transport a group, and it's designed to travel through any terrain, including mountains."

Allan's hand pointed to a different location on the map. "Or there's Fort Monroe. It's a stone fortress surrounded by a moat. If we can secure it, it would offer us a lot of protection. It's still an active Army base, so we should find supplies of food and weapons there. However, the island around the fort is populated with military families. We'll probably run into a lot more infected if we go to the fort, then if we head to the mountains."

"If it is a widespread problem, you're right, Reverend, it probably will be easy to leave. Staying alive will be the hard part, after that, living with ourselves will be more difficult." he sighed, "Now I know that those of you with families have other priorities but look at the facts, no matter how bizzare they are. We're surrounded by reanimated corpses and we have seen for ourselves that powers are at work here beyond my imaginings, if not yours Nephi, or yours Reverend and Mrs.Smith."

"The three of you appear to have manifested gifts, who or what has granted those gifts is a matter for debate." he looked around at them, "You need to decide whether you were granted those gifts to keep yourself safe, or to aid others."

"Now, I'm not trying to say one way or the other, I'm sure that in time you'll be shown the way. But for me, the way is clear. People are dying out there, people that we might be able to save." he paused, "Now I know that if we just head out without a plan we'll end up as dead as those we are looking to save, so we need to think now. I propose heading for Fort Monroe, if we all decide to go we can pick people up on the way. Once there we isolate the island if we can and clear the infection from it. Then we assess our supply and weapon situation and plan accordingly from there. What do people think?"

   "If we're taking a vote, I'm with Geoff on this one." said Hector as he walked over to group from the doorway, "We can't just turn our backs on everyone else in this city, like those bastards in Washington have.  Besides, those mountains you keep going on about, Rev, are just the Appalachians. They're not like the Rockies or the Cascades, they're more like big hills then real mountains. And.....well I've never been up there, things might of changed, but those used to be hills that the term 'hill-billy' was coined. Such people don't tend to cotton toward foreigners or us 'dark-folk'."

"The only "family" that I've got is right here in this room." Monica's eyes passed over Jane, Eddie, and Hector. "Nothing else in this town matters to me, so I say we hit the road. I don't care where we go, as long as we stay together."

Nephi thought carefully before he took a breath and spoke "I don't know where my family is - we're not close - but I have faith that they'll be looked after.  So the only people I have any true ties to are here.  I also have no real opinion on where we go, as long as we help anyone we can along the way.  My car can take three or four besides myself, and the trunk still has the rest of the fencing gear in it.  Hmmm, Fort Monroe and a greater risk of infected, or the mountains and harsher living consitions.  I'll abstain from the vote, but wherever we go, we'd better stock up quickly before we leave."

Allan looked at Hector. "As someone who has spent time camping in both the Rockies and the Appalachians, I can tell you that although they are a different kind of mountain, the Appalachians are indeed mountains and not hills. As for the people who live there, I think you've seen the movie Deliverance one too many times." Allan's tone was calm and friendly as he continued. "There will be all kinds of people, both good and bad, in any population. Believing that everyone living in the mountains is a prejudiced, uneducated "hillbilly" is as narrow minded as believing that all black people are drug-dealing gang members. I've met people from all over the world hiking the Appalachian Trail. I have found both the community of hikers and the locals to be among the friendliest people I've known. I've seen them come to the aid of all kinds of people, no matter what their accent or skin color. But I'm not pushing for one location over the other. I'm just presenting what I believe to be are two of the best options for our survival. If someone else has another idea, I'd like to hear it."

Allan turned toward Geoff. "Of course I want to save as many as we can. If my only concern was for my wife and myself, then we would've already retreated to as far away from civilization as we could get. I was just pointing out that Fort Monroe may already be too overrun. We need to be prepared to back out and abandon it, if necessary."

"Two votes for the fort, one vote against, one vote abstained..." Karen said talking to herself. "If we go to the fort and we find it filled with infected there's little hope of us cleaning them out with what we have now, but if we arrive and find survivors, wouldn't we feel silly having thought about taking to the hills?" Karen said speaking to no one in particular.

"Lets look at it this way, do any of us now how to forage? I didn't think so, I don't, and we can only hunt so much before that food source begins to dwindle as well. In the area there's also the MREs we might find at the base, and canned goods people might have forgotten in their homes, but ultimately we'll need a secure plot of land to grow our own food unless we plan on living off what we scavange while on the move." Karen said thinking about the vehicles.

"If we stay on the move not only will we need the basics of survival, but fuel, and spare parts too. Do any of you have several spare fuel cans laying around? Or spare parts for your vehicles? Not only that, but if we get any vehicle stuck, especially the Reverend's, we'll be down one of our most vital resources and stranded until we can find a replacment. Especially if we go into the woods."

"Now if we go to the fort we have a walled plot of land that can be easily defended against attacks, that may even house a group of survivors already capable of doing so. From there we can hunt, scavange, and even grow our own food. Now I'm sorry Nephi, but the movies are the movies and this is still real life, even if the dead are walking once again. Who do you think would be more capable of surviving? A well disciplined and armed group who have trained to go to war and survive, or your average civilian?"

"I beleive the safest route would be to check the fort out."

"Can't we just wait it out here for 3 days?" Betty asked as she listened to the debate.  "If we're safe here, it's easier to hold onto this space than try and go out among all the infected," she reasoned.

"A few, small pockets of survivors are not going to deplete the resources of the Appalachian Mountains," Allan said to Karen. "Again, I'm not endorsing the mountains over Fort Monroe, I just want everyone to be able to make an informed decision. As for "foraging", I've camped in those mountains many times. Twice in my life I have devoted my entire summer to hiking the two thousand miles of the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine. I know how to fish, hunt and survive in extremely primitive conditions."

"The base around Fort Monroe should have things like a commissary. As long as it doesn't loose power, the meat and produce should be good for a couple of days. After that, there would be canned goods and yes, MREs plus weapons and ammo. I think it's a valid option, which is why I mentioned it. Regarding transportation, my vehicle is specially designed for disaster response. It can handle extreme terrains, and is unlikely to get stuck. It's two fuel tanks give it a capacity of more than 150 gallons, and both tanks are currently full. It is not my intent to stay constantly "on the move". I hope we can secure a safe location and stay there, but I didn't want to limit my options. If our chosen refuge suddenly becomes overwhelmed with infected, I wanted to be able to quickly move out. Remember, we are their food source. They will be hunting us."

"Which is why I think staying in the populated city could be very dangerous." Allan directed that last comment at the pretty blonde woman with Tony. "This isn't going to be over in three days. As Tony already described, this isn't a simple outbreak. The plan to contain it won't work because it's happening, simultaneously, across the world. I've already encountered one creature that was different, and more powerful. The pathogen seems to have changed. It isn't acting the way the researchers predicted it would."

Returning his attention to the group, Allan went on. "My vehicle can comfortably seat 7 or 8 in the back, more can sit on the bed, and two in the cab. It's stocked with food, water, and first aid. It's much sturdier than your average vehicle, and can withstand a fair amount of abuse - like assaults from the walking dead. If Fort Monroe is our destination, I say we get moving. If we come across more survivors, we can pick them up. More supplies, especially weapons would be good, too, as long as we don't waste too much time. The longer it takes us to reach the fort, the more likely it could be overrun with infected. We should be able to be there within a few hours."
This message was last edited by the player at 05:57, Wed 01 July 2009.

"The fort seems... Almost too good to be true." Mused Jane: "Walls, moats, trained military personnel, plenty of guns and ammo... There has to be a catch somewhere."
This message was last edited by the player at 05:45, Thu 02 July 2009.