"Well, the house isn't far, but we probably won't get there before the afternoon... I think I know why the phones are overloaded." Tony contemplated for a moment the scenario of a horde of living dead causing riots, taking over hospitals and police stations, and plunging the whole city into chaos.

He shuddered: "We need to go." But then, stopping abruptly, he asked: "What do we do with the others?"

"First of all we have to let the club manager know what is going on and to quarantine that room.  The next person that happens along doesn't need to find out the hard way what Donna is now," Betty remarked grimacing, struggling to avoid information overload.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:01, Mon 18 May 2009.

Tony nodded, then took a deep breath: "I'll try to find a way to explain this to the others. It won't be easy, but... I'll give it my best."

Betty had seen Tony turn on his charm a couple of times before - during particularly hard and boring lessons - and knew that "his best" was quite impressive.

It was sort of supernatural, really: people listened, believed, and agreed with anything Tony said in a way that was almost scary - it made him look more like a preaching prophet than a teacher.

Then again, he didn't do it very often, possibly because that had invariably caused a significant portion of the female student body (and part of the male one, as well) to seek him out for "further explanations" on the subject matter: he had spent a large part of the following days turning down requests for "private lessons"...

Betty quickly raced to the head office and found the manager was not there.  An inquiry with the staff put her in touch with the manager.  She explained that a very contagious virus had been released in the area and it was the reason for all the traffic problems.  She explained that the virus made its carriers very aggressive and that it would be best if she locked the doors and kept the club's guests inside.  She didn't hesitate to add that she had quartined one of the members in the aerobics studio after she had become aggressive and homicidal, attacking another student.  Finally she mentioned that with her medical training she was going with one of her former teachers to see if she could help, before dashing off to the locker room to stuff her locker's contents in her bag and add a few energy bars and bottles of water from the employee lounge in for good measure.  Barely breaking a sweat she arrived at the exterior firedoor looking through the rectangle of wired glass to see Tony at his car before bodly pushing forward to meet him...

Tony was about to say something about Betty's overstuffed bags, but after a moment's thought he just nodded: "Put them on the back seat. We'll stop at my house for a moment, I have something to take too."

The trip wasn't nearly as easy as Tony had planned: three times they had to go around accidents that completely blocked the road, and once they turned tails after spotting a slow-moving crowd.

Eventually, they managed to arrive at Tony's house safe and sound.

As they left the car in the garage, Tony turned to Betty and asked: "How good are you with guns?"


This message was last edited by the player at 18:40, Mon 11 May 2009.

"Well I'm a fast learner," Betty responded to the question as they locked themselves into the house.  She glanced around before setting down her bag.  Reaching into her bag she withdrew her nylon training pants and drew them on before checking out the windows discretely.

Tony nodded: "Good. I'll be right back."

"You see, I am something of an arms collector..." Cam his voice from another room.

When he came back in the living room, Tony had a .30-06 on his shoulder, and was carrying a box of ammo.

He set the box down and carefully held the rifle for Betty's perusal: "This is one of my favorite rifles, an M1 Garand. I think it's the best for a neophyte: it's a semiautomatic, so you won't have to fumble around with a bolt in the middle of a firefight, and it chambers eight .30-06 rounds, which means a well-placed hit will drop anything that moves. "

"Well that's nice to know," Betty giggled with a nervous feeling.  She was about to glance about for someone to understand her feeling but there was no one to acknowledge it.  "So what do I do?  How do I load it and aim it?"  she asked, taking a seat and crossing her legs reflexively, trying to remain casual about the whole affair as the world was falling apart outside the house's confines.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:00, Mon 18 May 2009.

Tony gently lowered the rifle down on the small living room table, and set down three pieces of metal next to it.



"These are called 'en-bloc clips'. Each of them holds eight cartridges."

He opened the ammo box and showed Betty how to load an empty clip.



"Now, loading a full clip is the easiest thing in the world..." Tony put the rifle's butt against his thigh, and showed Betty how to load the clip into the rifle, simply pushing it down with his thumb.

Then he quickly moved his hand out of the way as the bolt snapped forward, closing the opening: "There, see that? Normally you want to avoid that, else you risk getting the infamous 'garand thumb' - and believe me, you only need to get it once to remember it for a lifetime. Now, the proper way to avoid that is this..."

He showed her how to unload and reload the rifle a couple of times, pointing out that a round was automatically chambered each time, then handed her the rifle and an empty clip: "There, try it out, then we'll see how to shoot it."

Betty tentatively picked up the metal clip and examined the bullets as she picked each one up and carefully placed it in the clip.  They were so big.  Finishing she snapped it into the rifle as she had been shown before looking at Athony expectantly.


12:02, Today: Betty Pemberton rolled 13 using the Unisystem system (1d10+3) with rolls of 10, 5. intelligence test.

Anton smiled at Betty: "Well done! Remember to disengage the safety before firing. It's hard to forget, since it's directly in the way of your finger, but still."

He loaded the other two clips and gave them to Betty: "I'll load some ammo and stuff in my trunk before we go for some target practice; I only have a couple more spare clips, so if..." He stopped and frowned: "You know, I'm such a bad host: inviting a girl home and never offering her anything. Where are my manners? Would you like a coffee? Not my weapons-grade one, don't worry, just normal coffee."

"I think water please," Betty requested in reply.  All of the excitement had left her a little thirsty and the coffee would only make her thirstier.  Having a moment to stop and think she looked about the room and wondered where they would go for target practice.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:00, Mon 18 May 2009.

Anton came back from the kitchen with a large glass of water, after putting on some coffee for himself: "I guess you are wondering where we are going to shoot. I don't think we have the time to go to the range, so we'll have to make do. I don't think anyone is gonna show up to charge us for shooting within city limits anyway..."
This message was last edited by the player at 11:31, Mon 18 May 2009.

"Wont' all the noise attract attention?" she asked, lifting the glass of water and taking a long drink, finishing with a satisfied sigh of relief from the quenching of her thirst.  "Thank you." she responded belatedly as she set the glass down.  "How many bullets do you have for this thing?  I had to hit Donna so many times that it will take a mountain of bullets if the parasite is that infectious.  - Speaking of which what is the prevention other than not to exchange fluids with someone who's infected?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:36, Wed 20 May 2009.

"Here's the skinny: the parasite is not normally a pathogen - it usually takes only an hour or so for the immune system of a healthy person to completely get rid of it. The only symptoms are a slight disorientation, sometimes a mild fever, and other minor effects. However, if the person dies before of other causes before the infestation is taken care of, the parasite will be able to reanimate the body."

He sighed and passed a hand through his hair - Betty had noticed he sometimes did when something bothered him - before continuing: "What worries me is the way Donna got infected, and the way 911 never answered our calls... I think I know what's going on, and if I'm right we don't really have to worry about somebody reporting our training session."

"Maybe we should turn on a tv or radio to find out?" Betty suggested, gesturing with her hand for emphasis.  "-Then we might have a clue of what's going on further out?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:37, Wed 20 May 2009.

Anton nodded: "Good idea..." He opened a cupboard with darkened glass doors to reveal a fairly expensive home theater system.

He pondered for a moment: "Will you try to find out what's going on? I'll have to start loading the trunk: it's gonna take a while."

Smiling ruefully, he continued: "See, I kept buying guns and ammo, thinking, eventually, I'd find the time to go to the range and have some fun. Then I met these friends who are into paintball... Well, let's just say I have moer than enough bullets for our little trip."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:52, Wed 20 May 2009.

"This is not good," Betty mused, a look of sadness on her face as she shook her head in disbelief at the reports coming in.  She flipped around searching for local news to see what the roads were like, if there was a helicopter in the air even reporting about such things....

"This is much worse than I thought..." Said Tony, catching the end of a newscast. "Those things seem to have spread farther than anyone anticipated. We need to find my dad."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:54, Sun 24 May 2009.

"I think it would be a good idea for a few practice shots with this thing before we go back out there," Betty said, gesturing to the rifle.  "I want to be sure about it..." The blonde looked at him emphatically.

Tony closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced his body to relax: "You're right, of course. There is no point in giving you the rifle and not showing you how to use it. Come..."

He lead Betty to the back yard, where a tall concrete fence separated the small garden from the neighboring house.

After smearing grass on the white-painted concrete, leaving a green spot as big as a fist at about the height of a human torso, Anton looked back and smiled: "Sorry, I'm all out of fancy cardboard shapes, but it should do."

He walked back to Betty, and helped her assume the correct stance, hold the gun the right way, and take aim.

Finally he took two steps back as simply said: "Shoot!"

Betty held the gun as instructed, looking down its barrel before squeezing the trigger and feeling and hearing its report as it went off.  She looked at the target then at him expectantly.


18:14, Today: Betty Pemberton rolled 8 using the Unisystem system (1d10+3) with rolls of 5. strength roll.
18:14, Today: Betty Pemberton rolled 8 using the Unisystem system (1d10-1) with rolls of 9. dex roll.

Tony ducked instinctively as the bullet bounced off the wall at an odd angle. Fortunately it didn't hit anyone and harmlessly embedded itself in the house.

"OK... We're not gonna do that again, I think. It was... Fine. Just, take more time, next time, to aim carefully: it's a powerful rifle, but it won't do you much good if you miss." He smiled at her, passing a hand through his hair.

Betty flushed with embarassment and nodded before lowering her face to the rifle again and closing an eye to aim at the target again before squeezing again.

14:24, Today: Betty Pemberton rolled 8 using the Unisystem system (1d10+3) with rolls of 5. str roll.
14:23, Today: Betty Pemberton rolled 3 using the Unisystem system (1d10-1) with rolls of 4. dex roll.

"Whoa, Calamity." Said Tony as the second shot went even wilder than the first, bouncing off the top off the wall and getting lost somewhere: "Seriously, that's enough. I don't think there's anybody around, but..."

He gently pushed the rifle down: "And be careful after you shoot: the barrel can get very hot, you could get a nasty burn, or accidentally start a fire."

Once again, he ran a hand through his hair: "Okay: time for a family reunion..."