As Florence another person, a vague shape in the darkness and rain suddenly appeared just above the the other on the on ramp. And just as suddenly as it appeared a flare fired to life in the person's hand. The undead surged towards the light as if Pavlov had rung the dinner bell himself.

"Up here, stay close." It was the new arrival yelling at the other person who had been shooting the undead.

The horde moving by below responded by sweeping into the rain to head up the ramp. It was slow going for the undead on the steep wet slope.

Troy was standing with Alexi, ready to fire on the wave of undead if heed be. But it happened so easily it was almost comical. Pike literally just trotted up the side of the incline to the paved on ramp and lit a flare. As if on queue the undead began an equally comical ascent up the slope after him. In what seemed like slow motion.

It took so long that the others in the group led by Jake Dodd simply walked up to stand around Troy and Alexi and simply stared in disbelief.

Florence couldn't believe it. These men where simply walking the undead out onto the freeway above. Thousands of them. It felt like forever and her crouched posture was threatening to cause he bruises and sore muscles. Shifting to change her position she happened to glance up and saw a group of people, at least a dozen, maybe more. The rain made it hard to see clearly, to her aggravation.

They stood there watching, probably in disbelief like herself, as the mass of undead slowly shambled up the ramp and onto the highway.

"Well...looks like it's working..."

Troy stayed alert, glancing at the others as they arrived, and watched Pike's back as he had said he would.

"Interesting... Alexei said, watching in awe as the idiotic undead horde chased Pike, albeit slowly, up the ramp,

"This gives idea. When sheltering, regular routines to thin hordes would protect surrounding areas. Given time." his thoughts were jumbled, but he was thinking aloud, essentially.

Florence was astounded for two reasons.

The first was that she had never scene anyone lead such a horde around using flares at night. These men either knew a lot about dealing with the undead. Or they simply balls the size of grapefruit and IQ's in the single digits. Either way, it was working amazingly well.

The second was this was the first time in a few weeks that she had encountered a large group of survivors organized enough to venture out at night confidently. They seemed pretty well disciplined despite that they all stood there watching as the horde was led away. It was enough to draw stare from anyone short of God, she thought. Then he could be watching too for all Florence knew.

Troy was getting a little worried. Pike and the other person were edging out of sight. The pale red glow and the pistol shots continued, but they too were becoming less observable with the storm and size of the horde.

Alexi, thinking of how such tactics could be used to lure the undead into traps or away from settled areas, decided to see about getting the others out of the rain. Looking towards the previously mentioned Waffle House he also looked at the Citgo gas station near it. Fuel and food. More thought crossed his mind, but a movement drew his eye.

In the shattered glass of the gas station he spotted movement as lightning flashed. It wasn't much but it looked like a single person. Like they were watching the group actually.

"Troy." he said, tapping the large man on the arm, and pointing, "We are being observed. Bad." he said, "We could use that for shelter, but with somebody watching, any plans to settle here could be problem." he said, his Russian accent screwing up his English a bit. That would be a trait Troy would slowly learn: whenever Alexei was on the spot, his English degraded a bit until it was almost unrecognizable from the extremely careful and eloquent speaker that otherwise lived.

Florence was amazed at the whole situation, not only was there a group that wasn't being eaten immediately in the face of their bravado, but from what she could tell they had it handled pretty smoothly.

Florence shifted to see the group, or the outline of one, she found herself stiff, she'd been trying to be so still because of the biters that she hadn't even realized if her legs were cramping or her mouth was dry from it being unintentionally slightly agape. She didn't know who these people were, for all she knew they were no good cannibal mofos who would just as likely eat her as help her.

But... She was almost at the end of her rope, even she hadn't admitted that to herself. She was a smart woman and surviving hadn't been the hard part, but being on your own with no outlet or someone else to talk to wore ya down* slowly but surely. She wasn't sure what the hell she was going but he'll now was as good of a time as any. She quickly dug into her saddlebag on her bike being as quiet as possible and she would flash S.O.S to either the dudes shooting the biters or the group on the bridge. If they were out of range she would follow when that the opportunity presented itself whichever path looked safest.

"Damn...good spot Alexei! Whoever it is is flashing an SOS. Dead sure it's not Zeke cause he don't know Morse Code."

He looked around at the group.

"Everybody wake the f*** up and watch Pike's ass. Be ready to move fast if those things turn this way and remember this trick in the future."

"I'm gonna go check out the SOS and see if someone needs help."

He matched his actions to his words and trotted off toward the location of the watcher Alexei had seen and the flashing emergency light.

Alexei nodded and followed Troy closely, leaving the large group of people to fend for themselves. He knew who he'd follow if shit hit the fan.

Troy, with Alexi in tow, maneuvered closer to the gas station. The rain and rolling thunder did a lot for their efforts masking their movements and noise with limited visibility, darkness, and rolling thunder. The constant lightning flashes, often strobe like, did light the night up but could leave the eyes dazzled at times. They moved quickly sing what cover there was.

At the edge of the pavement Troy knelt at the side of a long abandoned sedan and Alexi knelt near the trunk. Thinking on how to approach the side of the station without being caught out in the open while crossing the twenty odd yards of vacant parking lot, Troy was amazed when someone simply just walked out of the little station and waved.

"Troy, is that you?" It was T.J., what was that kid's last name. He lived with his uncle and granddad. Well, as best as Troy could recall. He had been one of the kids to volunteer to work outside of town. "It's T.J. I worked on the team that hunted south of Old Bend."

"Shh...get over here kid!"

T.J. was a friendly face but he wasn't the person who had been flashing an SOS from somewhere nearby. The two(?) of them being in the same direction but not, apparently, together created all sorts of worrisome scenarios in Troy's head.

"There's somebody else over here. They with you?"

"No, I think that signal came from the bridge, under it." TJ said. "I was looking for it when I spotted you guys moving in close to the station."

TJ looked a bit forlorn. He looked past Troy and Alexi then seemed to look at Alexi for the first time.

"Not many left." He said. "Who's this?"

Florence was sure that the others had seen her signal, and seemed to be have been moving towards her. Then they seemed to simply stumble upon someone else. Someone that they seemed very open to talking too. That boded ill. Too many people lacked trust these days. Maybe her luck was turning for the better for once this week.

And at that exact moment there was an explosion up on highway 75 just a little north of the on ramp. A ball of fire went rolling up in the night sky. The burning hulk of a car quickly began to die out in the heavy rains. People in the group shrieked, yelled, cussed, moaned, or simply began running towards the abandoned Waffle House.

Florence let her signal go and emotionally that's a big deal I'm the apocalypse, you really never know what the event did to people. She mostly wanted to get their attention but it's not like she was injured, she'd most likely meet them half way. She adjusted the light on her bike to flash the same S.O.S and got ready to move.

The explosion didn't hurt Florence's proactivity, she quickly got all her gear packed up and got ready to go towards the people she'd seen as quickly as she could. Explosions usually meant some bad business was about to go down and she'd rather not be there for it. Florence did a scan of her surroundings to find a decent path towards the humans and away from both the biters and that explosion.

Jake Dodd came trotting up to Troy and Alexi and then spotted TJ and smiled, "hey, kid, glad you made it. Everyone is freaking....."

Another car exploded. This one was more to the side of the mod of undead. Troy tried using his binoculars. It really didn't help with the rain and darkness, but he felt like Pike and the other person up there was up to something.

Florence was sure she nearly pissed her pants when the second explosion sounded. She slipped and ended up grabbing her motor-bike for balance leaving her to very unexpectedly have to shuffle down the steep embankment at the base of the overpass to keep from toppling over.

At the bottom of the embankment Florence stood perfectly still as the last of the undead horde made its way onto the on ramp. The noise was drawing them with renewed vigor. A thought struck her.

OOC: Need you three to make Ingenuity rolls to discern some clues about the current scene. And hopefully one of you will notice Cthuhlu hiding behind the Waffle House wearing a bib and holding a pitcher of syrup.

Rolled a 9

22:00, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 9 using 3d4+1.  Ingenuity.

    09:22, Today: Florence Whitley rolled 14 using 3d4+3 ((4,3,4)).

Ingenuity.

OOC: Thanks for the rolls guys.

Troy noticed that the individual who wasn't pike was running along a zig-zag path shooting into the sides of cars. Then it hit him, gas tanks. They were rupturing the gas tanks and luring the undead into position so they could ignite the tanks and turn the cars into bombs.

Alexi noticed the way the undead were moving, chasing after the sound and fury that the two men were creating. That they could lead the horde so effectively was surprising so it came as no surprise to realize that they were leading the horde by simply getting the leading undead to chase them. The flares made dazzling lights in the night while the pistol fire made sudden noise that drew their attention. The men made it look easy.

Florence took two thoughts to draw one conclusion. The first thought was that those people on the interstate were blowing up cars to kill the undead while they very effectively led the horde away. The second thought was that those people on the interstate were were willing to take on insane odds to save their own. Ergo, this group of people were as crazy as they were devoted to each other. Maybe they weren't all bad. She did however realize that every undead for ten miles would be hearing those explosions.

Florence considered herself lucky to have not beefed it as she made her way down away from the overpass, last thing she needed was a twisted ankle.

As she thought about everything she did become more comfortable with the idea of riding to meet up with these new people, worst case scenario they actually were cannibals and she'd get he last laugh as they tried to get meat off her EatingEnoughToLive-ass.

But she knew she had to keep riding away from the explosions, she knew it was basically a collect call to Biters for miles. She kept an eye out and once it was safe to move she'd keep headed towards where she saw the strangers going.

"Alright...that's amazing but it's time to get the hell out of Dodge. No matter how many they blow up there's too many around here to stay this close to 'em with all that fire and racket."

He moved a short distance away.

"Keep your eyes open and follow me. We'll find Pike once he get's himself clear...and don't forget there's someone else out here. They tried to signal us before all hell broke loose."

He would then lead them away from I-75 and toward the town of Dalton using the sturm and drang of the people on the highway to cover their escape.

The lightning flashed in a particularly dazzling strobe. Everyone squinted and cursed the extreme weather of the night. The rain beat down like a cold shower taken inside disco with too much bass. A boy pointed past Troy as he watched the others form up to travel. Looking over his shoulder he was astonished to see someone riding a bicycle through the storm towards them.

Then several cars exploded along the highway north bound.

A thought crossed Troy;s mind, 'and this ain't weird a'tall'.

"You know", he mumbled under his breath, "a bike is a pretty good idea."

One thing is for certain, it wasn't a frikkin' zombie riding that thing.

"Y'all keep moving. I'll catch up."

Troy simply waited beside the road, pistol held politely, for the bicyclist to arrive.

Circumstances permitting , Florence kept riding her bike , sans motor because she didn't even want an extra engine putter to wake up a sleepy biter, towards people she had seen leading away from the scene. She rode until she saw someone waiting in the rain. She stopped short, doing a quick scan to make sure no stray biter got the jump on her.

It was dark but she knew a pistol when she saw one, photographic memory worked on shadows too, good and bad. She kept the light strobe on, if he was trying to shoot
Her or Merc her gear Florence certainly wouldn't give him any advantage in that. She hopped off the bike and unhitched the saddle bag for easy access to a gun if she needed one.

"Hey!" She hollered over the rain "Are you Cool?" Florence blurted, maybe not her most eloquent greeting but it was still a question that covered alot of ground. Hell half the time evil a-holes couldn't help but sound like evil a-holes when they talk to people.

Troy stood in the rain a short distance from the systematically exploding interstate highway and chuckled.

He watched as the female silhouette got off her bike and started rummaging through the saddlebags.

"My name is Troy Roberts and, sure enough, I am the coolest motherf***er in the Tennessee Valley. If that's what you're looking for in this rain soaked hellhole Mysterious Rider you've come to the right rain soaked hellhole."

"Let me try to jump ahead a little so we can get out of the rain..."

"I will not try to eat you. I will not try to rob you. I will not try to rape you. I will not allow anyone else to do these things to you while you are within my sight."

"Should you try to Eat, Rob, or Rape any living human being while I can see you I will kill you deader than Lindsay Lohan's career."

"I hope that shit was as eloquent as it sounded in my head."

Glancing sideways at Troy as he spoke, Alexei waited patiently, and then added simply,

"And I am Alexei." he offered a hand for a shake, quietly keeping to himself.

He couldn't help his mind surveying her body for injuries, though if she didn't know his profession, she might mistake his roaming eyes for something less specific. Still, he was always focused, and he didn't seem to mind,

"Are hurt?" he asked, questioning with a raised eyebrow.

Pistol in hand she was ready to fire off a couple rounds if she needed to. Sure it might attract Biters but they could be as good as a distraction as they were a menace. She listened to Troy as he let off what seemed like a good-natured response. Certainly didn't sound like a bad dude.

She couldn't help but smirk as he continued on.

"Sounds like a deal. Honestly that covers the checklist pretty much," she shouted.

She latched her saddlebag closed again and quickly rolled her bike over towards the men standing in the rain.

"It was profoundly eloquent,But if I find out you're lying I will make a bear trap and put it right under your sleeping-mat," she said with a smirk.

Florence saw the other man giving her a once over but he didn't give off a murdery-vibe either.

"No serious injuries, thanks for asking," she said "I hope y'all don't mind me tagging along, I can be pretty handy In a pinch."

As if on queue more bad news showed up in the form of a sudden hail of machine gun fire coming from further north along highway 75 as someone, man someones actually, began firing several machine guns southward into the horde of undead as it moved up the ramp, onto the highway, and northward in pursuit of the two men leading the undead away. Muzzle flashes, looking like photo strobes in the heavy downpour, from at least four machine guns spat tracers through the night into the horde.

It was loud enough to be heard despite the storm and had the unsavory benefit of reminding Troy very much of guns he had witnessed in use near Ringgold.

Alexi watched with morbid fascination. The effect was withering, but the thought that crossed his mind was how would he deal with that type of destructive force if those around him became injured.

Florence simply had one of those 'shit, really' moments. If tonight ever ended and she wasn't dead or a walking corpse it wouldn't be too soon. And what was up with all this rain?

"Seems like a good night for a jog."

Troy picked up the pace to get clear of any possible fallout from the machineguns.

Alexei, hearing the machine guns, pointed to himself,

"Can fix much, but not that without operation room." to be clear with everybody present.

Seeing Troy take off in a jog, Alexei followed closely. Despite all of the weight he was carrying, he seemed still quick and comfortable with the movements... clearly physique wasn't going to be an issue for him, but he certainly wasn't going to be as useful in direct combat as somebody like Troy, and possibly this new woman.

Well the situation just kept improving didn't it? She'd really wanted the opportunity to dry out a little but Florence guessed you had to lose a little something to get something else. At this point in her "survival journey" she'd long realized it was a world of compromises, and very rarely did you get everything you wanted.

While that was all true it wasn't the time for philosophising, these new machine guns meant even more attention and they had to get moving.

Florence grabbed her bike and followed her new aquaintances into the night.

"Troy, up here! Troy!" Jake called out from the window of the Waffle House. "Everyone is inside and organized."

He waved to Troy and then ducked back out sight. Lightening flashed allowing Troy, Alexi, and Florence to get a quick glimpse several people posted up as sentries in the nooks and crannies.

Troy waved in recognition and trotted straight to the door.

He stopped just outside and waved Alexei and Florence in while looking back toward the highway trying to see the muzzle flashes from the machineguns.

'really hope these guys are more reasonable than the last group that had that kind of firepower...'

He shook off the dark thought and was simply grateful for the roof.

Time passed, the firing and explosions ended about as abruptly as they had started. In the bright flashes of lightning they could just make out the interstate through the torrential rain that had squelched the fires from the burning cars. The horde had moved on, what little of it that remained, northward. No one could tell if the undead had overran the machine gun armed party on the interstate.

Many people had settled back down for the night, to sleep as much as they could before the sun rose in several hours. Many hung wet clothes to dry, changing into whatever they had available or simply wrapping in their bedding. Candles had been set up cleverly inside empty cans to create heat without shedding a lot of light. Soon the air in the Waffle House stank of steamy sweat.

A man, someone Troy let again couldn't put a name to a face of, stepped over from his post at one of the windows and leaned over to whisper to Alexi quietly.

"I think that man, Pike, is coming in." The man whispered. "But, he is looking for us at the Mapco instead of here."

Thinking that looked like a very good idea Troy took a dry t-shirt, briefs, and cargo shorts out of his fancy Mariposa backpack. He stripped with the casual indifference of a young man in very, very good shape and redressed in the dry clothes.

Not for the first time since this started he considered that he needed to acquire some more rugged clothes. Putting down Zack was about mobility, fighting evil people was much more strenuous.

'...and harder on the knees.', he thought looking at his battered lower limbs.

He was redressed and close by, but not close enough to overhear, when the sentry delivered his message to Alexei.

Turning immediately towards Troy, Alexei moved closer, seemingly unperturbed by the man's ability to be 'all business',

"Pike coming. Looking at Mapco?" he asked, simple and to the point, but unsure if Troy knew of the location he was speaking about,

"Is time for action?" he asked, fully prepared to grab everything he needed to move.
Alexei himself, after all, was nearly all business.

"Cool."

Troy thought for a second.

"Take the guy that spotted him with you and go get Pike. Make sure he's okay. Don't die. Okay?"

Florence was thankful as they finally entered the waffle house, the first truly dry space she'd seen since In a minute, even the bathroom she'd been staying in was always in the moister side of things.

She dried her clothes on a personal line she rigged up, it wasn't that she thought everyone was a threat she just wasn't the most outgoing boisterous person and not one prone to introducing herself. After so much time travelling alone you lose a little bit of yourself that knows how to socialize, hell the whole damn apocalypse had made sure nobody could trust each other. She had another set of gym clothes in her bag which weren't too damp and she slipped those on while she waited.

She decided to She decided to search the backpack she had gotten from the gas station while she had a moment of safety.

"Can do." The man on sentry duty said quietly. He offered his hand to Alexi. "Randy Dolvich, glad to me you."

He was tall man, in his forties at least, and too lean to be healthy. It was the stress of living in constant fear, Alexi had seen it often enough, but the man seemed eager enough to fight to survive. He held a .22 caliber pistol that at some point had its muzzle threaded and now had a Fram oil filter fitted to its muzzle as an impromptu sound suppressor.

"I'm ready to go when you are pal." Randy told Alexi.

To Florence's relief the back wasn't a collection of beer, cigarettes, and skin magazines. That had been a disappointing find to say the least. But this pack was pretty well stocked by someone intent on living a decent life on the road.

It contained a neatly rolled hammock, several dark colored sheets to use as summer weight bedding, quite a large folded up mosquito net, an even larger tarp, a rolled up ground mat, a fire starting kit with several lighters, matches, some tender, several stick of fat wood, a ferro rod,  and a small bag of char cloth, a large pillow case held an assortment of canned chili, tuna, spaghetti with meatballs, corned beef hash, green beans, sweet corn, and carrots, there was a large plastic bag holding fat bullets with .50 GI, 300 gr. written on the bag in black marker, there was a change of clothes for a man of average build, another pillow case holding shredded paper for toilet use, a toothbrush, a half box of baking soda, a cake of homemade soap, two rags, a towel, a straight razor, and nail clippers, but the most significant thing in backpack was tackle box holding bandages, gauss pads, surgical tapes, super glue, butterfly sutures, a collection of over the counter pills in blister packs for pain, diarrhea, inflammation, cramps, colds, fatigue, sleeplessness, fevers, and infection, tourniquets, needles, fishing line, tweezers, probes, scalpels, scissors, hand sanitizer, and a bottle twenty year old Noval Port that was as yet unopened.

She sighed, who the hell carries a .50 caliber pistol anymore?

Troy looked at toward the Mapco and saw what the sentry had spotted after a moment. A man who was definitely Pike and onther guy he recognized as Bob something-or-other, a former small town cop from Kentucky, were creeping up to the Mapco. Well, sort of creeping, like hiding from the undead but not from the people with guns that were expecting them to show up kind of creeping. They didn't move like either of them were injured and he was glad for that.

"Understood." Alexei said flatly, turning and moving towards where he'd seen Pike.

As Randy shook his hand, he nodded succinctly,

"Let us move." he said, his accent as thick as ever.

Randy had sense enough to wait a moment for the lightning to pass before moving out into the storm. Running back out into the rain was like being slapped in face by mother nature when she was in extreme angry bitch mode. Alexi had water in his shoes, pockets, and ears in seconds.

He followed closely to Randy and the two quickly covered the short distance to the Mapco. They could see Pike and the other man that Alexi had never met as they cautiously checked out the gas station, both men were vigilant but they sort had that drag-ass movement common after an intense combination of run for your life exertion accompanied with holy shit we're gonna die anxiety.

Randy held up his off hand and clicked a flashlight on and off several times drawing the two men. Pike responded like a coil snake striking when exploded into a sprint and ran over to slide up to Randy on his knees in the mud and cover the flashlight with both hands.

"Some of them fuckers on the interstate are using night vision. Funky old-school shit." Pike said. "And they got damned thirty caliber machine guns. Must have been those damned kids that hit you guys yesterday."

That left Alexi curious as hell and a little worried.

"Sounds like it." Randy said in reply as he put the flashlight away. "We're in the awful waffle over here. It's dry and everyone is calm now."

"Did your man Troy make it through?" Poke asked.

"Yeah, and we found that TJ kid. He was in there hiding out." Randy said with a smile. "And some woman just rode on a damned powered bicycle. You know, homemade and all."

"TMI, my friend, TMI." Pike said. "But, thanks for the heads up. Let's go hide and dry out. I got water in places a man shouldn't be wet by now."

Troy approached Florence and squatted next to her speaking quietly.

"I always hate finding the ones that packed smart. Don't like the reminder that you can do everything right and still not make it. Ya know?"

Hearing all of this, Alexei was as cold and businesslike as ever, a lesson learned back home,

"Ok." the most American thing he could manage, "Let us return now." he said, turning back towards Troy and the others, heading through the rain, soaked to the bone.

The quick trip over to the waffle house was uneventful. The returning men were grateful for a chance to get dry, rest, and not feel so exposed.

One of the new fellas, Troy if she remembered correctly kneeled down to talk. She was greatful to some degree, while she didn't always put herself out there that didn't mean she didn't need human interaction like everyone else.

The pack had been stocked very well, and he would have made it to if it wasn't for other people, that is one of the reasons she didn't get too close to people right away because it hurt less when they inevitably lead to your death.

"The apocalypse doesn't care how careful or clever you are," Florence said, regretting how negative it sounded while it was the truth "We're all just one mistake away from all the prep in the world not meaning shit."

"Well said, Ma'am." Said a boy in his middle teens from just behind Troy. He smiled down at Florence. "That bicycle with a motor is cool, really cool. Did you build it?"

Before she could respond, the turned to Troy abruptly and said. "Hey, Troy, those people in the Outback made it out too. Said they were going to head northeast and go check out where they came from or something. It's a bad plan though. Up north is where the most bombs fell. My uncle told me about them."

Yet again, the boy urgently changed perspective and faced Florence saying, "I'm TJ. Nice to meet you."

As if on  queue TJ's head once again shot around to face Alexi just before he blurted out, "Hey, your foreign, like a German or something. I like the accent, it makes you sound like an action movie hero."

"Geezus TJ slow down! He's Russian so more like an action movie villain but he's actually alright."

"Where on the hell did you come from?"

Florence was a little surprised by a voice she hadn't expected, looking up to see a boy heartily agreeing with her nihilistic hallmark thoughts. But just as soon as she had her attention zoom onto a new topic. She opened her mouth to speak and he was talking to Troy.

She laughed to herself, the afterworld did not make enough adderall. Florence answered the questions out loud to her self with a degree of sass because he obviously wasn't listening.

"Yes I sure did nice to meet you.Florence! Charmed I'm sure."

Then chuckled at herself and listened.

"I met them as they were leaving the attack." TJ inhaled. "We hit a few Uncle Dan's old cache spots and loaded up a  bit. We met a woman named Bertha headed northeast into real trouble. We talked about the bombings in the big cities. Shot it out with a Rot Harden. He's a punk, but he had a good gun. It's still in the grass though. Drove to the interstate but the Crows were there so we went the other way to Tunnel Hill. We stayed in an old tire store until the locals showed up, the people there seemed a little off. So, we left and went my grandparent's house. There was a guy there that died, blown up by a deep fryer or something. They wanted to leave, but I just couldn't go north. To many yankees up there."

His accent heavy, he looked surprised and thrown completely off,

"I am no action hero! Vhat is zis?" he hissed angrily, leaning in on TJ.

After a second's hard glare, he grinned widely, his accent still thick, but slightly less exaggerated,

"I am joke, of course. It is good to meet, TJ." he said, offering his non-dominant hand for a shake.

"Glad you found us. Glad they made it out too. Not everyone did."

"Good luck to 'em up there."

Troy stood up and looked around for Pike.

"Hey Pike, what happened up there? Who brought the heavy ordnance?"

Pike looked tired when he stood up.

He smiled and held up his hands, a short crowbar with one end filed to a point and a long reach lighter used to light fire in grills and fireplaces. It made sense, use the gunfire to draw them along to a car leaking gasoline and then set it off. Gas vapor would do all the work.

"A little bait and switch." He said as he dropped the items to his backpack. "I think I might have an idea too; them dead bastards are afraid of fire. Once we set one car off they immediately began to shuffle away from those that caught on fire. Maye we could set a few on fire out front to divert a horde."

Ooc Can I roll ingenuity to see if there's anything I could specifically add to that plan or anything I can build to make it easier. She'd rather have an idea already before she brings it up to someone.

Ooc or I guess more accurately to scan pikes plan for vulnerabilities or areas of improvement, with my skill set directly involved or not.

"Zeke's scared of fire huh? More brains than I gave him credit for but damn good news if you ask me."

"We got a gas station and a waffle house here. Good chance we can put together something that'll burn."

"Fear Fire?" Alexei was surprised by this, "Fire not hard create. Can make torch: scout protected?" he was curious how afraid of fire they were. If he held  torch, could he just walk amongst them?

Troy grinned like he had thought of something really funny and then looked at Alexei and said,

"Molotov Cocktails Comrade?", in a terrible Boris and Natasha accent.

He noted that Florence was deep in thought but decided to let her come to whatever she was thinking in her own time.

(OOC: because of the abrupt nature of the apocalypse and the generally high level of danger from being in settled areas for very long the Waffle House has only been scrounged in passing for quick and easy grabs. There is a lot of low-melt shortening in sealed containers. as well as plenty of good cookware, flatware, and utensils. not to mention a lot of sharp steak knives. Plus napkins, toilet paper, paper towels, detergents, and the gas tank out back has gauge in the store room that reads 3/4 full.)

It might take her a second to figure out the fire issue, she'd built a flamethrower before with her boyfriend for some 'inventors under 30' competition, it took place in the ballroom of a Meriott. No surprise they set off all the sprinklers and were told never to come back. She chuckled to herself , she tried not to think too much of her old life but Florence wasn't too upset about this one.

However, she knew how dangerous it was to be this many people in one place and there was other stuff she could do to help the early detection system. She could easily rog up a bottle-0n-a- string noise maker around the perimeter with stuff from the kitchen she assumed.Not like she was sleeping soon anyways, her brain was wired from the adrenaline.

Alexi wondered over to where Jake knelt changing the dressing on a woman's hand. She had fallen in the rush and confusion of recent hours and cut her hand on an axe that strapped to her pack. Alexi knelt down as well.

The cut was deep, but they had done a good job of keeping it clean and wrapped tightly to keep the wound closed and limit bleeding. Alexi pulled his medical bag out of his pack and quickly set to cleaning away the clotting and disinfecting the wound afresh. Staunching what little blood flow that trickled from the wound he then began carefully suturing the wound. All the while he profusely apologized for a lack anesthetics.

Troy was standing looking at shelf full of low-melt, Styrofoam clam-shells, and sealed plastic tubs of sugar. An idea for some redneck napalm cogitating in his gray matter.

Florence recalled the fact that there was gas station about fifty yards away. More wheels turned in a brain to active to sleep. She looked at the cars outside, one was actually a Mac semi-truck without a trailer. Bobtail, she recalled the word, a semi running without a trailer was said to be running bobtail. Airlines, those trucks used highly compressed air for braking.

She could build a flamethrower.

"What's that smell?" Someone asked in the shadows.

"Blood." Another person said. "From that cut on Connie's hand."

Troy turned, following the conversation. After a thought, Florence realized she could smell the blood as well.

"Hey, we should do something about that." Another person said. "The rain is slowing down, with these winds that scent might carry."

"Bound to be some cleaning supplies in here. This place hasn't been completely looted."

He began searching through the cabinets and bins for something appropriate, also keeping an eye out for containers that would make effective incendiary delivery systems.

(OOC: there are several gallons each of bleach, alcohol disinfectant, and muriatic acid based concrete cleaner. There are several food grade five gallon buckets of powdered waffle mix. The buckets could be used to mix in.)

Oh snap! The parts were all here within spitting distance practically. Little bit from here and little bit from there. The parts were similar to how she'd made one before  so she was sure she'd have no problem whipping it together. She'd wait till she had some sort of working prototype before she offered it up, all that mattered in the end-of-times was results. Don't tell me you can get me a ham sandwich, serve that biotch on a plate.

She'd rig up the perimeter alarm real fast then immediately get to working on the flamethrower. She stood up silently and rushed to the kitchen to get to work. It wasnt that she was ignoring people but you can't stop the innovation train once it leaves the station.

The sun rose on a humid morning. The rains had finally passed but left everything drenched and the air so wet that they were all sweaty and sticky before the sun was fully up in the east.

Troy had set to work on his redneck napalm with a small crew of others to keyed or scared to sleep. They had mixed four buckets, about half full or a little more, with a foul smelling mixture that was probably going to cause them all to die of lung cancer by age sixty. If they lived that long.

(OOC: Please make an Ingenuity roll to develop a delivery system.)

Florence had used wire, a light bulb, a 12 volt battery, and a bunch of forks all scavenged from the Waffle House to make a simple circuit nearly a hundred meters long. It gave the restaurant a buffer of about twenty yards on each side. Using the forks as stakes, she ran the wire, attached the light bulb, and used the battery to power it. It anything tripped the line it would pull the connection lose and the light bulb would go out. A silent warning. The flamethrower proved to be harder. Well, heavier really.

(OOC: please make an Ingenuity roll to see how well the flamethrower comes together.)

01:23, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 6 using 3d4+1.  Ingenuity.

Troy put a crew together cleaning up the blood and other things that might attract Zeke, made sure there were sentries watching for the approach of the dead or the living, and left the new girl alone as she worked on what was either a bug sprayer or, and he was betting on this one, a flame thrower.

"We'll be moving further from the interstate as soon as we're ready. Too many dead on it."

He went through his fucking heavy load of gear with a hikers eye and shook his head.

"Anybody that can shoot who doesn't have a gun?"

12:41, Today: Florence Whitley rolled 9 using 3d4+3.  Ingenuity.

Troy sat pondering a good method of employing his newly enriched mayhem mixture. But, it was proving a problematic; so far he was sure that they could dump the mixture onto the undead and set it ablaze or they could set the buckets alight use something akin to a redneck catapult to fling the flaming, napalm filled buckets at a horde.

He would have to outsource this problem while he took a nap.


Florence was busily slapping together everything for her flamethrower. It worked well, the tank pressure was too high, but it worked. It worked so well that it launched the entire gallon and a half of gasoline she had scavenged from an abandoned Ford in around three seconds. She would either need to start over with a new deign and incorporate some sort of fuel condenser or she would simply have to a denser fuel for her fire. Otherwise, her flamethrower would take a lot of refilling or be connected to a fuel drum.

The alarm system Florence was happy with, every little bit of extra safety was welcomed. When. She did end up sleeping that would certainly help allow herself to let her guard a pinch down. She wasn't one who needed the praise of others, Florence just got her jobs done and moved on, survival didn't hinge on whether people got their egos petted, other than in some specific and dangerous situations.

The Flamethrower while functional technically didn't work as well as she needed it to. Luckily it wouldn't be too hard to strip it down and rebuild it to have more fuel efficiency, couldn't have it burning up its load that fast with fuel scarcity being what it was. She would take it apart and see what she could do to fix the issue.

Sleepy Troy Sat down near Florence.

"I got four buckets of Hillbilly Napalm, uncle Winston's recipe. Styrofoam and gasoline and a couple of proprietary family secrets."

"I bet if you pump it through that badass fire gun you built it will slow things down to just about the right flow, or at least I'm willing to bet you can figure it out."

He glanced around at the senttries he could see from here and then pulled his cap down over his eyes.

"I got to catch a little sleep before we head out again..."

Florence was running numbers, concepts, and ideas through her mind when she nodded off sitting in the bench seat she and several others had removed from a truck to pull up rubber matting to make o-rings and washers. Someone slipped a poncho liner over her while she slept, when she got nice and toasty she simply collapsed onto her side with the woman sleeping next to her. They both slept so hard they never noticed the finally rage of the storm before it blew eastward.

Troy had settled in to catch a nap, say several hours worth, even told others to have the sentries wake him. But once he stretched out in his hammock, hung between a shelf and a doorjamb, he did two things that discouraged any attempt to wake him; he snored like a Harley Davidson with a bad exhaust leak and clutched his lever action rifle to his chest in his sleep.

They were tired. All of them. Taking turns on watch for just an hour at a time. It had been a trying day. The overrun of Ringgold. The ambush. The trek through the woods. Running into the Crows. Scrambling cross country. They storm and the horde moving through it. Gunfire waking everyone. The run to waffle house as the battle raged on the highway nearby. The machine guns again. Sleepless fear until just after dawn.

They were beat. It almost got them killed.

A sentry noticed the noise, the sound of ATVs not far off. He went to take a peak. Coming down the road from the other side of the interstate was a short column of six ATVs and around twenty people on foot. The last of the kids and their new allies. The sentry was standing at the edge of the Citgo parking lot hiding in a ditch when they started under the overpass Florence had hid under during the night.

The shots took a moment to register. In the meantime the other sentries began shouting and shooting as well. It was a hell of a wake up call. Troy was on his feet and staring out the backdoor into the woods beyond before he realized he was awake an that there was firefight going on out front.

Florence shot upright, took two strides, and dove under a steel prep table before she was good and awake. So had two others who were piled in with her. It was turning out to be a day to match the night she had been through.

"If you don't have a gun get out the back door into the woods! Watch your asses! Zeke don't give a fuck if we got other problems!"

"If you got a gun get in cover and get ready to cover them 'til they get clear! And keep your heads down!"

He looked for Pike and Jake as he headed out the front door of the Waffle House, using the cars in the lot for cover, to support his sentries.

He scanned for the shooters with the intent of engaging them with some suppressed .30-30 rounds.

Jake was the first person Troy spotted. He was laid out on his back next to one of the sentries, an older woman name of Bess, and both bore gunshot wounds to their torsos. By the look of the wounds Troy figured they had been moving to cover when they were shot. Other sentries were firing on the attackers and leaving a fair number of bodies on the ground.

There were four quadrunner ATVs that had .30 machine guns, old Browning 1919A3 models, set upon tripods that had been secured to the rear rack of each. Turning sideways to their opponents this the machine guns at a comfortable height that made using them very intuitive. And extremely deadly. There were already seven dead or dying among the little party of survivors from Ringgold.

He sighed.

Alexi was frantic, working to save the lives of a young boy and twenty-something woman almost at the same time. The boy took a bullet, most likely a ricochet, that shattered his tibia and severed an artery. The woman had been returning fire from a window until a bullet passed through her neck just under her chin.

Florence was beside herself. Who ever the attackers were we really going all out. Taking a chance to glance at the scene she was shocked to see what amounted a group of teens and a handful of adults bearing down on these people.

Florence was getting real sick of gunshots waking her up, but it didn't seem like that would be changing anytime soon. Hell of a rude awakening yet again and her body jumped into automatic. Before her brain was even fully conscious she was on the ground under a table as traded gunshots rang out all around them. People were obviously attacking. Effin first day, couldn't just let her have a good first day.

Florence had seen some of this before but mostly from afar, she had been as smart as could be about avoiding drama between people since the apocalypse. So much for a perfect record.

She found herself not terrified but really annoyed and angry, people attacking other people was the single most idiotic thing in the middle of the God Damn apocalypse. Everyone was already being hunted and eaten alive by the living dead and still human beings found a way to be petty and cruel towards each other.

She'd grab her ar-15 and load it, all while crawling flat as possible, she was not about to catch a bullet for just wanting to be around people again, course fate was sort of a dick like that so she'd just have to be as careful as she could. As Florencee crawled her way to under an open window where she could cover those escaping into the woods. Florence took a couple deep breaths . She had to fight, even if she wasn't John Rambo. She wasn't a fan of violence, but if it came down to it almost everyone nowadays had lost their filter to prevent themselves from violence in the name of self protection. If there was another solution sure, but when someone shows up shooting, they didn't come to bargain.

She

(OOC: Good job guys, heroic with be murderhobos. it would make a good scene in TWD. Please make a roll for combativeness and a roll for perception please. Once I have the rolls I will andvance the scene and offer some options so you both die in very creative and Cthuhlu-ish ways. Muahahahaha!)

Ooc- lol I'm not trying to be a murder hobo, someone had to at least try and cover the escape for the Squishies.

22:21, Today: Florence Whitley rolled 11 using 3d4+1.  Perception.

22:20, Today: Florence Whitley rolled 9 using 3d4.  Combativeness.

12:28, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 9 using 3d4+1.  Perception(reroll).

12:28, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 7 using 3d4+1.  Perception.

12:27, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 12 using 3d4+2.  Combativeness.

Flo:

Ooc- lol I'm not trying to be a murder hobo, someone had to at least try and cover the escape for the Squishies.

ooc: You have no idea how cool it is to see you say that.

Florence scampered over to a vantage point that offered everything; cover behind cinder blocks, low to the ground, good field of fire, direct line of sight to the enemies avenue of approach, and support from nearby allies. However, it also let he see that the tail end of that horde from the night hadn't quite moved on. What looked like a few hundred, possibly a few thousand of the undead were shuffling through back towards the over pass with gunfire acting like a dinner bell.

Several bullet slammed into the wall just to her right as one of the machine gunners cut loose with a burst at the Waffle House. The bullets chewed up the outside quickly and sent a trio of bullets whizzing into the Waffle House. No one screamed or called out as Florence regained her composure and aligned her rifles sights.

She hoped that meant that no one just died.

Exhaling like she was taught by others who were no longer among the living, she took up the tension on the trigger. Not only did the trigger squeeze take by surprise but she was amazed to see the five spent casings laying along the base of the wall. Wow, she thought, that was too easy.

Looking up at her intended target, an man firing on the machine guns around a hundred yards away she was oddly glad to see that a camouflage clad teen was dragging him back out of the way. The man was clutching his arm where a bullet had struck and yelling and pointing at the gun. She assumed he was ordering someone else to take over.

Florence was lucky her ass hadnt already been shot. It was just that after so much bullshit from the world bravery didn't seem that hard. What was he worst hat could happen? Death? Well death loses alot of its gusto when it becomes such a common occurrence and expectation. Not to say Florence didn't get scared, hell no matter how common death is there's still some effed up part of you that still wants to live.

It comes down to focus and a little bit of luck. Florence wasn't the type to sit through a whole firefight if she had to. If everyone could get away was all that mattered,more dead people did nothing to help humanity thrive.

She would try to shoot at the engine blocks of their vehicles. The only way to guarantee they couldn't chase you in vehicles was to take said vehicles out of commission. They could have the damn waffle house it was people she was trying to protect. Once she broke their toys they could easily retreat and regroup with minimal bloodshed.

(OOC: escape for the Squishies, sounds like an episode of the walking dead if it was written for south park)

Jake Dodd suddenly appeared near the back door, shoving people out ahead of him, and turned to Troy, "Pike took off to start, well, I think he means to draw the undead back down there."

The machine gun fire was having a very demoralizing effect on the people who had chosen to move out and engage the kids and their allies. Bodies were beginning to accumulate out front. Soon there wouldn't be any of them left if they didn't withdraw. The machine guns were just too powerful to oppose.

Most everyone had fled, many leaving much of what they had been carrying behind.

"I can lead them around the bypass, maybe try and hole up at the fire station up the hill." Jake said, Troy knew what was coming next. "Could you hold them off for ten minutes or so."

'Fuck no!' immediately came to mind.

Florence's eyes goggled for a moment at Jake's request. She looked at Troy who stood looking at the boy intently.

It wasn't possible. Not like this. Those guns were to powerful. They could chew up the block walls of the Waffle House easily. And there was at least two dozen of them out there. With those ATVs too.

Jake didn't say anything else, he couldn't think of anything to say that didn't make him feel worse than he already did. He pushed the others along gently, "Come on folks, we gotta move. We gotta move now."

"Get 'em outta here Jake! FUCKIN" MOVE IT PEOPLE! Everybody get out the back and make for cover!"

He looked at the wounded boy with newfound respect. Not just anyone could walk off buckshot like that and still think of helping other people.

Troy was frustrated and the situation was too far gone to be saved but a couple of things hadn't changed; Troy Roberts was mad as hell and strong as fuck!

He squatted behind his makeshift auto cover and gripped the handle pf a 5 gal bucket of redneck napalm in both hands.

"Hey badass chick! If these assholes don't hit this themselves I need you to shoot it!"

That said he strongman frog squat launched the bucket as far toward the line of enemy ATVs as he could. If he could get a fire going between his group and the motherfuckers, or preferably ON some of said motherfuckers, it would at least provide come cover so the others could get away.

The day to settle whether he was going to kill all these assholes or die trying was fast approaching...

With a seem splitting heave that left Troy's ass hanging out of his pants, he hoisted the bucket of homemade incendiary nearly sixty yards. He would have been impressed with himself, but all he really could think about was how he really needed a massage and a shot of an anti-inflammatory. That, and a good seamstress.

The bucket hit, hard, and bounced half a dozen times before it rolled another dozen yards. Somewhat short of the nearest bad guys the bucket was struck by a line of tracer laden machine gun fire that shattered the bucket. Dust arose, the liquid had set and crystallized, the impact of the bullet and the heat from the phosphorus tracer elements provided two key ingredients; extreme pressure and extreme heat.

The expected burst of flaming death never came. Troy and Florence were both crestfallen. Then the explosion ripped the day. It was as fierce as it was unexpected. The blast powerful enough that the percussive wave was felt in their lungs. Thankfully, Florence and Troy were far enough from the blast it was all awe and no shock. But the leading edge of the enemy force wasn't so lucky.

A machine gun equipped ATV exploded in a ball of gas-fueled fire and exploding bullets. A dozen attacker were thrown off their feet by the shrapnel hurled from the blast. The rest took cover, surprised, anticipating another 'bomb' attack.

"Alright that's about the best we can do let's get the fuck out of here!"

Troy hustled all the remaining defenders out the back and gave them some few seconds to get clear, nodding at Florence as she moved past and hoping she made the decision to stay with them.

While this was happening he was busy lighting the Waffle House's ubiquitous gas grill with his own lighter (since there is no power for the electric starter) and once everyone was as far away as he felt like he could allow he set two of the remaining buckets of 1H1B (One Hillbilly One Boom) Napalm on the grill and ran like hell.

He came out the back with two rifles slung over his back, a bucket of improvised napalm in one hand and Florence's Flame Thrower in the other. He had no intention of making off with he just didn't want it left behind. It was just too nice a project to leave in the hands of the jackass army.

The crap he was lugging was making so much noise you almost couldn't hear the disturbing laughter.

Florence was in sort of a haze after something like this happened. Maybe it was her body's way of handling he emotional distress of actual combat. It was a different matter entirely when dealing with actual people then with the biters, killing people would never sit right with her even if it needed to be done. Florence liked to think this is what kept her human.

The explosion sent a volt of adrenaline through her veins, like goddamn that shit was exciting, a surprise after the letdown that nothing was gonna happen at all. She would have to use this distraction to fetch her bike and gear and skidaddle, this was the closest to a safe escape that any of them would get. Hopefully the attackers would take the suggestion and go home to lick their wounds.

With all her gear quickly strapped on and the rest in the saddle bag Florence started her bike and made as quick a retreat as possible with the rest of the group.

Troy came out of the Waffle House, clanking like a Russian tank on shake-down day, and was surprised to almost run into Florence as he cut the corner and put the building between himself and the jackass army. She looked at him and then looked up the hillside.

Jake and the others had vanished. Troy new where they were headed, he had driven by that firehouse often enough, but he was damned if he could tell which way the boy had taken the others. There was a small strip of businesses not too far away, but the others hadn't gone that way. They would see them.

Time was against them, the stove was cooking up some hillbilly incendiaries. Troy and Florence suddenly heard the tic of impacts a moment before they heard the muzzle reports. The enemy was firing into the Waffle House with real fury now. The bullets striking the interior wall behind them sounded like so many raindrops pelting the windshield of a speeding car.

Troy took long strides and wore a grin some may have mistaken for insane. He couldn't help it though as he not only became aware that Jake and the others had gotten clear but watched Florence recede into the distance on her well stocked motorbike. This was a win beyond what he could have hoped for only a few moments ago.

He didn't even register that the ass of his favorite cargo shorts was flapping in the breeze. Ripstop cloth wouldn't stop a bullet anyway and he has a fantastic ass anyway, if he did say so himself.

He made for the buildings nearby and intended to put something solid between the pursuers and himself as soon as possible.

There was the sound of muffled explosions, smaller, it made Troy think of a Tennrite blast to bust up deep-rooted stumps. It was hand grenades. He didn't look back. Gunfire erupted, as he suspected it would, a moment later. The attackers had assaulted the Waffle House.

Troy ducked into a liquor store through a broken window. He took a choking breath of decay and rot, nearly puked, and pulled two steps into the store. There were shelves still partially stocked with liquor in variety. Liquor suitable for sipping at the fire to relax. Liquor strong enough to disinfect wounds and medical equipment. Liquor suitable for treating water. And some simply usable as fire starter.

But, there was those undead shuffling towards him as well. Five of them. Going back to the early days; National Guardsmen in camouflage uniforms with Beretta pistols at their sides and magazines circling their hips. They all seems decently preserved, not new dead but surprisingly not-eaten on. But, each corpse had several old brown stains across their chests like some one had hosed them all down with machine gun fire.

Troy was felling a sense of 'shit, not now you dead fucks' and 'damn, the other fuckers are too close' all at once. Then the Waffle House exploded. He couldn't see, he couldn't feel it. But, he definitely heard it. There were several smaller secondary explosions as well.



Florence was riding just ahead of Troy, opting for the open clear road but keeping in line with the Waffle House for cover. He bike was chugging along, purring she would describe it, at nearly twenty miles per hour. She didn't look, she didn't need to she had mirrors. When the Waffle House went up she nearly pissed herself. In her mirrors she looked back in time to see part of the roof get blown into the sky over a ball of rolling flame.

Then the earth just sort of reached out and grabbed her by the feet and slung her into a ditch. It hurt. She was scraped up good. The wind was knocked from her lungs. And she was sure that she had bruises had bruised asses.

Looking back in the road she immediately spotted the reason why. Her bike, it's motor still purring, was sticking up at a perfectly balanced forty-five degree angle with the front tire embedded in the chest of a large corpse. It had slung her around thirty feet, she judged, when the bike stopped. Other corpses littered the ground. Not eaten upon, just dead. And judging by the look of them they had never turned. Sitting up and working the kinks out she looked over the scene. There were dozens of them.

Civilian clothing, hands tied behind their backs, neat rows ten wide and at twelve deep. All shot in the head from behind and left to rot. Someone had executed a lot of people here. But, it was months old, easily.

'Well fuck...'

Troy reversed direction and ran straight back out of the building full of zombies angling away from the now burning Waffle House.

Ooc- hey sorry y'all hectic week. Lol also I almost pee myself alot, damn apocalypse.

Don't look back, lesson number one of running for your life. Everyone had seen the classic horror movie scene where the bumbling buxom blonde ran through the woods away from the killer, only to trip on a tree branch because she wasn't watching where she was going. Sure seeing the explosion of the waffle house in her mirror was a good motivator, but it's not like she was planning on slowing down to admire the view. Trust in Veronica, the name she had assigned to the bike which had saved her many times, named after a good friend who had died in the initial wave of the biter attacks.

And then that lesson knocked her even sooner than she anticipated because not watching in front of her as much as she should have before Florence knew it she had beefed it and was off her bike entirely. 'Ow' she thought to herself as she tried to figure out what the hell happened.

Non surprisingly it was just as fucked up as she had learned to expect from this new world. Something bad had gone down here,a sort of cruelty and depravity that even the biters couldn't match up to. Human cruelty had a definite signature and was easily recognizable, mainly biters can't tie knots.  The scene was old but she couldn't take the chance that whoever did this was around the area, she had to keep moving.  She stood up and shook off the crash, Florence could feel pain later because taking her time was not a luxury she could afford. Pushing through pain was better than being dead.

She rushed over and attempted to dislodge her tire from the chest cavity of the dead fellow she had run into. The bike didn't look as damaged as she was so once it was loose she would continue to flee to safer ground.

(OOC: welcome back Florence. the bike is fine, you are skinned up bruised, and feeling pretty shook up. Troy, good high knees, no sense in getting tackled by undead in a liquor store.)

There was a whine of small engine running high RPMs. It was accompanied by the hollow drone of knobby tires on asphalt. An ATV hauling ass. It drew the attention of Florence making her look back down the hill towards the interstate. It grabbed Troy's attention making him look up the hill along the road. It was a teen, a girl judging by the shape of her body, in camouflage and clinging to the four-wheeler like it was part of her she couldn't let go off.

Hanging at an awkward angle on the cargo rack was an old Browning .30 machine gun, a 1917 model with a fat water jacket around the barrel. There was a canvas cartridge belt danging from the side of the receiver. The finders were slightly melted and a what appeared to be a burnt arm was wedged under one of the tripod legs where it was lashed to the cargo rail.

The seemed oblivious, just driving like made to get away. But, she swerved, obviously trying to drive past both Florence and Troy without getting shot at. She dodged the bodies in the road and dropped off the shoulder into a ditch and kept going sending mud and brush flying.

It was yet another surreal moment in what was becoming a life of such moments. Troy and Florence caught each other watching the girl speed away on the ATV. Both had to laugh, it was just too much of a redneck moment to ignore.

Troy held up the object in his right hand.

"Got your flamethrower."

He had no idea if she could hear him at this range but it was what came to mind.

As the girl of the ATV sped away Troy and Florence watched her go away to verify that is what she actually did. The ATV suddenly swerved and there stood a man in one of those funny UN uniforms with a camouflage pattern that wouldn't fit in any where in the US it seemed. He was holding what looked like an old Enfield rifle which set off alarms in Troy's ,ind since they had been fighting against such weapons. But the girl had dodged him and kept going as if she didn't know him.

Florence was somewhat still shooken from her crash and essentially had to double take to really process what was happening around her. Some girl hauling ass in an ATV purposely swerved assumedly to stay out of range of fire from her and Troy. While Florence knew where her gun was if she needed it she certainly wasn't one to start unnecessary nonsense that could be avoided, she wasn't the type to pop a shot and draw extra attention for shits and giggles.

Troy, some distance away, held up what was distinctly her flamethrower and any part she didn't hear she inferred from the situation.

"Thanks," she said loudly, holding a thumbs up if he couldn't hear her.

Florence would scan her surroundings for the most beneficial path avoiding as much hubbub as possible and then motion for Troy to accompany her

Damn...

Troy set down the bucket and the flame thrower in the same motion as he knelt down.

Swinging the .308 bolt rifle off his back he covered the newcomer as quickly as possible while shouting at Florence, "Lookout! Lookout!"

He did not fire, instead giving the man a chance to show his intent, and he prayed that wasn't a mistake.

Sam practically shat himself when he saw the man further down the road point his weapon at him. Sam’s turner was on the ground beside where he was sitting, but out of reach. “Woah! Hey! Don’t shoot!” he waved his hands frantically. He’d already been shot at once today. Once within the last few minutes to be exact. He gestured to the Red Cross on his shoulder sleeve-insignia in case perhaps that’d convince the man not to shoot him.

(OOC: great job guys. time to move this little party forward.)

A woman in a what looked all the world like a pair of khaki colored Dickie's mechanic's coveralls wrapped in artificial christmas tree limbs stepped out of the shadows off a pine thicket not far from Sam and set down a rifle. Carefully holding up her hands at shoulder height she stepped up onto the pavement.

"He is one of those United Nations soldiers. I think he is alone. You two are from Ringgold, right?" She spoke clearly, enunciating her words carefully. It made them think of a high school English teacher, the one everybody had growing up. "I'm Carol, I was with the Dalton group. Those people attacked us too. I don't know if one else is still alive."

She let her words hang in the air for them to think on and waited.

While Troy didn't always make the right decision he did always make decisions quickly.

He let the sniper rifle fall on it's sling and, grabbing the white bucket and homemade flamethrower in either hand, surged to his feet running toward the newly arrived woman and the oddly dressed soldier (medic?).

He ran straight past Florence. If this turned out to be some kind of double weird trap he meant to be closer to them than she was when it started closing.

"Well if y'all ain't gonna kill us we all need to get the fuck outta here! All this noise will draw Zeke like beer draws rednecks and just like them he comes hungry!"

He fairly skidded to a halt next to the camoflaged lady.

"I don't suppose you know a safe direction to flee in ma'am?"

The woman calling herself Carol nodded quickly. Motioning towards the wooded side of the road she said, "We'll head over towards the bottom of this ridge. We can make our way into the wooded area and over towards downtown."

She turned and pointed as if denoting a path she was familiar with and continued, "Once we get up to the other side of there woods we can cut back over that road and head uphill to those block-like buildings. It's the old county jail, it was still being used as a training center and storage before all of this. I have been hiding out there."

In what was meant to be a friendly gesture but may have seemed more than a little insane given the circumstances Troy smiled at the new folks.

"Howdy. I'm Troy."

He set down the big white bucket of explosive redneck napalm and waved Florence to come on this way then picked it back up and headed in the direction Carol indicated.

'It'll be really f'n cool if this is not a trap,' he thought on the way.

A jail could make a decent shelter if it wasn't full of cannibal ex-inmates.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:40, Wed 21 Oct 2020.

Everything happened pretty fast nowadays, she barely had time to tell at Troy before he was telling for her to watch out. Almost as if by instinct at this point she dropped to the dirt and slid her bike down next to her, getting ready to pull her rifle if she needed to. They seemed almost as shocked to see her and Troy though so she doubted they were with the same group that just tried to murder everyone. Florence was happy to let Troy lead the conversation as the newbies seemed to actually maybe be not a threat

After a quick exchange between Troy and the strangers he motioned for her to follow. Good enough for Florence, Troy had proven himself in the short time they'd known each other to be a decent enough fellow. She wasn't always the most trusting but her instincts about people weren't terrible so once you cleared the ' not a psychopathic murderer' test you were good in her book.

Florence lifted herself out of the dirt and began jogging her bike to catch up to the group. She didn't offer an introduction or any information, not yet, these people could still be dangerous so she stayed quiet and ready to take action if the situation called for it. A jail sounded like a decent idea, but jails also had alot of books and crannies where the biters could hide so it was a toss up far as Florence was concerned.

One minute Sam was in the dirt with a gun pointed at him, next minute some lady comes out of nowhere and everyone is talking of heading back into the trees! He’d almost forgotten about the rows of bodies on the road and the teenager that sped past on an ATV, but he hadn’t, he had just decided to concern himself with the present. The woman had introduced herself as Carol and the man, Troy to which Sam gave a nod in combination with a casual two-fingered salute. Before he replied however, Troy had turned to gesture to his friend and Carol was going on about an old jail. Nothing made sense to Sam at the moment, everyone was acting like they were living in mad max. Had society collapsed in that short time he was in the forest!? All he knew was that this jail must surely have someone of authority there that he could consult with or at least figure out what was happening. He stood up and straightened the sky-blue beret, patting himself down of dust. He bent down and picked up his rifle and the briefcase.

"We will need to keep it slow and quiet." She turned and looked down the road at Florence. "That is a neat bike, I should get one like it. But, we'll be passing very close to an area that used to house refugees and was overrun. There's a lot of them stinks in there. You'll need to leave that motor off. I'll go slow and try to keep us from running into any trouble. We should be there in about thirty minutes or so."

Carol spoke as if she had been in the are for some time. Looking over at the rows of dead she sighed and then looked at each of the newcomers in turn.

"When it started we had a detachment of infantry here. Mostly local national guardsmen from surrounding counties. It went well at first, but later they took over and started doing their own thing." She looked over at the rows of corpses again. "Long story short we fought bitterly with them, captured what was left, and then brought them out her to be delivered to the Army. The soldiers who showed up took and lined them up and shot them for being deserters and criminals. Don't feel sorry for them, they got what they deserved."

Sam flinched as Carol explained the current political situation. “Um, sorry to interject, but uh, ‘overrun’!? ‘When it started’ ? What are you talking about?” . Sam turned back the way he’d come, “myself and my group were ambushed back that way by what I can only describe as frenzied crack-fiends; has the country fallen into anarchy!? Is it under martial law and if so, where is the closest military presence!?” Sam started shooting questions off at a rapid rate as his mind began to explode with all the queries he’d been suppressing. “Is the whole country like this? Is everyone carrying weapons like you guys!?” He was looking around at the others now. A strange feeling of vulnerability manifested itself as Sam remembered the dated boomstick dangling from his shoulder.

"Where the hell have you been friend? It's been like this for months."

Troy stepped a bit closer and looked into Sam's eyes to see if his pupils were dilated unevenly.

"You hit your head or sumthin? Got any gaps in your memory?"

Troy looked at Florence to gauge her reaction as well.

"I don't always carry this many guns. I just don't have anywhere to store my extra gear at the moment since my home was destroyed by a group of assholes."

"Still anybody who wants to live goes armed. Where did you pick up that antique rifle by the way? It's an old British one right?"

“So we were too late?” Sam mutters to himself. Snapping back into focus Sam looks back at Troy. “Yeah, British I believe. Shitty UN surplus; we got stitched up being such a small, almost unofficial, mission” he replied taking his rifle off his shoulder and running his fingers along the holes in the handguard. “So-uh, have you got the virus by any chance?”. He unhooked the strap of his medbag from that bag itself and threaded it through the handle of the briefcase before linking it back onto the medbag. “Are you sick or anything? Any weird symptoms? I imagine it isn’t under control with the whole total societal collapse thing”.

"'Societal Collapse'? You take penicillin for that right?"

Troy smirked at his little joke.

"It's a good reliable weapon. Sgt. York captured like 150 Germans with one. Well an American made copy but that don't really matter now does it."

"Alexei checked everyone in my group out yesterday and everybody was fine. Scratches and cuts that need watching. Of course that was before we shot it out with a fuckin MG platoon from the local chapter of the Shitbird Army."

Real, no bullshit, murder flashed behind the tall hillbilly's eyes when he said the last part.

"Best we keep moving. Nothing tastes better to Zeke than a drag ass."

He started moving, following Carol's directions, but not so fast that Sam couldn't respond.

Sam stood dumbfounded for a moment. Still so confused about everything that’s happening. He nodded and followed suit.

 The group made their way through the woods, if anything they seemed a little quirky but the apocalypse teaches you that people can be real good at hiding their true intentions or instability. This wasnt always the case, this Sam fellow didn't do a good job of hiding his instability at all, Florence would have to keep an eye on this guy. Like seriously where had this guy been? She was sort of jealous of this ball of neurosises, while Florence and everyone had been surviving this guy seemed to have been completely removed from the bullshit. On one hand he'd probably avoided a lot of hardship, but in a new world experience is what kept you alive and he certainly seemed like he was lacking.

Troy looked to Florence to confirm that this guy was for real. She shot back a look that was her closest 'I don't trust him yet, he's a loose cannon.' face.

 Carol commented on Florence's bike and maybe wanting one like it, which as Florence could recreate anything on memory alone wouldn't be too hard. She'd always had a photographic memory, but it wasn't something she bragged about, she was a get the job done and leave it be sort of girl. Carol told her to keep her bike engine off,ummmmm duh lady, Florence had been surviving on her own for a while and she actually took a dash of offense that Carol assumed she might be dumb enough to lure Biters. If anything, all these chatty Kathy's would do that before Florence would.

Florence smirked at Troy's penicillin joke, quickly reverting back to her silent and serious face. Not that these strangers couldn't grow on her but everyone had to go through the 'make sure you aren't a cannibal or a serial killer' phase so she remained quiet and vigilant not getting distracted by the small talk.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:11, Sun 25 Oct 2020.

Carol led them along a very slim, but very well used trail. It was so well defined that once it had been made obvious to them they couldn't help but see it. It led down the steep ridged from the north bypass, cut back and angled to the west to run parallel to a set of railroad tracks that ran through downtown Dalton. Though only ten yards or so from the clearing along the railroad, the path Carol led them along was well concealed.

In places Florence road along, getting off of the bike only on the steepest of the hills in order to avoid too much strain and potential noise. And true to her word Carol lad them to a old and forgotten back that crossed the tracks and let them creep up next to a partially burned office complex not far from the local hospital. Across a four lane road a sign read 'Hamilton County Health Department, Whitfield County Sheriff's Department Auxiliary Storage, Police Services Center, Georgia Dept. of Transportation Lot 7B' with an arrow pointing up a side road.

The area was busy with undead. Many of which were traveling towards the sounds of the recent gunfire and explosions. A quick count revealed nearly three hundred scattered about in line of sight of their little shadowed nook alongside the old office complex.

"We should go inside. Hide and wait until they have mostly moved on." Carol said. "All that commotion has them stirred up."

"I'm all for it. Let's go."

Troy set down the bucket for a second and checked out the flapping ripped seat of his cargo shorts.

Shaking his head he picked the bucket back up.

Sam stared in disbelief at the congregation of wandering corpses. “What are they?...”.
Perplexed, he took his beret off and ran a hand through his hair as he gazed; frowning.

"Tell ya all about it inside hoss. Suffice it to say they ain't our friends."

Troy made to guide the stunned soldier inside

Florence was quick to flow along, they had to get inside quick as they could..it only took one person being noisy, then one biter noticing, and before ya knew it all of them knew there was dinner.

This new guy seemed entirely baffled at the site of the Biters. Florence was sure it wasn't this guy Sam's fault but it made her cranky nonetheless. Everyone he was talking to had lost family and here he was Ignorant to the world,some bullshit if you asked her.

the office had been used by several little companies at once. The front end, where most of the glass intact, and had floor to ceiling blinds, had been a medical billing company.

To the middle two businesses had been in operation,o one to either side of the hallway. The offices of Dempsey, Mullins, Smith, and Taylor; LLC ran along the right with a walls covered in posters of their long running tabletop role playing game A Fantasy Life For Me.

On the left side, where most of the burn damage was, had been the offices of the Democratic Party of Dalton offices. The fire damage actually looked as if it predated the rise of the dead.

The back of the building was the headquarters of Fire In My Loins adult productions. The walls displayed pictures of pretty girls clad in tight clothing, workout gear, beachwear, and intimate apparel. The offices were all set up to be used as shooting locations for internet adult cam services.

But, it was clear of undead. Carol entered through a side door that she actually had a key for. Once inside there were spray painting instructions pointing out traps, leaks in the roof, and escape routes.

"'Cause Zeke don't read so good. I dig it."

Troy came inside last. Making certain that Florence and Sam both got through the doors and then that the door was shut fast behind them.

He unceremoniously dumped the load he had been carrying for what seemed like hours with only the bucket of incendiary goop being set down gently next to a load bearing wall.

His pack, 2 rifles, and odds and ends. He barely registered the oddity that even then he still had 3 gun attached to his body.

"You got somewhere I can change clothes Carol? My Mama wouldn't approve of me standing in your house with my ass hangin' out."

He hoped his shorts could be saved. If not thought he figured it wouldn't be that hard to replace them. A lot easier than replacing his Hennessy hammock that he'd abandoned in the now destroyed Waffle House.

He set the flamethrower Florence had built on top of the white plastic bucket.

Inside, Sam rolled up the beret and stowed it under the right shoulder strap of his shirt. Troy set down what resembled a flame thrower; a contraption which sparked Sam’s interest.

“Woah! She’s a beaut!” He grinned from ear to ear as he squatted down in front of Florence’s flame thrower, his arms resting on his knees.

“This is a huge step up from the deodorant flame throwers from highschool camps! Who’s engineering skills do I credit for this beauty?” He said without taking his eyes off the flame thrower.

Carol looked back at Troy as she slipped out of the surplus GI camouflage poncho she was wearing. She was skinny, shapely, but maybe too skinny. Stress, he thought, a lot of people didn't eat so well when the anxiety mounted daily. She pointed towards the back the office suites.

"The porn shop offers the most privacy. There is a catch barrel back there too." She said. "It's close to full after that storm passed through. you can get cleaned up back there. Look in the side office. Those people went through a lot of wardrobe. Their should be some sewing supplies back there."

She turned and began undressing without modesty or care. She had scars along her torso that showed her resilience; pink, recently healed bite marks. She also seems to be sporting enough stabbing weapons to arms a culinary school; knives, sharpened stakes, screwdrivers, ice picks, sharpened tent pegs, skewers, scissors, and sharpened rebar.

Troy made his way back to the porn shop and started removing his attached kit. It was a much more involved process than dropping his pack and extra stuff. He dug through the pack and pulled out a clean pair of cargo shorts and a "Tanner's Bait Shop" t-shirt.

He quickly gave himself a hikers bath from the rain barrel.

Before he got dressed again he decided to look around and see what was around in the offices. He strolled around in his boxers with the stubby grease-gun smg hanging around his neck looking in, around, and under everything close by.

Troy was shocked to find two unexpected things in the porn shop; a small seamstress shop complete with fabric, threads, more needles than a junkie's paradise, clothing patterns and the unbelievably well stocked narcotics case filled with everything from antibiotics in several forms, legitimate painkillers, muscle relaxers, vitamins, and electrolyte replacements to cocaine, MDMA, barbiturates, heroine, tabs of acid, and several varieties of marijuana.

The rest of the shop was a collection of pornographic paraphernalia, clothing, and electronics. Out of curiosity a quick serves of the 'Males Wardrobe' did yield a pair of Levis overalls in classical denim, an authentic looking 'Ride the Lightning' t-shirt, and a pair of tiger-striped fatigues cut down and sewn into cargo shorts.

A thought struck him after a moment. There were literally thousands of condoms in the little porn shop. Could they be used for anything?

Ooc- lol thousands of condoms, make a raft.

Florence found a wall to lean her bike on. She always took care to make sure it was well supported so it wouldn't call over, ol' Lady Ghost Rider and Florence had been through a lot together and she'd been good to Florence so it was only fair to return the favor. She would do a building search soon, she wouldn't just take someone at their word that she was safe here, this new world didn't provide such luxuries.

The building seemed interesting, pretty livable but she couldn't call how defendable it was at first glance. Florence saw the new guy crouch near and admire her handywork. Not that she wasn't proud of everything she made but she was also her own harshest critic, she could and would do better, she wasn't a perfectionist but set large personal goals.

"I made it," Florence said in response to Sam's question he'd asked into the aether.
" The fuel dispersal is a mess but I can fix that." She looked away,paused, and then looked back to Sam. "So seriously though have you been under a rock? How do you not know about Biters?"

Carol began to get undress, not phasing Florence much. Along with basic humanity for some, modesty took a second place to survival, it was just safer to undress with someone watching your back. Biters didn't care about your modesty, they'd bite your tit right off if you let em. Then she saw the bite wounds on her torso and she was taken aback.

"You got bit?!" she said backing up a step from Carol instinctively.

Troy resisted the urge to loot the drug stash. Instead he took a couple of ibuprofen from his own stock. Grunt Vitamins they'd called them in the Army but he had taken plenty of them driving trucks too.

He put the camo shorts on thinking, not for the first time today, that he needed more appropriate clothes if he was going to keep having to fight the Asshat Army. The Metallica shirt he stuffed into his pack along with his own shorts. Donning the Megadeath shirt he laid the torn shorts on the table and looked over the sewing and alterations equipment. No great shakes with a needle he decided he would leave his shorts here and maybe someone who was better at it could get some use out of them.

Carol looked back at Florence and shrugged.

"Yeah, we used to think it was how the affliction that made them was transmitted." Carol pulled out a box of antiseptic wipes and began cleaning her body carefully. "Turns out it was the radiation from that exploded satellite. I've been bitten something like eleven times. The trick is cauterize the bites that break the skin, lightly, keep the wounds clean, take a stiff course of antibiotics and steroids, and something for the pain like Tylenol or Ibuprofen."

She turned, wearing clean underwear and t-shirt now, and lifted the shirt's hem a little to show a scar over her hip. She ran a finger over it and then turned enough to show the exit side of the wound. It was noticeably larger.

"This was from a three-fifty-seven." She said. "When we were clearing the police services center several months back. There were basically two factions within our group. One was led by an eccentric lawyer who had been a cop. She tried to take over everything for herself. That fight almost killed me. And made me realize what it really took to survive."

Sam looked over his shoulder to meet Florences’ gaze. “I’m sure you can. I can tell just by looking at this. I like to tinker, but I can see some clear methodical and obsessive order in its design”. He turned around completely and removed his medical satchel and along with it, the brief case, before sitting on the ground.
Florence began to walk away, but paused before asking how he was so unaware of the whole situation around him. “Oh, uh, I arrived here only a few months back and have been within the walls of a military base up until just this morning. I was sent from down under to help form a quarantine to prevent some infection from leaving this country; dunno if you could tell from the accent” he smirked before angling his left shoulder towards Florence to display the Australian Flag insignia.
“They kept us-” Sam noticed Carol undressing and stumbled on his words for a moment. Not wanting be disrespectful and draw attention as he figured she was a seasoned veteran to this new world, he proceeded to fumble for his canteen, looking down and away pretending not to have noticed.
“Um... they kept us on the base for so long that we had no idea that the infection has escalated to such a degree. It was like being fast forwarded into the future as everything was fine when we arrived the months prior.” He found his canteen on the back of his belt and freed it from its casing.
“I’m still not completely sure what has happened while I’ve been locked away, but I sure hope this infection hasn’t spread across the globe” Sam had been walking all day and it had all caught up to him in that moment holding his canteen. He opened the cap and took several long gulps of water.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:06, Thu 29 Oct 2020.

Troy came back into the room, clean and redressed, and frowned at the conversation.

"Well it takes a new strain of the Flu about a month to reach every corner of the globe. This is way more aggressive."

He'd heard Carol explain how to stop a person from turning and he immediately thought of the man who had fled into the forrest a couple of days ago to save his wife and child. 'Sure as fuck wish I'd known this then...'
This message was last edited by the player at 20:27, Tue 03 Nov 2020.

Florence listened to Carol explain about the bites and felt pretty stupid. Of course it wasn't the bites, she knew that on some level. Another case of too many movies, they'd only done very little to prepare people for this. It was the 'experts' in the apocalypse who often went first along with their overconfidence. Seeing bites would never stop being a trigger though, a sickening reminder that's one's loved ones would consume you in a heart beat.

Florence listened to Sam's story and gave him a little more leeway as far as judging him. Wasnt necessarily his fault he was Ignorant to the new world, and good for him, but also Florence wouldn't allow his inexperience to drag any of them down.

" You're lucky, you missed the worst parts but it's certainly not getting any better either," she said flashing back to the initial outbreak before mentally shaking it off.b" Just be more careful than you think you gotta be, not in an offensive way but till you know what you're in the middle of you're a liability."

Florence didn't sound any harsher to Sam than she had to, it wasn't an insult to her but a fact. He had alot of catching up to do, him losing his shit in the middle of an attack would endanger everyone.

Troy came back in the room in new shorts that didn't highlight his assets like his damaged ones. She smirked, even in hell they still had wardrobe malfunctions. This was a good time for her to go wash up, of course she'd be searching as much of the building as she could first, she was still on alert.

"I'm gonna wash up, look around," Florence said to Troy as she went to look around where Troy had come from.

Troy found a place to sit where he could see the route back to the porn studio (but not actually see back there) and started disassembling (field strip not complete disassembly) and cleaning each of the guns he had been carrying.

He looked around at the place and wondered how secure it was.

"So...Sam,..What's in the Briefcase?"

Sam looked down at the ground between his splayed-out legs. He was flattered by the warm welcome, he smiled and gave a short exhale out of his nose. He knew his companions had been through something serious and traumatic so he understood their wariness.
He looked up when he heard his name.
“The briefca-... oh shit! I forgot about that” he unthreaded the briefcase from his satchel beside him and placed it on the ground between his legs.
“I actually wouldn’t have the faintest idea...” he said observing the dinted metal case.
He fingered around the handle area to see whether there was a keyhole or not.

Carol came into the room, she was cleaner and had changed into clean clothes consisting a long sleeved camouflaged t-shirt, black cargo pants, and a camouflaged bandana wrapped around her hair.

"Those walkers are all moving to the sound of that gunfight. It might be a while before it's clear. We can drop our big gear here and move out at dusk." Carol suggested to them. "It's only me and an old cop named Sanchez. He has a crippled knee so he minds the fort a lot. We have enough gear there to arm and equip around thirty people easily. Plus there is food, water, coffee, beds, and safety. We can retrieve our stuff here tomorrow once the walkers have moved on somewhat."

"Sounds good but I've got to find the people I misplaced down at the Awful Waffle and lead them up to the jail. They made it out the back while Flo and I were creating a distraction. looked like they got clear and they should be out of the path of the dead headed toward the noise."

"Still...gotta go look for 'em. Those folks have been through a lot."

Carol sat down nearby and set a flask on a table corner between herself and the rest of them. She smiled, it was forced, trying to cover the nervousness she felt about what she was about to say.

"So, why were you guys fighting those people with the machine guns?" Carol said without looking directly at them. "I saw part of the fight. I was scrounging over near that Walmart by the highway."

She gave it a moment and added, "I was thinking about helping, but I wasn't sure who to help at first. Those others were mostly kids. So, I thought, help them, you know. Then I saw those assholes from the national guard with them. They killed a lot of the survivors here, too."

"Three days ago there was a stable town in Ringgold. Well provisioned and well run by the Rev and the other older folks. I made it all the way down from the Ocoee and was doin what I could to help out."

"Then, these motherfuckers, this Shithead army, and a group of local teenaged junior shitheads broke down the defense plan and trained a horde the size of fucking Chattanooga right over the town. I tried to run interference. Killed a couple of the assholes behind it. Some folks got out and headed into the hills. Zeke don't like slopes and tight underbrush."

"The fuckface army had planned on it. I came up on a group of them during an ambush. Aced the boss and a few of the shooters. Mostly fuckin' kids again."

"Got a few survivors clear and led them down here but apparently I fucked up again and a group of these assholes with a bunch of ATVs and machineguns came right at us. You saw what happened there. They opened up without a damn word. If we hadn't had sentries out we'd of all been done right there."

Troy picked up the flask and without so much as sniffing it slugged back a drink.

"I have not done a fucking thing right for three days that didn't involve murdering someone."

"But if I can guide those folks to your jail and they can be safe there for a while that'll be a fucking win."

He took another drink and then offered the flask to Sam.

"Then I can get on to what I've got to do next."

Troy casually worked his way through his semi-ridiculous arsenal of firearms checking and cleaning each one. He seemed able to converse and do the work with little distraction as if from long practice. He showed special care to the various suppressors since noise discipline was so important to survival in the new world.

He also set out a Summer Sausage, a sleeve of saltine crackers, and a block of cheese and sliced it all up with the wicked sharp knife he kept on his belt. The blade of the knife was unusal. Not some long pointed klingon thing designed to kill humans but a slightly curved blade with a semi-blunt point made for utility work. Cutting food and carving wood.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:40, Thu 05 Nov 2020.

Sam looked up from the briefcase to listen to the conversation. Hearing that the National Guard has formed a semi-militant marauder gang was a struggle to wrap his head around.
He leant forward and took the flask offered by Troy. Hovering his nose above the nozzle of the flask, he raised his his eyebrows in approval and took a swift swig.
With the liquid sitting in his mouth, he inspected the flask before holding it back out to Troy.
“Sorry mate, I’m sure you explained it to me already, but why is the National Guard going around terrorising everyone?”

Troy set the flask back where Carol had placed it.

"I have no idea at all. First I heard of the Guard being involved was when Carol told us about it."

"May be she has some idea?"

He looked at her hopefully.

Carol took some cheese, sausage, and a few crackers and sat back against the wall. She ate a bite, chewing slowly with the kind of relish that made them believe she was used to eating the same fare day in and day out. She swallowed, looked at her hand contemplating weather to keep going or answer the question.

"The Guard was called in back when they first began to see there was real trouble on the horizon. Dalton, it turns out, had and arsenal and infantry." Carol said. "After a while, two weeks into the fight in town maybe, it became obvious that the world was sliding down the maw of those dead things. This major, one of the few real soldiers, organized everyone interested into his own army and tried to take over. They executed as many of the living as the dead it seemed."

Carol sort of zoned out for a moment and fought back tears. Coming back to the moment she looked at Troy and said, "The kids are the worst. So easy to sway and recruit. So easy to teach violence and hatred."

Florence took a look around making sure no dead would break in while she was washing up, holes in the walls, doors that looked locked but werent, she had over time made a checklist of things to look over in any place she went to. It was better for her photographic memory the more she saw, that way chance was less of a factor in finding an escape root, should shit randomly be dropped in their lap.

Florence saw the medicine cabinet and was impressed how well it was stocked. It would be so easy to loot, it was an instinct that got drilled into any survivor. The true merit of any post-apocalyptic citizen was NOT looting when In a scenario that didn't call for it. She'd definitely check on what the story was, there was stuff in there that could be very helpful but she wasnt gonna take the chance on taking anything without asking.

Florence washed up, getting clean was few and far between at times whether it was a lack of clean water or a lack of time to be comfortable in one spot. It had been a while since she'd had real backup, so while she never truly got comfortable this certainly was a relief to be able to wash with less worry.

She found some less risque clothes in the available wardrobe, someone had left a men's Playstation shirt and some beige cargo pants, while it wasn't the most form fitting outfit she made sure it wasn't overly baggy, she wasn't gonna get killed by snagging her outfit, talk about an embarrassing death. She made her way back into the room to hear a little bit bout the National Guard.

"Takes a special kind of asshole to hand children a gun to kill other people,  Biters are just an excuse those assholes use to play out their power fantasies. Fucking men..." She looked at Troy and Sam."No offense intended of course ."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:07, Wed 18 Nov 2020.

"No offense taken. Anyone who thinks child-soldiers are a good idea is a special piece of shit."

"Still...Best I could tell it was a woman calling the shots in Ringgold. She made a little speech about killing Ol' Cyrus Carver, a friend of mine, and tried to ace the Rev up close with a holdout pistol."

"The Ringleader of the teenage asshole brigade was a girl too, Mindy Carver. Cyrus'
Granddaughter. His museum is where they got a lot of their hardware. Old dude was a retired Frog Man, Navy SEAL, I'm guessing she is how they got the drop on him."

"I killed both of them. Zero confirmed kills in two years in Afghanistan. Never even saw anyone clearly enough to draw a bead. Come home and have to shoot two women in my home town."

"So, you know, "Fuckin' Women" too huh?"

Listening to Carol’s explanation, Sam stared at the ground. The degradation of morals and ethical practice within what was once the Nation Guard and the consequential anarchy that the collapse of authority seemed to create made Sam wonder if it had anything to do with the growing air of uncertainty that seemed to manifest itself at the Dalton base during the short time he was there and the visibly concerned discourse between the American officers.

When Sam looked up, Troy was in a discussion with the Girl he’d been travelling with before Sam had met them. He was unsure whether they were making light-hearted jabs at each other or not and so, feeling slightly uncomfortable, Sam decided it was his turn to go for a gander about the building.

He got up from the floor and walked around the girl who was standing over them before wandering down the corridor that cut down the centre of the building.

Taking a right about half way down the corridor, he found himself standing amongst offices. The room was fairly large and compromised of a dropped ceiling which appeared partially collapsed with some of the particleboard tiles missing or broken over desks. The state of the room in general gave the appearance that its inhabitants left in a hurry. Other than the few desks that lined the front of the business, the room was filled with office cubicles.

Walking over to the closest desk, Sam bent over a computer and shook the mouse while tapping the space bar to see if it was in sleep mode.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:20, Wed 11 Nov 2020.

Sam, mouse in hand and staring at the computer scree intently, heard a grumble and wet smack against the wall behind him. Turning his head he came face to face with one of the undead. It was staring into the room from the partially burnt wall and shivered. Pulling his hands up, still gripping the mouse, Sam accidentally drug the wire for the mouse forward and hooked a table lamp and drug it off into the floor.

There was a crash of desktop furniture that made Carol jump up. Troy, startled, reached for his pistol before he thought about in. Florence was one her feet, heart raving from the suddenly scare. Sam stood there in amazement as the thing in the window reached in, seemingly unaware that is was way to far away to reach him, and continued to smash it face into the damaged wall over and over until its eye was pulped. The thing never noticed. It just kept trying to get to Sam.

The reek of death suddenly escalated inside. The wind hadn't shifted, the undead had. They could hear scratching and bumping along the wall outside. A lot of scratching and bumping.

"Oh, damn." Carol muttered.

Once the initial jolt was over Troy set to re-strapping all of his gear to himself with impressive speed. In moments he had all of his gear except the second rifle and the second pack back on.

He spoke very quietly to Carol, almost mouthing the words, "Is this going to be a problem?"

Carol nodded.

"Yeah." She whispered. "This place can't take a lot of them forcing their way in. It isn't really sealed, just closed up tight."

"Alright then get your travelin' gear together. If we have to move out follow me. Even if I'm going the wrong way I'll be making a path. Okay?"

He turned back and forth looking to see if he needed to add anything from here to his load.

"Flo, maybe we can hit 'em with your flamethrower on the way out? Pike seemed to think they are afraid of fire and I'd sure like to know for certain."

"Adding some alcohol should thin my homemade napalm down enough to push through it."

He stepped over to the hallway that headed to the back.

"I'll go give Sam a heads up."

He headed into the back with all of his own gear strapped on and the spare suppressed Browning Buckmark .22 pistol in his right hand.

Sam grimaced as he stood staring at the moving corpse. “Woah, you really are no longer human are ya?” he muttered. He took a few steps closer to the creature, still well out of reach, but enough to get a better look.
It’s face was making a wet crunching sound as it vigorously smashed it against the wall; it’s cheek bone, and area around the now almost puréed eye, shattered as a consequence.
A long string of saliva mixed with blood extended down from a gaping hole resulting from the absence of a jaw, possibly suggesting it had recently been indulging in the flesh of the living or perhaps just that the vessel’s decaying innards were beginning to leak out.
“Strewth! That’s fucked mate!” Sam clasped a hand over his mouth and nose as the reak of death escalated upon having stepped closer. “Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘dropping your guts’ ”.

Fuckin of course.

That was the thought that rushed through her head after the initial shock wore off. Eventually your mind adjusted but it was like your friend popping around a corner initially it made everyone's nerves shatter, the true strength was building then back up and sticking the landing.They might not be able to take everything. But there was no way she was leaving her bike for the Biters to nibble on. Those undead dummies didn't know the difference between brains and tire treads and she was partial to this bike.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for only a second but it would help her focus and recall her surroundings to aid for an easy escape. She had done a pretty thorough tour earlier so the ins and outs she would be able to recall with certainty.

"I'll tell you how to get out of here best I can, unless Carol got some secret escape hatch."  She said joking a little in the scenario while still nerve wracked and very aware every second counted between life and being biter chow.

"She's all yours Troy, I'll get her prepped and pretty but I reckon you're a better shot than me even with homemade I'll give cover with Carol and we can get all four of us out of here"

Florence grabbed the Flamethrower from her gear and prepped it for some fuel to be injected.

Carol stepped up and pointed out window to a small hill. Just behind it was a road with a strip mall of abandoned shops.

"Behind that little mall is a small park area. It is completely enclosed. We go through that shop on the end. It used to be a Korean owned happy ending massage parlor, but it is a secure structure. I have a key to the front and back doors." Carol held up a quite full key ring. "We can get into that little secured area and hoof it up the steep side of the hill to the police services center."

Between the office building and the strip mall was about one hundred yards of parking lots, side roads, shrubbery, and at least a hundred undead. Most of the undead were actually moving towards the side of the office building, kind of luring them out of the way, but putting considerably more stress on the weaker parts of the building.

Troy stepped around the corner with the Browning pistol at eye level and snapped three quick shots into the forehead of the mangled zombie.

The sound was akin to someone hitting three quick rimshots with a drumstick.

"Keep your voice down Sam." He whispered from very close to the other man's ear.

"They're drawn by sound. Especially voices."

"Get your stuff. We gotta go."

He headed back up front hopefully with the UN soldier in tow. Time to get that flame thrower running.

“Shit! You gave me a heart attack!” Sam yelled in a whisper. He grinned and gave Troy a hearty slap on the back before following him back to the front of the building.
“It’s worse than I could have ever imagined”. He scooped his satchel, and with it the briefcase, off the ground and slung it over his shoulder.
“It’s like something out of a movie!” The joking smile had faded by this last comment and he paused for a moment as he thought about the implications of what he’d just said.

As the body of the undead fell away Troy could see a half dozen others immediately beyond it. The next to step up and reach for them through the hole in the wall was an elderly man with part of one arm missing.

It was both enlightening and disheartening; the mass of the undead was being drawn together along that side of the building, but it was building into a substantial horde that could wreak real havoc if things went wrong. Stopping and looking back at the wall it dawned on Troy how the building was damaged in the first place. So, he made a note to himself not to use the flamethrower inside a building he occupied or intended to.

Emerging back in the front of the shelter Troy stuffed the little browning pistol back into the pack he had liberated from the psycho ginger and picked up Flo's flamethrower.

"I think I'll call her "Aunt Irma"."

He smiled and the looked to Carol.

"Just unlock the doors and let me go first okay?"

Carol nodded and moved to the doors. Looking back at the others she said, "Here we go."

With that she pulled a bar out of the door handles and pushed both doors open. Outside the undead could be seen as they shambled across the parking lot. A handful noticed the movement of the doors but only three actually spotted the little band of people in the office complex.

So far.

Troy lit the pilot light on Aunt Irma and strolled out the door like he was on the way to sunday school.

He scanned the area and noted the deaders that took notice of the door opening.

Since they were still a little out of range he set off following the directions Carol had given them.

Florence rolled her bike in one hand and had a pistol ready in the other hand should even her limited combat prowess be needed.

She listened to Troy and chuckled
"Or maybe some name that doesn't make her sound like an 80 year old with a menthol addiction," she gave him a light push from behind in fun.

You were never truly ready to face the Biters, slow as they were they had ways of sneaking up on ya. She was gonna keep in tight formation but was ready to get the bike goin if splitting up became necessary.

OOC: nice, especially that bit about a menthol addiction

"You just had to meet my Aunt Irma. She burnt down two houses, two ex-husbands trucks, and a Piggly Wiggly between stays in the Big House down in Unadilla. She did smoke menthols now you mention it..."

Following the others outside, he watched in awe as the dead stumbled across the car park. They really were just like out of a film, fortunately, unlike some particular films, they didn’t seem to run at the group. The most they could do was stagger and for that he was grateful.
He removed his rifle from his shoulder and gripped it with both hands as he moved with the group.

The undead took particular notice to the little group as they emerged from the office building. Several more turned and began making their way towards the group of people as those in front the building closed to within ten yards of the group.

Carol closed and secured the doors into the office complex. No need in wasting a perfectly good place to hold up if it wasn't necessary to do so.

"Can you light those dead assholes up?" Carol asked. "They really don't like fire. It might give us a bit of breathing room."

21:52, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 9 using 3d4+2.  Aunt Irma's Debutant Ball.

Troy started with short sprays, as brief as he could keep them and still reach the targets, and directed the flame and each of the closest zombies as he moved forward.

Irma had more recoil than Troy figured was possible. But physics was never his strong suit. However using a homemade flamethrower to hose down undead cannibals with liquid fire did seem to be in his wheelhouse. Four undead met a roiling, roaring flame-induced whoosh of grisly death in less time than any of them would have guessed was possible.

The flamethrower worked. It kicked like a 10 gauge coach gun, but it worked. The flaming undead seemed to panic. Or do what the little group assumed was panic; they twisted about stepping erratically about like a drunk woken by a loud noise with no understanding of what to do. Then thay seemed to just collapse and burn. It stunk something terrible. It was quite repulsive to witness also.

Florence marveled at the flamethrower's success despite the nausea and teary eyes. That fuel mix was really rough on the eyes. But looking around made it worth it. The shambling undead seemed to be more interested in moving away from the flaming corpses than moving towards the two legged buffets.

"That right there is sweeter than strawberry jam."

Troy, grateful yet again for his pyramex goggles, was clearly pleased with the results but it didn't stop him moving along toward their goal.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:52, Sat 05 Dec 2020.

Sam could feel the heat from the spewing column of fire on his bare arms and face from the back of the group.
“Christ! I’d hate to be one of them.” He laughed through a grimace, as a flaming corpse crumpled to the ground like a sack of wet potatoes.

"That's awesome." Carol said. "Come on, lets get out of here."

With that she took of trotting towards the little strip mall across the street. She drew a lot of cannibal attention, many of the undead began moving towards her. And she was moving too fast, quickly outpacing the range of the flamethrower.

"Keep up. Sing out if you fall."

Troy hustled to stay ahead of Carol and any undead that got too close got a short spray of hillbilly napalm in the face.

21:48, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 10 using 3d4+2.  Aunt Irma's Debutant Ball.

Oh man that was a rough smell Florence thought as the Flamethrower started doing it's thang. She was like a proud mama bird watching it torch the Biters, there weren't many feelings for her that matches a successful invention, even if Troy wanted to name it Irma.

She listened and watched the others, ready to follow carol. She figured it was better to run than try and shoot any of them, the fire was doing its job and she was gonna let it. When carol began her escape route Florence would be right on her heels, no wasting time, they were gonna do this.

"Well then Irma it is," She smirked at Troy. "Can't spit in the face of true feminism now can I?"

Oh man that was a rough smell Florence thought as the Flamethrower started doing it's thang. She was like a proud mama bird watching it torch the Biters, there weren't many feelings for her that matches a successful invention, even if Troy wanted to name it Irma.

She listened and watched the others, ready to follow carol. She figured it was better to run than try and shoot any of them, the fire was doing its job and she was gonna let it. When carol began her escape route Florence would be right on her heels, no wasting time, they were gonna do this.

Troy was mid whoosh, sending another trio of undead to the grass aflame, when Irma sputtered and coughed. Troy realized the tank was near empty. Irma's destructive debut had run its course.

Still more undead made their way towards the little group of people. Their narrow escape corridor was growing narrower by the minute.

(OOC: Everyone make and athletics roll to flee in an orderly fashion and narrowly escaped becoming a cannibal buffet. Or something like that.)

21:14, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 11 using 3d4+2.  Escape the Buffet.

"Well damn."

He shifted the flamer to his left hand, pulled his suppressed Kel-Tech 33 with his right, and got busy escaping (though he won't fire unless it absolutely necessary).

Troy being Troy he helped the others as much as possible.

Ooc yus partial success haha so close to a  failure

19:26, Today: Florence Whitley rolled 7 using 3d4.

00:14, Today: Sam Clifford rolled 7 using 3d4+1.  Scat stat.

(OOC: Bloody hell thats unlucky; had a +1 and all.)

(OOC:09:35, Today: GM rolled 8 using 3d4+1 ((3,2,2)). Carol running away)

Carol drew too much attention to soon. Fleeing the way she did. And soon she was having to use a cut-down baseball bat to get through the undead. This only made it tougher for the others who took off in her wake, but moments too late to avoid trouble.

Florence, pushing her bike alongside was doing well until a pair of undead ambled into to her bike, smashing it into her as well. Shouldering them back she pushed on but one of the undead lunged up from the ground and bit into the rear tire of her bike. Florence savagely yanked on the bike, dragging the thing forward by its teeth, and pulled the tire off of the back wheel so that when the wheel spun it cut the inner tube near the air stem. There was a his of air and tire began to deflate.

Troy, using Irma as battering ram, was shoving through the crowd, and ran up just as the tire began to his. He was crestfallen on Florence's behalf. To display this he stomped the thing's skull flat and grabbed the bike by the seat to help.

Sam was at the end of his patience and ability to blindly accept what was happening. Out of a sense of shear dread he mounted his bayonet without thought and began stabbing every undead that came within reach as he ran. He was making headway and beginning to grow optimistic when he turned to dodge one undead and almost ran directluy into a shoulder to shoulder trio of the cannibal things.

It was then the Corporal Tanner-Smith's wordss came to mind, 'Bleeding hell, Clifford, what are you waiting on have at 'em', as he negotiated the rifle-bayonet training course. So, Sam had 'em. Bayoneting the middle undead in the forehead, Sa pivoted on his right leg and smashed the butt-stock into the forehead of the one on the right as he withdrew the bayonet. Using this momentum, Sam stepped forward to meet the advancing last undead with twist of his hip and smashed it in the side of the skull with the butt-stock with a head rupturing impact.

(OOC: this is really great mate. I’m really pleased with it!)

Troy, working to catch up with Carol while supporting as much of the weight of Florence's bike as he could, looked back in time to see Sam unleash mayhem on a small crowd of dead heads and once more found himself grinning in an insane situation.

He said to Flo in a completely conversational tone, "I think Sam's gonna be fine.".

Looking around at the number of zombies still closing on them he continued.

"If we get too much pressure on us we're gonna have to leave the bike. It's super nice but there are at least four motorcycle shops in this town and they are all running really good sales right now."

Ooc lol so my 7 ruined my bike and sam's seven turned him into a badass?
This message was last edited by the player at 07:00, Thu 10 Dec 2020.

Ooc jk I can totes fix that bike but realizing I'm Neo woulda been cool too haha

Lol...yep.

Oops wrong thread.

Troy shouted back to Sam to move him along.

"C'mon Chopper! You made your point now let's get the fuck out of here!"

(OOC: that's funny.)

Sam looked about, snapping out of his blood-lust, and realized Troy was calling to him.

Sam raised two fingers loosely in a casual wave and nodded with an amused smirk before jogging after the group.

"Come on, we'll make it." Carol called behind her. She moved quick and she fought hard, but she was reckless.

"Well shit...is this what it feels like when other people are watching me? God damn it girl no wonder you been bit so many times!"

He plowed on toward the goal holding up Flo's bike and looking for an opportunity to take some pressure off of Carol without risking putting a bullet in her.

Sam realised that he was becoming increasingly moreso in tow of the small group. It occurred to him that not only did it mean that he was providing little aid to the retreating party, but also that he was increasingly risking separation as more corpses closed in.
He grabbed his SMLE in two hands, by the handguard and the stock, and practically threw a zombie off him as it launched its malformed and decomposing bodice at him; jaw gnashing fiendishly.
He hurried to make pace and catch up.

Sam ran up to Troy and Florence just as the pair used her bike as a ram to get through a gaggle of undead tailing after Carol. Carol in the meantime had made it to their destination and was holding the door open for them.

"Come on, we're almost there." Carol called to them.

Troy trucked Florence, her bike, the flame thrower, and his own ass through the door. He made sure to move in far enough to make space for Sam and Carol to get inside.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:49, Mon 21 Dec 2020.

Once they were all inside the store, Carol closed the door. It was heavily boarded up from inside and she threw a metal fence post into a latch bolting the door in place. She turned and smiled at the others and gave them a thumbs up.

"We can go to the back of the store." Carol panted out. "These beasts will gather here at the door for a while. Should be easier to get out the back and up the hill."

Sam stood doubled over with his hands on his knees.
”Out the back!? .... up the hill!?”
“What an adventure!” He panted.
He smiled at the floor and shook his head.

"Yes." Carol replied. "We need to catch our breath, drink some water. In this heat, that climb will be tough with all that gear and her bike. It's mercifully short, about eighty yards or so, but steep."

Troy dropped his end of the motorbike and dug around in one of his packs.

"Water break courtesy of the Forces of Evil."

He passed everyone a bottle of water from Mindy's stash and rapidly chugged one himself.

"Haulin' this bike up that slope will not be easy. Lucky us Zeke, being a generally clumsy SOB, don't like slopes."

They kept quiet and drank water, munched crackers, and tried to relax. After some time had passed, what felt like anything from thirty minutes to and hour, they realized the frantic scratching and banging of the undead had gone away. Carol went forward for a quick check and came back minutes later.

"It's clear, most of them have wondered off again." Carol explained. "We should go now."

She led them out to the back into a walled off courtyard for people to take breaks and lunches in. At the back of that was a steep hill. Carol pointed to their right at the top of the hill.

"That building is our destination." She said.

(OOC: need Athleticsim rolls please.)

16:59, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 11 using 3d4+2.  Athleticism.

In his lifetime Troy had often done more difficult things for sheer entertainment, or to impress a girl, the steep slope did not seem to present much trouble for him.

11:07, Today: Sam Clifford rolled 9 using 3d4+1.  Ooops, sorry for the other roll; it was incorrect.
Removing the bayonet from the end of his rifle and wiping the blade on his gaiters, he sheaths the knife back into its sleeve on his right gaiter.

waiting a day longer to see if Florence posts. will continue forward then.

Troy saw that Flo had that stunned look in her eyes that people got when the horror of the world as it was got to be too damn much. He'd been lucky to survive the times it had happened to him and he bore no malice to anyone who fell prey to it.

The big hillbilly swept Florence onto his shoulder as politely as possible and heaved her and the damaged scooter the last few yards to the building Carol had indicated.

He was a big, strong, fit son of a gun but even for him this level of exertion had him huffing and puffing pretty quickly.

At the top of the hill Carol stood up. They could easily see back down the hill. There were hundreds of undead moving towards the east, and away. Without explanation or warning Carol pulled a whistle from her pocket and began blowing out a quick code on it of long and short blasts. It was survival whistle. That meant it was capable of at least 120 decibels, the good ones up to 140.

Troy cringed. Florence physical ducked her head down a few inches. Sam felt his sphincter tighten up. All of their ears rang a bit.

Looking back down the hill dozens of undead had changed course. Their poor eyesight made them follow sounds more than motion at longer distances. And that would have been reassuring, but Carol began blowing out her code again.

Thoughts shoving that whistle into un-whistle-welcoming orifices flashed through their thoughts about the time the public address system on the Police Services Center building came to life.

"Carol, take side entrance 2B." A man said loudly over the PA. "Take side entrance 2B."

"Come on." Carol said as she took off trotting towards the side of the building.

"Y'all need to work on that...", huffed Troy as he kept on trucking after Carol.

No way he could lug this load more than a few more yards. He was consciously starting to prioritize what to drop in which order.

Troy’s ability to carry the flame thrower, the bike, his gear and the other woman awed Sam and he would offer to take something, but he looked as though he migh pick Sam up as well. While Troy and Sam were roughly the same height, Troy was twice Sam’s width in muscle; he was an absolute unit.
When the police station PA sounded, Sam’s heart skipped a beat. Were there still police there? Would they be able to tell him anything about the status of Atlanta or would they even perhaps know something about the research team? The latter was unlikely as the mission was confidential, but any form of authority that Sam could talk with would help.
He looked down at the briefcase bumping against his outer thigh as he walked.

A side door opened in the Police Services Center. It exited to a small area of concrete tables and benches that was obviously a smoke break area. A short, stocky man of Spanish heritage stepped out, blocked the door open, and then trotted over.

"Mira, mira, I give you a hand." He called out as he ran up to Troy. "We must hurry. I must check tamales. Almost finish cooking."

With that he took Florence from Troy by running an arm around her waist to help her along. Looking at Sam the man smiled then noticed the uniform and frowned.

"It's ok." Carol said. "He is one the UN volunteers. English I think. He's with us."

"'e's an Aussie Mate!"

Troy used his best Paul Hogan accent but it was spoiled somewhat by being out of breath.

"I hope you have enough tamales for a really hungry, tired hillbilly but I'll understand if you don't."

He rolled the scooter into the smoke break area and leaned it on a concrete table.

He sincerely hoped this wasn't a trap because his ability to wreak mayhem was currently at low ebb.

Sam’s hope faded slightly at the sight of the survivor who appeared to greet them; he didn’t look at all like a police officer and the cool reception had Sam confused and uncomfortable. Sam had his rifle held down by his side horizontally, gripped between the handguard and the receiver.

Troy’s miserable Aussie accent was met with a smirk as Sam was reassured by the banter.

"I am Hank." The man said. He took Florence to the door and then turned back and for the bike and began wheeling it into the the side door. "There is more food. You cook. Nice motor. Come on, not safe here."

With that the little man who looked somewhere between forty and sixty, called himself Hank, and talked about food seemed to unconcerned with them and more concerned with simply being outside.

"He has a point." Carol added. She came over and took the flamethrower from Troy with a smile and wink. "This ridge line isn't clear of those things."

The reduction in his burden was greatly appreciated and Troy followed after Hank and Carol. He was able to stand up to full height for the first time since they left the safe(ish) house.

He moved quickly enough that Florence was never out of his sight.

"I'd rather go knuckle to knuckle with Zeke than lug that stupid motorbike up that hill again."

"In any case I can't stay long. I've got to go find my people and get them into shelter. Then I've got...well, other stuff to take care of."

His pokerface was not good enough to keep the grim tone out of that last statement.

This message was deleted by the player at 18:08, Mon 04 Jan 2021.

Ooc hey so sorry I've been absent. Alot of stuff happened all together then the holidays and such but I'm back.

Florence would have to figure out a way to find a new tire or on reliably patch the old one. zombie teeth weren't sharp or nothin so maybe it could be patched. She'd rather not give up her bike just yet, it had kept her alive many times and she owed it. She helped carry the bike and everyone hustled to reach wherever Carol was leading them. She recognized Carol was using a code but in this world Florence had been wired that loud noises meant you died.

The PA shocked her once over but also came with a large dash of awe. Even keeping electricity was a chore so being able to run a speaker system was pretty cool. And she would have enjoyed it even more if they weren't running for their lives. Florence was not the most athletic ,running this long was the reason she had invented the damn bike in the first place.

Follow Carol was the plan though and though Florence never fully trusted new people, she trusted this woman wanted to stay alive herself so Florence and Troy didn't have much of an option. So when a man opened the door there wasn't enough time to doubt anyone cause Carol and the PA rang the dinner bell.

Before she could say anything he was already chatting away at them and herding everyone inside. He did compliment the bike so in her brain that was an invisible brownie point for Hank the Stranger. Then Troy put on a terrible Australian accent, although she'd never think, men tended to be very sensitive about their impressions. Florence had once dated a man who swore he basically was Dr J.

"Now you got me thinking about tamales, ass." she smirked as he very thinly veiled how hungry he was. Although she picked up on his serious tone. She'd have to bring that up with him later.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 18:45, Mon 04 Jan 2021.

OOC: Welcome back Florence.

I second that notion

I third it

Sam followed a few paces behind the party guided by Hank, peering into every doorway as they moved through the station. Sam was not yet accustomed to this harsh new world and thus was yet to develop the experience in being able to assess who was genuine and who was not.
Hank was associated with Carol who had kept them safe up until now, so that was a positive... right?

As an enlisted soldier it was his job to be keeping everyone safe, but Troy, Carol and the other girl knew much more than he did on this new society and all three of them appeared hardened and independent. He knew this was him beginning to justify his lack of forward-thinking by giving himself reason to trust the others’ judgment, but he had to start taking more caution and start passing his own judgment.

Sam was in conflict with his thoughts all the while as they passed through the building until the other girl made a comment to Troy about food. It had just occurred to Sam that it had been a fair while since he last ate and he suddenly grew very hungry.

"In really hope one of y'all can cook. I could burn toast even when we had toasters..."

Hank led them to the lobby on the first floor. The it was glass panels on three sides, but the area outside was a covered walkway which someone had cleverly blocked off with concrete barricades at ground level and bolted sheets of plywood to the beams inside the barricades creating an odd form of hillbilly hideout. Slits had been cut into the plywood around five feet up every few feet to provide a way to look out.

The lobby had tables line the glass panel walls except where the doors were to go out onto the walkway. The tabled held clothing, medical supplies, weapons, ammunition, tools, books, and son on. In a corner a refrigerator had been brought into the room. On a tabled there was several gas camp stoves. Food in cans, jars, and boxes was stacked in crates and boxes. Cots had been set out to sleep fifteen at a time.

Outside more tables held weapons, mostly shotguns, and ammunition as well as flashlights, spears made from long pieces of half inch rebar, and a stack of boards next to hammers and boxes of nails.

Along the walkway next to the glass panels were several generators, the gas was kept on the opposite side for safety, and in one corner a homemade wood burning oven was giving of thin trails of smoke. And smelled of very flavorful tamales.

"We only use this room since there are just the two of us." Carol said. "Make yourself at home."

“Just the two of you!?” Entering the room last, Sam almost shouted.

His eyes darted around the room at all the weapons and supplies. He gave himself a light slap across the face to see if he was dreaming.

“This is fucking absurd! You two have really gotten yourselves sorted here!” Sam tried to remain composed and professional, but he couldn’t wipe the look of utter awe and wonder from his face; his eyes practically glowed with excitement and amazement.

"Ah, sure, thanks I guess." Carol said. "Grab a modern rifle it you want to replace that old antique gun if you want to."

Troy was opening his mouth the fire off a zinger at Florence when he came into the room full of guns and gear.

"...Holy Shit..."

His mouth hung open and his eyes tried to see the whole place at once.

In reply to Troy Roberts (msg # 209):

"Si senor." Hank said suddenly. "The tamales. They smell very good."

"What? Yeah...food..."

He wandered closer to the tables loaded with guns.

"It must've taken some time to gather all of this."

"This building served as an armory, a training facility for demo disposal and special weapons training, and a repository for confiscated weapons and explosives." Carol said. Seeing everyone staring at her she added. "I used to work upstairs as a property room clerk. My boyfriend was one of the trainers here."

He grumbled under his breath.

"Jesus if the Shithead Army ever figures out you're here you're gonna have a problem."

He looked from Carol to Hank and back.

"Mind if I do some trading out? You've got some stuff here that will be a big help to me in the very near future."

"Sure, just don't mess that blue foot locker. That is my personal gear." And that old mello-yello cooler is Hank's. Everything else is fair game."

While Troy was speaking with Carol, Sam was over by a table laden with fancy firearms. He was giddy with excitement as he picked each weapon up and looked down the sights. Any of these powerful guns could easily replace the outdated wooden Enfield conversion and would provide a much more comfortable experience better suited the the training he had. However, the more he explored, the more he became defensive of the rifle hanging from his shoulder.

He’d never really felt attached to a weapon before, probably because everything he’d used had been owned by the military, but given that the world was ending, this rifle was pretty much his now. It was his and he couldn’t part from it despite having scarcely used it.

He knew enough about it to know that it wasn’t really a disadvantage in terms of accuracy and reliability, just that it was inferior to modern technology. He wasn’t a unit of a bloke like Troy and thus decided against carrying multiple weapons with already having multiple items of gear dangling from his persons and so consequently Sam decided he would stick with his rifle, a decision he assured himself he wouldn’t regret.

"Right...got it...the best stuff is in the blue box..."

Troy smiled at his joke, wandered to the tables, and started doing a mental inventory of what they had that could be of use to him regarding the plans he had for the next few days. After he located his missing group that is...

"Yeah I can cook if it comes to it, I got recipes locked up here even if I didn't want em," Florence said dryly to Troy who had gotten her brain into a cycle of dreaming of food. "Sure I can remember the exact words of every breakup text I ever got, but I also know 15 ways to prepare eggs so you win some you lose some."

It was a blessing and a curse this memory of hers. Growing up it seems like Florence had always been able to tap into her gift, excelling in most academic or professional mediums she pursued, tests weren't hard when you knew the textbook literally by heart. In the apocalypse a little more of a mixed bag, she could still see the faces of people she'd lost and remember their deaths with disturbing clarity but she'd learned to cope with that over time.

This place was pretty incredible, well fortified, well stocked, Troy wasn't kidding when he said this place was a treasured secret. Hell in Carol's  place Florence wasnt even sure she'd have been able to show the same kind of compassion to being strangers here. Florence's eyes darted around taking everything in. They even had books, which excited her, for some reason it was increasingly more difficult to find undamaged books in the apocalypse. When shit goes down people have some weird innate tendency to destroy shit for no goddamn good reason. My life is at risk? Burn down a library obviously.

Florence had been keeping an eye on Troy, whatever he had going on was still weighing on him right behind the surface, although he did his best to seem too cool for school. As he went to examine the goods Florence slipped up beside him and leaned closer so everyone couldn't hear what she was saying.

"Listen. I know we haven't known each other that long or anything, but you're a damn fool if you think I'm letting you do whatever you got brewing alone. You're stuck with me,"
she said, pushing his shoulder and turning to Carol.

"Am I crazy to ask if y'all have bike tires or even a bottle of sealant? If not I'll figure something else out but a girl's gotta ask."

"Si, second floor. In the room of property." Hank said as he set a tray on a table. It was piled high with tamales fresh from the cooker. He also set out a big plastic jar of fresh-made salsa and homemade tortilla chips. "Got beers in fridge. Everybody eat!"

The scent of the fresh food was a distraction that rivaled the tables of weapons and gear.


"He means the property lockers on the second floor." Carol said. "A local gang was using bicycles to deliver drugs on the street last year. Nothing secret, just kids riding bikes and swapping their backpacks out covertly in gas station bathrooms. When the cops figured it out they ended confiscating over a hundred bicycles and nearly a ton of cocaine. They incinerated the drugs. But, never had a chance to auction all the bikes off. The door is open."

Troy couldn't keep a hopeful look off his face but it turned grim quickly.

"We'll have to have a long talk before I can hold you to that. Where I'm headed is necessary but it's also pretty fuckin' dark."

"Let's eat first."

"Hank, Mi amigo, you are my fuckin' hero!"

Much like Bruce the shark in ‘Finding Nemo’, the thick, warm scent of hot food completely clouded Sam’s thoughts and consumed him entirely. Like out of a cartoon, he practically floated over to the tray of tamales lead by his nose and with his arms dangling by his sides. Sam had claimed a tamale and grabbed a bevy before he came to his senses and paused midway through the tamale.

“Oh shit, sorry. Where are my manners!? You didn’t want to say grace or something, did you? Sam mumbled through a mouthful of tamale; hand shielding his mouth from view.

Troy blinked.

"That's a good idea Sam."

"God, please senior, bless the food, bless the beer, bless the dead. May the dead find way to heaven soon." Hank said. "Everybody eat!"

"Amen!"

Troy responded as his Methodist upbringing had conditioned him and was pleasantly surprised to find that he still meant it.

Knowing he could probably put away this whole spread by himself Troy waited until everyone else had gotten food before he started eating.

He considered that it really hadn't been that long since things had seemed fairly stable in Ringgold even though it felt like an age. A fuckin' coon's age.

He tried to be polite, he really did, but he still ate the tamales like someone was going to come in and take them away from him at any second.

"Thank ya for the food Hank."

While he finished he drifted back to the tables where he began to rummage around in the hardware. He first laid out all the hardware he had been carrying on an open spot.

The Marlin 336 Dark .30-30 lever rifle with it's Liberty model 762HR suppressor and several boxes of Winchester PPU ammo to fit it. The gun with which he had killed his first human being.

The WW2 era M3 .45 Sub-Machinegun and canvas case with 10 loaded 30rd magazines of short, fat, .45ACP bullets. This one had achieved his second kill.

The suppressed Browning Buckmark .22 pistol that was quiet enough you could hear the bullet hit the target better than the shot that fired it.

Florence's flame thrower, dubbed Aunt Irma after his crazy aunt with arsonistic tendencies.

Last he laid out the Savage .308 bolt rifle, complete with it's own Suppressor, that had been intended to protect the settlement in Ringgold from the dead. It had been no help against the treachery of the living.

The rest of his weapons were on his body and he meant to keep them for now.

He prowled the room picking up weapons here and there and putting them back down again. A look of concentration was on his face and he was clearly calculating things in his head. The look was not unlike a man attending a friends funeral when he sees the murderer arrive with the dead man's wife.

He picked out a military style carbine, an M4 which had likely belonged to the local SWAT team, with an unusual ACOG site and a pile of plastic Magpul(tm) P-Mags.

Next to that he laid a stubby MP5SD sub-machinegun covered in accessories that had likely belonged to the same SWAT armory. He included another stack of magazines and bullet boxes with it.

He the decided that there was some poetry in keeping the .308 rifle and placed it next to the SMG along with several boxes of expensive looking ammo in the proper caliber.

He completed his shopping for Bang/Clank equipment by unboxing two suits of Russian issue OVR-3Sh tactical body armor complete with helmets and masks.

When he was done he stood back and surveyed the selections to see if he was missing anything.

"Yeah, the ATF busted a white supremacist group, bikers I think, trying to buy ammunition at a gun show here in town a while back." Carol said as the kicked the suits of Russian made body armor. "There was a small gunfight, one of the bikers got shot in the calf. Anywho, the Dalton Police did most of the work so ATF cut them in one the bust."

Hank nodded. No one was sure why he nodded, or even new if Hank new why he was nodding. But the man could cook.

"Well remind me to thank everyone involved for dropping this stuff off in my vicinity."

He looked a little disappointed.

"All these clothes are too small for my intense buffitude. Guess I'll have to look elsewhere."

"That shop were came through to come up the hill has a big and tall section." Carol said, then laughed. "It was owned by immigrants from Nassau, so the clothing is rather colorful. But, hey you can't beat the price."

"I'll have to get back down there and look around. Maybe get back over to the Armory too."

"Next step though is to go find the people I lost at Rockyface and lead them up here."

Sam gave Hank a big hearty slap on the back which could have almost bowled the small man over.

“I’ve got to hand it to you mate: that was some bloody good grub!” Sam thanked Hank profusely before appearing behind Troy with a beer in his hand.

“Looking to expand the arsenal are we Pack-Mule?” He laughed, gazing across the weapons Troy had removed from his persons and laid down on the table.

“Speaking of which” he turned to Carol, “you wouldn’t happen to have any .303 strippers or just loose rounds here, would you?”.

His face was serious now. “Maybe it’s a stupid question, but I honestly know F-all about this rife or really any rife that isn’t the standard issue military one we use back home for that matter”. He spoke with a hand resting on the back of his neck, awkwardly.

"We have a lot of stuff, there is are several boxes of .303 British cartridges, but not those stripper things." Carol said. "One of the SWAT that was still around when we moved in down here in the lobby used to carry a rifle that fired those bullets. He went hunting a few weeks ago and never came back. So, we lost him and the rifle."

Carol went over to one of the tables and move several rifles aside. She picked up a weapon at the bottom of the stack and held it up to show Sam.

"This is a Kletec CMR-30." Carol said. She sounded a little proud of the weapon. "It's fire a twenty-two magnum cartridge, it is light, holds thirty bullets, and has a Eotech sight on top. I have a suppressor that will fit it too. I carried this for six weeks until we could clear this facility. There are six magazine and a half dozen boxes of ammo for it still. It's not a bad weapon to carry and great for fighting the dead."

“Oh that’s fantastic! ... the boxes of cartridges that is, not your missing friend”.

Sam gave his medical pouch a pat, “the individual rounds would be great! I s’pose I could just reuse empty stripper clips by threading new rounds on when I get the time. As it stands, I have two full strippers in my pouch so that allows for 10 rounds to be loaded fast at least”.

Carol walked over to another table where she moved some weapons aside, Sam trailed behind. After a moment, she raised a small, light-weight carbine up to show Sam.

“You’re giving me your weapon?!” Sam raised an eyebrow.

"Ain't like she don't have a backup."

Troy gave the room full of weapons a meaningful look.

"So what are your plans after this Sam?"

“Wow! Thanks!” Sam took the carbine graciously and hung it from the strap of his medical pouch with the stock folded in.

“I realise that I do need a weapon for stealth in most situations nowadays so this is really great! It’s also so light and mobile.”

He turned to face Troy a few tables over.
“My plans?”, he frowned in thought, “I don’t really have any I suppose”

“I mean, I was on a delivery mission before I ended up with you guys, but I guess it would be pre-apocalypse business so I doubt it’s even important anymore.” Sam thumbed the briefcase by his side.

“If it’s alright with you, I was just planning on lending my aid to you. I mean, I don’t even know my way around this country even without the zombies.” He ran a hand through his hair as he spoke.

"That means a lot to me Hoss but you're gonna have to hear where I'm headed before you can make that decision."

"We'll sit down with it soon as we can. Me, you, and Florence."

Gunfire sounded in the distance. Back to the northeast, back in the area of Dalton's north bypass. Florence and Troy cringed inwardly. But it wasn't the staccato hammering of machine gun fire. The gunfire was more sporadic, awkward in tempo, it was intense at moments and then tapering off to irregular shots.

It only took a moment to realize what they were hearing; the sounds of people fighting the undead. And it was close. The gunfire was easily within a half mile. Possibly a little closer.

"But it'll have to wait."

"I'm gonna go check that out and then find my lost folks. Who's goin' with me?"

"How many people? Think they can all fit inside this building?" Carl asked.

"I think so. It's fuckin' sad how few of them there are."

Troy hefted his now somewhat reduced load and headed out.

 “All the way Chief” Sam gave a casual Barcoo salute and a nod.

“They sound like they’re in real strife and’ll probably require medical aid, but I’ll stick with you mate when we’re done with them” he added as he followed Troy.

“Thanks again for the hospitality and the supplies guys,” he shook Hank and Carol’s hands. “Hopefully our paths will cross again!”.

“I’ll see ya when I see ya!” He called as he left the room, back down the corridor they’d come from.

"Shouldn't be too long, you know, unless things go like they been goin' lately."

"Here, take this." Carol said. Her outstretched hand held a map with a series of notes and lines marked with a red sharpie. "It shows the best routes to take when stealth counts or when speed counts. Get back to us soon, gives us a warning if trouble is on your heels. We have a few sniper rifles on the roof."

"Will do. Thanks."

Troy looked over the map and then put it away.

(OOC: it seems Florence is caught in RL again. moving the scene forward.)

Troy and Sam made their preparations quickly. The sounds gunfire still suggested that the action was far from over. Moving down the hill along a narrow two-lane road that would take them nearly in the right direction the pair were both relieved and horrified by their location. The hills they would traverse to get close to the action were reasonably free of undead, but the valley below the hills was littered with what had to be hundreds of the shambling cannibals.

Troy squatted on a high point and watched the shambling monsters below.

"Looks like we should try to stick to the high ground as much as possible."

He stood up and began to trot in a semi-crouch along the best route he could make that would take them closer to the gunfire. He stopped every few yards and used the 4x ACOG site to scan in the direction of the noise. The view wasn't as good as a decent set of binoculars would provide but it was better than a mark 1 eyeball could provide.

Sam simply nodded in reply and assumed the same crouch-trot.
He carried the carbine in his hands in case they needed to make tactical stealth shots to clear their way.

Nearing what is known locally as the North Dalton Bypass, the pair made their way up the incline to the edge of the four lane roadway and peered in the direction of the shooting. What they saw would have been funny if it weren't real.

Along the northern side of the bypass a small group of people, Troy recognized most of them right off, were fighting from the front of a small church by firing out the door and windows in the front at an ever growing horde of undead. While to the side of the church among the jumble of abandoned cars in the parking lot a group of camo-clad and heavily armed people were also firing into the horde. Troy recognized them too and there wasn't much left of the ass-hat army that had attacked his people.

When the horde was depleted enough the two groups went to firing on each other. The church and the cars were looking mighty battle-worn. Judging by the slower pace of the shooting and the ever increasing time to reload Troy figured they were running low on ammo, and people, on both sides.

"Down"

Troy planed out on the ground and scooted forward until he could see.

He set the M4 carbine aside and shuffled the Savage bolt rifle out. The gun was a modest hunting rifle that had been affordable before the world turned to shit but with it's black polymer furniture and suppressor it was nearly indistinguishable from a real sniper rifle.

"Sam you need to hold your fire until they notice me shooting. When you open up it's gonna be loud."

"Those people in the church are my people we're out here looking for. The motherfuckers shooting at them are the Asshole Army that killed my town. They're also connected to the people Carol was talking about. Whole Goddamn world is hanging from the edge of a cliff and these dicks are stepping on fingers."

"All of them have to go."

That was a pretty long speech from Troy and he said no more, he just settled in behind his scope and started shooting the scumbags that were firing at his people one by one.


10:34, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 11 using 3d4+2.  Sniping the shithead army.

“Yessir” Sam lay on his stomach beside Troy.
“So those are the flogs you were telling me about? Well this makes things easier and harder at the same time.” He replaced the silenced carbine for the SMLE and held it ready for if their cover is blown and stealth is no longer an option as Troy had implied.
“Shame, I was almost excited to see uniforms” he mumbled opening the bolt and checking the chambered round.

Troy quickly evaluated his targets. There were eleven of the killers that he could count. Judging by the bouncing and dodging going in the windows of the church it seemed that there were still around thirteen, maybe fourteen, of his own people. Even odds, with the firepower on the wrong side. There were three of the attackers focused on the church, all had automatic weapons; two Garands and an Uzi most likely from the old WW2 and Firearms Museum back home. A sigh escaped him before he could stifle the anguish.

Troy sighted in and fired. He lost track of the shot in the recoil, but a man with a Garand slid forward out of sight. Cycling the bolt he was glad to see that no one realized that he had fired. Taking aim again he repeated the process twice, dropping the other man with a Garand and the woman with the Uzi as she reloaded. He was lining up for his next shot when a burst raked the edge guard rail, punching seven neat holes through the steel just over their heads.

"Eight to go. Shoot that motherfucker first.", Growled Troy.

He rolled a couple of body widths to the right and started hunting targets again.

Bullets ricocheted mere millimeters above their heads with load twangs on the guardrail. Sam recoiled in shock and lay flat with his hands over his head for a moment.
Troy growled before rolling away.
Sam knew their cover was pretty much blown now, so it didn’t really matter what weapon he used. He rolled to the left a ways to move out of their friends’ gaze before scampering to the top of the embankment again on his stomach.

He peered down the ironsights of the SMLE, scanning the treeline and battlefield surrounding the church for the origin of the barrage.

10:03, Today: Sam Clifford rolled 9 using 3d4.  Locate assailant (perception).

As they watched the fight at the church turned a bit. The people in the church used the unexpected slack in fire coming at them to step up their own attack. Two more fell among the attackers in the parking lot. With that two people at the edge of their little band broke away and tried to move away. In doing so they put themselves in Sam's immediate line of sight.

Another of the dwindling attackers stood and switched from shooting at the undead with his submachine gun and sent a magazine emptying burst into the church. As if on queue, when the man ducked to reload what looked like a white five gallon bucket came tumbling out of one of the church windows.

12:47, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 9 using 3d4+2.  Sniping the turdface army.

Troy picked targets from the back of the attackers forces and worked towards the church.

"That bucket's probably gonna blow up in about two seconds!" He shouted over the gunfire as best he could.

He braced himself to duck when the time came.

It had been a while since Sam had fired a rifle. And some time more since he’d fired at a person. He’d entered a state of mind, focused and attuned to the rhythm of the SMLE.

He set the sights on a target swift, but sure. Paused, fired. The cartridge pinged out of the receiver, but before it had hit the ground his smoking barrel was aligned to the next target. Pause, fire, aim, repeat.

Sam was so caught in the rhythmic trance of his marksmanship that he failed to heed Troy’s warning.

There was a flash. Then a crackle of thunder. Less than a heartbeat later the explosion came. The fireball was twenty yards across and went rolling into the afternoon sky with resounding whoosh. Several cars were displace; either onto their sides or flipped about. A wave of percussive over-pressure whipped the dust and debris out from the point of the explosion. In the wake of this wave a roaring wall of flame spewed forth.

People screamed. Secondary explosions erupted as the blast set off ammunition, molotov cocktails, hand grenades, fuel tanks, and batteries. Clothing, upholstery, paint, and even the asphalt caught fire.

One of the people that Sam had shot had taken a .303 slug in the hip. Having been fortunate enough to choose to change position and stand at the right time to avoid that slug from going through their lung. Now, that person was crawling with all the haste they could muster away from the heat of the blast like an injured predator scampering away from a trap. But he did notice something about the person; there appeared to be a metallic case strapped to the person's back that look amazingly similar to the one he had been carrying for his mission.

Troy peeked over the edge of the roadway as debris began falling around the parking lot. Using the rifle's scope he panned his view across the church. The front was blown apart and burning. But he didn't see any corpses. Panning further along he spotted people as they passed by a narrow gap between several cars in the back lot that were just in his view. It appeared most of them got away.

The explosion was deafening and so sudden. Sam threw himself down the embankment away from the edge of the road as a wave of dust and burning debris shot under the guardrail. He rolled and tumbled until he came to a stop with a thud at the bottom, doubled over in the dried up roadside stormwater channel.

Troy was scanning ground zero with the scope of his rife when Sam crawled up the embankment behind him. Ears still ringing, he peered over the edge; instantly drawn to the huge crater and the flipped cars.
“What the fuck was that!?”.

Out of the corner of his eye Sam noticed a person dragging themselves away from the devastation. Initially there wasn’t particularly anything out of the ordinary about this person, just the movement drew his attention, but then he noticed a metallic briefcase strapped to their back. One bearing a striking resemblance to the one he had dangling at his side.

Surely not. He has the one. He was absolutely certain he grabbed it from the crash. Was there another delivery they didn’t know about?
Sam was filled with questions. Suddenly a conspiracy was forming around him and he had to find out.

Troy was still scanning the area, but Sam was getting restless. He couldn’t see anyone with his eyes, so surely they’d all ran away or died. He stood up suddenly with a hand on the guardrail.

20:44, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 9 using 3d4+2.  Shooting the fucker with the case .

Troy tracked the wounded man with the case and put a .308 round into his back as he stumbled away.

"Bob Ross would call that a Happy Accident."

He surged to his feet, dropped the Savage rifle on it's sling over his back, picked up the M4, and vaulted over the safety rail headed toward where he saw his people escaping the church.

His ears were ringing a little but he'd been more prepared than Sam. His time in the military had led to less gunfights than some but as a truck driver he'd been bombed more times than the vast majority of infantrymen.

"Hurry if you're gonna grab that case. I've got to catch up with them before they get in more trouble."

“No! I need-“ Sam started, but the bullet had long passed through the straggler.

Sam was hoping to get answers out of the bloke with the briefcase, but he remembered why he was here and allowed the sentence to fade into an exhale.

Sam stood by the guardrail with his rifle gripped by the handguard at his side.
“Nah, if it’s anything like mine it’s useless to us now.” He stared at the case atop the dead man, his lips curled in.
“Besides, some of your people could be injured”.

Sam was edging to open his case now as his curiosity had peaked, but he knew there was work to be done and so he adjusted his rolled sleeves and hurdled the guardrail.

A man stood at towards the back of the crouched column of fleeing people and he suddenly smiled.

"Hey, everybody, Troy's back." He called out. People halted along the line forcing others to stop. It was then Troy realized that he hadn't seen everyone in the group. It appeared his ragtag group of stragglers had picked a few others since he and Florence had lost sight of them.

Others began to look back, many smiled. Others seemed a little curious. The few left just seemed impatient. One, however, stood out. A tall older teen, in an old tiger striped field jacket and holding an M1 Garand, looked at Troy with real hatred.

Without out warning he leveled the rifle and began firing in earnest.

(OOC: Troy needs to make a Serendipity roll to see how this goes, please.)

Sam, already curious and a little confused by events, was caught off guard when the teen started firing right at Troy. Weren't these people supposed to be his friends?

13:06, Today: Troy Roberts rolled 11 using 3d4+1.

Troy reacted in an instant. Raising the M4 in front off him protectively. It occurred to him, somewhere in the non-terror filled recesses of his brain, that there was no way he would ever be fast enough. The pain blossomed in his body. Eight rounds, fired on the fly, at less than ten yards, and in .30-06.

Sam watched in horror. Bullets struck Troy in the lower abdomen, inches above his junk, then at the belt line, near his belly button, two shots struck ascending his upper abdomen, a bullet struck his breastbone, his left forearm as he brought the M4 up, his upper chest over his rising forearm, and finally the last bullet struck Troy in the collarbone. Sam's rifle came up of its own will but he never had a chance to shoot. Several of the others had simply dropped the young man in his tracks with a combination of buckshot, hollow points, and a single arrow.

Troy fell. Mostly because it just seemed like the right thing to do in that moment. Pain blossomed the length of his torso as if he had been kicked from hip to collar by the Troll that lived under the bridge. He smiled, it was the pain, that and the fear of dying, that made someone remember those little bits of personal trivia from their past, their childhood. Now, if the fire burning in left forearm would subside he would remember what the name of that old story was.

Sam ran over and knelt next to Troy. He looked at Troy, the armor had worked, it was torn to literal shreds in places where the ballistic cloth was ruptured by so many bullet impacts. Some of the shots were closely spaced and had ripped large gashes in the ballistic weave, but they had held. Sam could see the base of most of the bullets. Troy's arm, however, was bleeding through the hole in the armored sleeve. Evidently the armor there was thinner than other parts of the armor. There wasn't an exit wound, that he could see anyway.

Sam fingered around all the impact points on Tory’s body with a face dead cold and earnest. The armour had appeared to hold despite its now completely disfigured appearance, but Troy’s left arm had not been so lucky. Sam prodded around the wound and checked for an exit.

“Alright big fella, I’m going to have to remove the bullet in your arm but I don’t wanna do it out here in the open”. Sam glanced around at the group watching from the church.

“The church would provide safety and probably benches to lie you on, but are you sure these people are safe?” He popped open his pouch and plucked out a roll of bandages.

Troy was smiling to himself and most likely in his own world, induced by the pain. Most likely badly winded as well. They didn’t really have an option anyway so Sam bandaged Troy’s army firmly and sat him up. Blood began to soak through the bandage almost instantly, creating a red stain that grew with every moment. He put an arm around Troy’s back and draped Troy’s injured forearm around his shoulders before giving a quick whistle and a nod to his right signalling for one of the people watching to take Troy’s other arm.

"Never should have trusted Russian armor I guess."

"That'll have to do until we get back to the jail."

Troy stood on his own, bleeding and all, after being helped up.

"We got to get moving. Too much racket...noise."

He looked around and when he spoke again it came out in a sort of rushed growling wheeze like he had been recently punch in the gut.

"Jake? Is Jake still alive?"

"How about Pike? Anybody seen him?"

"Everybody head back up there, over that rail, and follow the ridge to the jailhouse."

"...and somebody get that asshole's gun...that's a good gun."


He pointed with the M4 where he wanted them to go.

“The police station!?” Sam exclaimed as Troy started giving orders to the people, “But I’ve got to get that bullet out like, now!”.

Sam stepped in front of Troy, blocking his sight-line. “Look mate, If I don’t get that bullet out you’ll bleed out or worse. The longer it’s in your arm, the worse it’ll get”.

"Troy, I am so glad you are here." Jake said. The boy looked as though he had aged a decade in the last day. "Pike didn't make it. He took a ricochet bullet in the back and bled to death before we could get to him. It was when we left the Waffle House. No one realized right away, by then there was too much going on. I tried to to signal you, but that explosion. Well, you know, you were there."

Troy lowered the M4 before Sam stepped in front of it to avoid any costly accidents and spoke to Jake with some effort but obvious relief.

"Damn. Okay Jake let's get 'em moving up that ridge. Too many fuckin' cannibals in the low spots."

"...and grab the brief case off that dead fuckhead over there. Might be something useful in it."

He leaned hard on Sam.

"Sam, buddy, you are a real blessin' but that'll have to wait until we're inside."

"Only thing Zeke likes better than Noise is the smell of blood. We don't get outta here quick me bleedin' will be a much bigger problem."

"I've got a field dressing in my emergency pack we can stick on once we get back to the top of the hill. Worst case we can tourniquet it for a minute."

Although his face probably wasn’t showing it at that moment, Sam did admire Troy’s steadfast nature; he was a natural leader.

“Fucks’ sake, finefinefine. When we get back inside the station” Sam ensured both his rifles were securely slung across his back before he draped Troy’s arm over his shoulder and began walking.

“...mind you, if you bleed out on the hike up the hill I’m carving ‘told you so’ on your pyre!” He added with a smirk.

Times being what they were, nothing went untouched. Rifles, SMGs, ammo, backpacks, ammo cans, coolers, and in some cases pants with full cargo pockets, boots, and even sunglasses. Troy didn't bother, the survivors had learned to live like a locusts enduring a year of blight; any plant was a good plant to eat. His forearm ached like something he would never have imagined, the movies always made these 'lesser' wounds seem so easy to cope with. Already his hand was bluing, probably from the interruption in normal blood flow, and it was becoming very stiff making him think that the muscles were bruised all the way through his wrist. This was going to suck.

Sam had spent most of the rise of the undead in military service as part of the UN security force working to protect scientists in a field lab well away from the action of civilization being devoured. Seeing survivors of the months of constant coping, loss, and deprivation go through the bodies of the dead for whatever resources they needed made him think of a school of piranha devouring a monkey caught swimming in the Amazon like on one of those documentaries his mom loved to watch.

And, of course, everybody's favorite party guests had to make their appearance as well. There were undead moving towards the church from three directions. One was the sizable horde they watched as Troy and Sam moved to the church from the Police Services Center. The other, a smaller horde, was shambling down the side street running behind the church. The last was coming up the bypass from the direction of the Waffle House. Maybe even part of the massive horde they had dodged in the rain when they fled Ringgold.

Troy voice still had some weeze in it when he shouted.

"Get going. The rest of this shit belong to Zeek, there's too many coming."

He stood up a little straighter despite the pain in his torso and his head snapped around at the sound of a car horn blowing not too far away.

He looked off toward the sound trying to see who was signaling and why. They had to know it would draw zombies like twinkies draw fat kids.

Sam felt Troy jerk around to spot the source of the car sounds behind them.

“See anything?” Sam grunted as the pair staggered after the survivors ahead. “We about to get run down?”.

"Look at that!" A woman pointed as the group made its way up the ridge.

Eyes turned to see the horn-blowing Jeep roll off and begin to drive a somewhat erratic pattern drawing more and more of the undead on its trail. Who ever was driving the Jeep knew full well the trouble they getting themselves into, but it pretty obvious they didn't know the area for a damn.

Troy's arm ached like it had when he had broken his forearm as a kid in a bit of daring due to impress Gertrude McGovern that began with the required 'Hey y'all watch this'. Only this time he seemed to recall the situation beginning with bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang.

George couldn't stop cussing, he was getting to the point of being trapped again, and he didn't like that. Gunning it, George took an alley way and came out the other side, he stopped hitting the horn, knowing full well the zombies would still be coming, and that was fine with him, as he should, have enough time to get away and to the trapped group.

George was amazed. He cleared the buildings, got back on Chattanooga road, and was rolling back towards the church when he looked up the ridge and saw a bunch of people pointing back along the road he was on to a strip mall. Then he spotted the road sign. They wanted him to go the hill there!

"Well shit..."

Troy continued to lean on Sam.

"...I hope that guy don't die."

"Also hope he doesn't train a mob of people eatin' freaks right back to the jail."

George checked his rear view mirror, to make sure he lost the zombies, then headed towards the ridge.

George gunned it up the hill trying to ensure no pursuit would follow him up the hill. The twisting curves came as a shock, sending the Jeep swerving with tire squealing abruptness. Near the top of the hill George came across a large block of a building with a sign reading Police Services Center out front. He was idling wondering where he was actually supposed to go when a short man of Latin descent waved at him from a picnic table next to building from about twenty yards. He appeared to be eating tamales from a large plastic container. Without warning he waved to George, signaling him to come over as the Jeep sped past.

Both feet hit the brake pedal.

It would take and hour for Troy, Sam, and Jake to corral the others up the ridge and to the Police Services Center. When they finally arrived they were surprised. The Jeep they had seen earlier was parked near the building beside the picnic tables. Hank an older man were sitting at one of the tables. They had an empty tea pitcher, and near empty plastic tub of tamales, and rifles sitting within arms reach. They didn't speak, just sat quietly in the sun idly munching the fresh tamales, and generally just chilling out.

“Is that the owner of the Jeep is it?” Sam said to Troy, panting, as they reached the top of the hill.

He wiped sweat from his forehead with his arm. “Looks like a stern chap”.

George took a seat, it was nice to just stop doing anything, even if just for a few moments. It wasn't like he had been going full bore since he left his cabin.

"Name's George. The Colonel sent me to get you guys. Well sent me and Zip, but he got shot in the head."

Troy, having taken some painkillers from his emergency pack, answered perhaps more flippantly than he normally would.

"Yeah? It's a fuckin' epidemic lately."

He sat on one of the benches.

"I assume you mean Sam since he a UN soldier and all but if you mean me I guess we can talk about it after he takes this bullet out of my arm".

He pulled his wounded and bandaged arm out of the strap in load bearing gear and held it up. This led to a blinding pain that cleared Troy's head briefly.

"Pretty good driving down there George. I'm Sam and this is Tro....nope, sorry, I'm Troy and this is Sam."

"I don't want to be too forward but you look like someone who knows his way around this kind of crap and I could use a hand getting this body armor off on account of I'm a hand short just now."

"Can't afford to lose the hand. I need it to murder a bunch of motherfuckers before they can murder everybody else..."

He trailed off at the end as the painkiller reasserted itself.

Sam extended a hand to shake, but retracted it almost instantly as Troy began removing the bandages. He nodded and gave a “G’day” instead before kneeling down beside Troy’s oozing wound. Lucky for Sam, Troy had used his own painkillers meaning the morphine shots could be saved for later down the line where he was sure they’d become extremely valuable.

He paused before looking across at the new bloke, George, and Hank sitting beside him.
“You might want to avert your gaze for a bit lads, this won’t make for the most pleasant of introductions” he said with a half smile before turning back to Troy.
“And you mate, might wanna grab ahold of something; this is gonna be pretty primitive, but it’s what I gotta do”. He flicked the small blade of his pocket knife out as he spoke.

Sam cautiously consulted the wound with the blade of his pocket knife, carful not to create excess cuts or bleeding. He was going to have to fish out the metal projectile with the blade.

"Nice to meet ya, considering the circumstances." George said to Troy. "You know I'd kill for a damn cherry pie." As George attempted to break the somberness. Looking at the armor. " Yeah, I'll give you a hand with that." George helps get the chest and arms before Sam heads over.

"Thanks, seems those damn zekes love me, I've been relatively lucky, considering I was in the middle of a damn explosion not too far away." Looking at Sam about to start on Troys hand. "I have a first aid kit in the Jeep, it could help."

"Meester Troy?" Hand said as he walked up, he pointed over to Carol.

Out of reflex Troy looked over just as Carol lifted her shirt. They weren't the biggest he'd ever seen, but they were definitely in the top of prettiest boobs he'd eve laid eyes on. Then he felt pain shoot through his left forearm and he was on floor suddenly. The pain and nausea passed. Troy looked up to see everyone gathered around looking at the needle node pliers in Hank's hand.

The older man had the .30 caliber bullet in the pliers and was checking it out. Carol shot him a smile and a wink. Sam and George sort looked on with their kit in their hands. Jake walked over to offer Troy a hand.

"George, was it, I Jake." The young man said. "I'll give you hand getting Troy out of that armor."

Troy looked over at Hank with a mixture of gratitude and vengeance. The Latino smiled back and said, "Mexican Army training. We no have good kit; pliers, knives, bandages, and much tequila."

"That means it's time for the Tequila right?"

There was some level of relief as the weight of the armor went away.

"Thanks fellas...Carol...hey y'all dpn't lose that bullet. I'ma make a necklace outta that."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:41, Fri 26 Feb 2021.

George rubbed his face. "The Colonel wants everyone to meet at my cabin. He's getting his daughter and it is one of the safer spots around. Lots of land and I've been busy with defenses."

“I’m sorry, Colonel? Who’s this Colonel?” Sam noted the decisiveness in George’s tone, he was sure and had a plan, however Sam was still at greetings and wasn’t sure if George had mixed them up with someone else or something.

"You had a female scientist with you, yes?" George thought that this was the group he was looking for, though now he wasn't so certain.

"Florence is an Engineer. Haven't seen a scientist."

Troy looked at Sam.

"Sam here was with Carol when we met him but I think she's local."

He was pretty loopy and still looking for that tequila.

“Yes that’s right, Florence is around here somewhere! Engineer, scientist, same diff” Sam moved between Troy and George, subconsciously bridging the gap between George and Troy, forming a semicircle.

“Regardless though, I never arrived with either of the two. Florence was already with Troy and Carol literally met me the same moment she met Troy and Florence”

Sam tapped a finger on his closed lips in thought before adding: “a scientist though?.... she wouldn’t have been heading to Atlanta, would she?”. He recalled his mission to deliver a package and reinforce a research team based in Atlanta.

"There was a pregnant woman came through about a week before you guys." Carol said as she approached Troy a bottle of evidence room procured Vicodin. "Thee are low dose, take two every four hours. Yeah, she was traveling with a couple of men. Said something about heading south to meet her father. They wore those green protective suits, you know, CDC types. She said her dad had been a colonel in the army for while and that she was glad he didn't see all this crap with military up here. They took off after a couple of days. Maybe a week ago."

"Si, she crazy." Hank added. "Baby almost here and she gone walking off to Atlanta."

Troy popped two Vicodin and chased them with a bottle of water. Not a drink from a bottle the whole thing. Then he scrunched the bottle, recapped it, and tossed the little wad of plastic into the nearest trash can with his good hand.

"I mean, really, is that a lot worse than anywhere else?"

He stood up and then sat back down.

"Hey Jake, where's that brief case?"

“Heading to Atlanta?.... hmmm” Sam thought to himself. Could they be part of the research team he was supposed to be providing protection for?

At Troy’s mention of the other briefcase Sam remembered he was also supposed to be delivering the one he had on his persons to this research team as well. A second case though, that was something he still hadn’t figured out.

Suddenly he’d forgotten about the research team, the pregnant scientist and George’s Colonel mate. His curiosity had peaked again and he had to know what was in that other case and his one. He rubbernecked in the direction of the boy Troy had called to.

Jake walked over with the case and leaned over setting it down next to Troy. It was a bit battered and someone had tried to force it open by the looks of it. The case was more or less a metal clam-shell with a handle and a damned good lock. But, then, it did have several labels on it that Troy felt qualified it for such a stern mechanical impedance.

The first label was a broad blue and white path of paint in the surface what he assumed was titanium that read:
  Property of the United States Government, Section 86c.09.09-C United States Code 34-3b
  Return to Federal Emergency Management Administration Headquarters Washington, D.C.
  Priority retrieval hotline: 1-888-56-4254, extension 666

That took him by surprise. But if that was all he had to worry about, Troy felt it was problem. The label was a bright red and white striped band with a center letterbox with the words 'HAZARDOUS MATERIALS' emblazoned in blaring red letters.

There was some pucker factor with that label. What came next was the clincher, however. A red label had been painted on the case below the others, inside it was the stylized black emblem of three rings meeting atop another ring with the bold type-print 'BIOHAZARD' written beneath.

Troy found that to be a matter of some concern. The type of concern that incurred the unable-to-fart level of pucker factor. He only hoped that case Sam had been lugging around during their firefights, flamethrower fights, and explosions wasn't the same damned thing.

Sam, on the other hand, had been busy digging through his pockets to pull out his notebook and look up any details about their operation when he recalled being warned about the operation's security level and that he couldn't write anything down. Memory was deemed the only acceptable protection for the contents of the case. And that was simply information he didn't know. After all, you couldn't give up information you didn't know.

He looked at his case. The mission seemed like ages ago. How long had it been; five days since all this had happened to him. The case was similar to the one that Jake had set near Troy but with different markings. His case simply has three words painted across it, 'OPERATION TOTAL SALVATION'. And that he found to be more troubling than all the warning labels on the other case.

"Interesting case you got there, perhaps our scientist friend can figure things out about it? My cabin has room for some people, plus  there are other cabins not too far from it. Also we could clear land and build some cabins nearer to mine." George was intrigued by the case, but also knew it was way out of his league. "It is off the beaten path and rather survivable. Hunting is plenty, as is foraging, plus I do have a garden and some livestock. At least until she figures out our next steps, as it looks like saving humanity is now one of new job descriptions."

Troy sat up straighter.

"What are you saying? You have some idea what's in there?"

"There something in that case that might fix shit?"

He looked around at no one in particular.

"That's bullshit right?"

"Total Salvation is some mighty bold words."

Not for the first time he wondered where the Rev and the other people from Ringgold had gotten to. If any of them were even still alive.

He leaned back as the drugs kicked in again.

"Fuck, I'd even put off murderin' the Pigfucker Army if there was a chance that was real..."

He blinked a few times. Hadn't meant to talk about that openly. Too late now.

Sam just stared at the closed briefcase in his hands. How did he not notice this blatant label across the face of the case before? This also meant his mission was still important and he’d been putting it off all this time.

After a moment of absently staring at the cases in thought he said, “hey, we’d better deliver these...”. The message didn’t quite make it from his brain to his mouth and it came out more of a quiet mumble.

“We have to find scientist lady and deliver these to her and the team” he said agin, this time looking up at the others.

“Perhaps we’ll have to take up your offer of refuge George mate, when this is all over” Sam was focused now and spoke assertively.

Sam stacked his briefcase on top of the other one before stepping back away from the bench.

“I’m going to run a medical check through all the survivors and patch anyone who needs patching up; should have done it when I got here” he said before making his way into the station, leaving Troy, George, Carol and Hank at the bench.

"I think you missed something. The scientist should be back at the cabin when we get there. Do any of you have any idea of where her team might be?"

Troy watched Sam depart in stoned bemusement.

"No sir. Not a damn clue."

"Took some CDC folks down the Ocoee once. They fell out of the boat a lot."

It occurred to Troy that he was rambling about things that didn't matter.

"Damn those things are stronk. Never been big on drugs ya know."

"Ah, um, mister?" A woman said. Troy didn't recognize her right of. Then it struck she used to work at the church helping prepare meals. He didn't know her name, now he wish he had asked her then. "Listen, some of us were talking. If you have a good place to settle like you say we are want to go with you. We will do what it takes to make it work. We did the same in Ringgold before the others attacked us. Ask Troy, he was there."

She looked at Troy sheepishly, but smiled her way through the awkwardness she felt.

"That's a fact. Some good people here. Maybe more still alive if we could find 'em."

“I thought you were coming to get her? Were you not?” Sam called over his shoulder as he held a man’s arm up in the air, inspecting a bruise under his right armpit.
“If she IS heading to Atlanta as Hank says, then there’s a high likelihood she’s part of a research team I happen to know are, or were, stationed there”.

Sam had begun lining injured survivors up in order of injury severity in order to ascertain who needed the most urgent attention and work down the line. There weren’t many serious injuries however and the survivors had kept themselves in pretty good shape given the circumstances.

“No, I came here to get the people she was with, she will be found by her father, and probably back at the cabin before everyone else.”

"So...you came here to get them. Where were they supposed to be? We can just go look there."

George pointed at Sam, and more specifically his patch. "I believe he is the man I am looking for."

"Okay. Big win for the good guys. Ya found him."

“I have been sitting here piecing together the small fragments of information I’m picking up and I reckon you may be looking for someone else entirely.” Sam spoke as he walked back over to the others.

“See, before I met Troy and the others I was part of a small squad of 20 or so UN troops tasked with delivering one of those cases to a research team in Atlanta and provide protection while they did whatever it was they were doing there” Sam gestured over to the briefcases on the bench they stood around.

“Just before our party was ambushed, we changed route to Dalton after receiving a transmission stating that the research team had moved to Dalton”.

“Now, if I was to make an educated guess, I’d say that this scientist lady is either part of, or is joining, this team in Dalton. They’re who you’re after”. Sam watched to see the expression on the others’ faces

Troy wobbled a little and mused.

"Still a win. Ya both found your way to Dalton."

"Dalton high is close." Carol said. "But that area is dangerous. the cops tried to make a refugee center out of it because it was near the police station. There is a lot of those damn wondering cannibal corpses over there."

She spoke to them as her and several others began setting up to start some dinner. The smells of chopped onion and bell pepper rose into the air. A tall boy began skinning a rabbit that he took with a bow on the way to the police services center.

The sun was getting lower giving the evening that sort glow common to summer nights as the heat haze off the heated concrete and pavement met the lowering horizon. Combined with the home-like smells of heating oil and freshly chopped vegetables the evening made Troy smile in his pain numbing high.

Checking his map and notes, George was pretty sure the people was looking for was the crew that Sam had been flying with. It seemed the lone Aussie might be carrying the key to the research the Colonel's daughter was working on.

"Well I'll be happy to help ya look."

Zoe was sitting on a tall chair at the counter in a very fancy kitchen. She had been lucky, the house hadn't been looted. Probably because of its exterior she thought. The house was old and the outside looked it; chipped paint, warped boards, cracked windows, crumbling sidewalk.

When she had slipped in through a broken window she found the place was a post-modern artwork on the inside. All stainless steel and ceramic tiles. There were several corpses covered in quilts in the garage that had been there for months, maybe from the first days of the apocalypse. The rest of the house was empty, dusty, and miraculously untouched.

In the kitchen she had found canned goods that were in good shape; corn, potatoes, peas, green beans, chili, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken noodle soup, peaches, pears, olives, diced tomatoes. There were boxes of crackers, pop-tarts, noodles, rice in boil-in bags, stove-top stuffing mix, instant mashed potatoes, and jiffy baking mix. Her big find were the drinks and candy; bottled water, canned sodas, jugs of apple and grapefruit juice, and a bag of those little candy bars. In this particular case those candy bars were baby ruth, hershey's chocolate, nestle crucnh, and butter finger.

Grabbing some bottled water and a can of spaghetti and meatballs for a quick meal with high calories, Zoe found her to the tall kitchen counter. She was looking over the last issue of American Home Journal when she heard the gunfire. She stood and went to the window, food in hand, to look around. Down the street towards that little church along the north bypass she saw people embroiled in a big gunfight.

Her heart sank and she toyed with the idea of going down there to help out however she could. But, three near-miss rapes and an unknown number of times she had risked her own life, literally and not figuratively, had left Zoe more cautious than bold. She watched, finishing of the food and water, from the safety of her window.

The church was maybe two hundred yards down the street. The undead were constantly on the march. Many passed by her window without noticing her standing there. It was weird, the people at the church where fighting a three sided battle of sorts. She wished her view wasn't from behind the church so she could see more of what was going on. Maybe she could gauge the people, determine which side was the good guys. Or if either side was.

After a while a third party joined in the fighting from further down the road. She couldn't tell much about them either, they were nearly out of her field of view and at least three hundred yards away. Suddenly there was a huge explosion that took by complete surprise. So much so that she nearly pissed herself.

Soon people started running out the back of the church. Then almost as quickly they stopped and a pair of men approached from the distant point in her field of view. One of the two mean began talking with several of the people that fled the church and Zoe had the idea that they knew each other pretty well.

And then, unexpectedly, one the people from the church gunned down the man who had walked up and began talking to the others. So, what, were they not friends. Even as the thought passed through her mind several people gunned down the man who did the shooting as others rushed over the man who was shot. Zoe grinned, she was a doctor turned combat medic and that man had just taken at least half a dozen gunshots at close range.

'Damn!' passed through her thoughts moments later when the people stood the man up again. He was cradling his left arm close to his chest and seemed sluggish but soon they were all getting ready to go again. Good body armor, Zoe thought, good body armor. The undead were massing in numbers that actually frightened her for their safety. It was the explosion and gunfire, she knew. She thought about going back to her magazine so she wouldn't have to witness the group survive a gunfight to only be eaten alive.

In the distance behind them a person drove up in Jeep honking and swerving. It dawned on her that he was luring the undead away. It worked pretty well too. Soon enough the band of survivors was motivating on foot as the Jeep slowly drug an ever growing mob of undead away. She wondered where they were going.

On impulse and driven by fear of being alone again, Zoe ran to the bedroom and came back with pillow cases. Quickly filling them with canned goods, boxes, and bottles of water she soon filled all four. A thought struck, she looked out the window and saw the people cross the four lane and drop off the ridge on the other side and made a note of where to look to find them. Running through the house she came to a room she had previously dismissed.

The room was full of mounted trophies from a lifetime of hunting. There was an empty gun safe, but there was a full closet. In there she found three things she could use; a backpack, binoculars, and a camouflage poncho. Running to her stuff she quickly filled the backpack, donned the back and the poncho, hung the binoculars around her neck, and slipped out the back door.

There were still a lot of undead. She had to pick and choose a rather winding route to get through them. But in time she made her way to the side of the bypass where the others had descended. Using the binoculars she soon found signs of the group's passing up a hill about a hundred yards ahead. It looked like someone had stomped footsteps into the soft soil for the group to ascend the steep ridge. That was good, she would use them too.

Their path led her to a paved road near the local Health Department of Dalton. Kneeling she used the binoculars again and was surprised to see up along the road about a half mile ahead that there was a knot of people talking among themselves next to the Police Services Center. Then she noticed the Jeep. It was them, the one from the church.

Sighing she swallowed her fears, removed the poncho so her uniform and medic's armband would show, and began walking towards the people with empty hands. She was pretty sure that her heart would simply give out before she got there. She hadn't been this anxious since the last time she was in the room with those National Guard troops that tried to take over Dalton.

"One foot in front of the other." Zoe said aloud to herself. "Just don't stop walking."

"Holy shit!" Someone said and pointed.

"Hey! Look at that' its girl." A young man said as he stepped from the others.

"Girl hell! That there is an Army combat medic." Another man said, older and kind looking. "Hello there. Hey, someone go get the others."

“You’re not shaking me off just yet chief!” Sam slapped a woozy Troy on the back heartily.
“I’m not sitting here scratching arse! Besides, now’s as good a time as any to deliver this bloody briefcase” He gave George a double thumbs up as he spoke.
“If we’re moving all these people to your place George, then we’d also need all the help and firepow–” Sam paused as he looked over the loitering survivors.
There was a commotion towards the back of the group in the direction they’d arrived from. He whipped his UN beret out from under his shoulder strap and pulled it over his head, preparing for trouble. Could it be those National Guard pricks that Troy so fervently despised, coming back for round two?

It was a struggle after fleeing downtown Dalton. Not only had she needed to avoid the dead in the city but for the first time since she was deployed she was shot at. A Medic! Shot at! Sure they were coming from some far off distance but she didn't trust to assume the person made a mistake. There was a reason she wore the red first aid armband so prominently, the hicks around here who were armed and organised recognised the value of a doctor given the state of the world. All she had met had let her pass after tending to their scrapes and bruises, everyone asked her to stay. Thankfully the dead either left you with minimal wounds or you were dead yourself, there wasn't much to heal unless someone was shot. The folks who scared her were the lone scavengers or small, disorganised groups of thugs. Those were the ones she had to avoid. Those were the ones who would take advantage of a young woman, army or not, medic or not.

Two days she had been darting through the back alleys and occasionally fleeing from the dead or thugs. She had now escaped out of downtown, through the suburbs and now into more quiet regional areas. She never had much opportunity to appreciate American landscape in her time in the country; it was sometimes nice to catch a breath sitting on the back step of an abandoned house. When she found the untouched house she couldn't believe her luck had finally turned. It has been a pretty terrible two days, losing her squad, running from rapists and losing her military backpack with all her MRE's and personal belongings. Thankfully she managed to keep her med pack with her.

When the shooting started down the street she watched the action with concern, the fools weren't fighting the dead it looked like they were fighting each other. When she saw the man take a spray of bullets to the chest she smiled grimly, her eyes sad with the understanding of what just happened. So it was with surprise that she watched the man stand up and his group prepare to retreat. She subconsciously ran her fingers over her own tactical vest, was the man military? Anyone not wearing a vest would have been torn up. Her eyes lingered on the group, her expectations rising. She had spent her entire time seeking other military, this group was not a military unit but they might be military led.

Deciding to follow the group she quickly equipped herself from the stocked house. She thanked her luck again as she found the backpack and began to fill it with canned food, candy and water, anything non-perishable that would be easy to eat. Slinging the backpack over her shoulders, the binoculars over her neck and donning the poncho she hurried to gain vantage of the groups retreat. The dead were an inconvenience but it was easy enough to track the group by using the binoculars.

With confirmation the group had stopped at the Police Services Center she packed the poncho and binoculars away in the backpack, made sure her armband was clear and visible and began walking towards the group out the front of the Center showing her palms open and hands beside her.

Her heart was in her throat until an older man voiced his recognition of her uniform. She stopped about ten yards from the group, "Hello. My name is Zoe. Is there any military based here?" Her speech was heavily accented but she spoke English well.

She appeared to be a young Chinese woman, slight and in her mid-twenties. She is dressed in a US urban military uniform and tactical vest with no badges or insignia, a red first aid armband is tied around her left arm. A med pack is slung over her shoulder, the large black bag sitting against her left hip. On her opposite hip she is armed with a standard issue M17 handgun. She carries a backpack on her back, looking full to capacity.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:51, Thu 11 Mar 2021.

Troy stood up and walked toward the ruckus.

He leaned on a conveniently located survivor and smiled in a sort of pained way.

"Heya Zoe. I'm Troy. Sorry to disappoint ya but all the military personnel hereabouts violated their oaths and turned on their own people. They aren't here anymore."

"We got ex-military and foreign military, and maybe even a few para-military though."

"Come on in and get some food. Maybe we can help ya."

He thought a few seconds and smiled.

"Sorry about the drawl. I'm stoned, wounded, and a hillbilly."

She had approached a few new groups since deployment, the curiosity was always the same. In the early days it was more hopeful, hopes of rescue and that the military had things under control. When people understood the military was splintered and disorganised those hopeful gazes had just turned to idle curiosity. Zoe recognised the man as he approached those already gathered. While the man was barely more than a smudge of dark clothes at the end of her vision when she saw he was shot she figured it out quickly due to the bandaged arm.

She watched the tall, well-armed man as he approached. He seemed about her age but was much more weathered, or maybe that was from recently being shot. Zoe was relieved when he stated that there was some military presence within their group although she frowned in worry as he spoke poorly of the local military. "I... don't know anything about that."

Zoe nodded in acceptance of Troy’s offer of food. While she had recently eaten she wouldn't refuse an offer of a meal from a new group. She didn't imagine people were likely to feed you and then attack you, at least not in her experience. She motioned to his bandaged arm as she followed him, "You have a medic with you?" She reached up and tugged at the bandage, softly pressing a thumb to the wound. "The bullet is out? This is fine fieldwork."

“That’d be my doing” Sam appeared from behind them with a friendly smile. “Name’s Sam Clifford... corporal Clifford.” He flashed his armband and insignias. “I’m from across the sea, was in the same position as you only a few days ago: looking for any sign of remnant military. Little did I know authority went to pot before I’d even arrived!”.

Sam’s eyes suddenly lit up when he noticed the armband on Zoe’s left arm. Grabbing her hand, he shook it enthusiastically as he spoke, “another medic! You have no idea how relieving this is!” He carried on about the marvels of pooled knowledge and the ability to consult with another on medical decisions for a moment until he caught himself overwhelming the new arrival and seconded Troy’s offer of a meal.

“Can I help you with that?” He asked, noticing the bursting backpack strapped to her small frame.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:21, Thu 11 Mar 2021.

The others made way for Zoe. She figured them to be around two dozen in all. People smiled and said their usual pleasantries. But she could feel the worry. Many of them had recently been put upon in a dire manner by people in the same uniform she was wearing.

As is reading Zoe's thoughts a woman stepped forward to speak to her, "I'm Carol. I just met these people myself. These guys are legit though. And I'm sure that in a day or two the people here will look upon differently. That Mexican gentleman is Hank, he has some food prepared. Fresh Tamales. Why not have one and you can take your time and let us know what you've seen. We all need to put together what we know and make a plan to keep going. Nice to meet you."

Troy was impressed. That was more welcome than she had given them when they had met Carol. But, then the situation was a little more difficult. At those kids weren't around anymore.

George settled down into a folding chair and took a nap. He was tired. It had been a real pain in the ass to get here. He thought of Zip, that girl in the van, the explosion and fight at the church. Those crazy survivalist types trying to control the 'new world'. It was too much to think on now. He was snoring seven minutes later.

Zoe turned to Sam as he approached, she matched his smile in reply and even let out a small sight of relief. Military had been a security and comfort for her during the past few months and she had grown used to be accompanied by a squad. "Hi Sam. Uh, Private Li." She reintroduced herself, "Although I only joined the military recently." She pursed her lips then shrugged, "Well, truth is I was conscripted when all this started." She makes a general sweeping motion with a hand, "But it has worked out well enough for me."

She nodded in agreement as Sam spoke on the benefits of another medical professional. As he offered to take her pack she gladly accepted with yet another nod.

Zoe returned smiles and replied in greeting to anyone who addressed her and noted the strange wariness by which she was being assessed. As Carol introduced herself Zoe beamed a smile for the woman, "Hi Carol, thankyou, a hot meal would be great." She motioned to her pack, now held by Sam, "I have some canned food, candy and drinks in my pack. You are welcome to distribute them as you need. Honestly I am tired of carrying it all around."

Finding a seat and putting her med pack down beside her as she sat Zoe turned back to Troy, "You said there was a problem with the military here." She looked around those gathered, inviting anyone to fill her in, "What happened?"

Troy dropped into a chair near Zoe maybe a little more free-fall-like than he intended. A little wobbly it was clear he wasn't kidding about being stoned.

"Carol can explain it better. Local guard went rogue and had to be checked the hard way."

"The other group they are talking about is the Fuckhead Army. Paramilitary types that are into training impressionable youths into child soldiers."

He made a face that was more pained than angry when he told that part.

"I'ma kill all of them."

He said that like he was talking about carrying out the trash when someone else was supposed to have done it already. Not happy about it all but he clearly felt it had to be done.

A woman Troy recalled from the trek from Ringgold but who's name his didn't know stepped up to him and smiled.

"I know you don't remember me." She said. "But we are grateful for your help to get here. You need to rest for while. Honestly, we all do. Whatever is going on with these cases of yours can wait. Take some time to heal and get strong again."

Jake nodded from out of the corner of Troy's eye. George looked over at him and Troy realized that the older man was looking pretty ragged himself. people began to speak up then. Not about giving up, or even being afraid, but about getting organized and preparing for whatever came next.

Florence came along after several minutes, smiling like she had after she building the flamethrower. She waved her hands over head to gain everyone's attention.

"I reworked the flamethrower and rerouted some of the plumbing for the fire suppression system." Florence said with a big grin. "We hat three hot showers now!"

The cheer was, as one would have expected, very loud and joy-filled.

Zoe was about to ask for more details when the conversation was interrupted by another woman. She raised her eyebrows at the mention of hot water. "Oh, I can not remember the last time I bathed." She said with a yearning sigh.

But it was only a brief sidethought as she save a cursory glance back to Troy. "I do not know them at all, but I am sure it is best not to go picking fights." It wasn't preachy, just stated as if fact. She wasn't being too hard on him, figuring much of the emphasis came from the drug side effects. Which she assumed was pain meds, nobody else looked like they were intoxicated.

"It looks like you have a lot of people here depending on you. It also does not look like many of them can fight." She looked around the others, most had gone back to doing their own thing. "I can not say how long I will be with your group but I will help as much as I can while I am here." Again, just stated as fact, no grandoisity or self-importance behind the words.

Sam stared at the bench-top, nodding along as Zoe spoke.
“I’ve noticed you seem to get a little worked up, well... tense I should say, whenever someone brings up the Fuckhead army” he said, raising his head to look at Troy. “Have you got some history with them?”.
Before Troy could answer, Sam hastily added, “don’t feel obliged to talk about it if so, I don’t mean to pry”.

"You have a point there...you do smell bad...bet I do too.."

Troy's eyes popped wide.

"Aw shit...sorry. Those Vica-whatsis are strong. Never been one for pills stronger than ibuprofen."

"I did not pick the fight with them. I can't let them go on murderin' people all over and turnin' kids into monsters."

"Anyway George is going to get all my people to a safe place. Then I can get to work. Maybe even find some of the others that survived."

He looked as sober as he could when he made eye contact with Sam.

"Yeah I was planning to tell you and Florence about it. So you'd understand you probably don't want to stick with me."

"They killed my hometown. Trained a whole horde of Zeds down out of Chattanooga, wrecked the early warning system, and murdered the men and women who were on guard. Whole town had to run to the hills..."

"That was part of their plan. Shithead Army had ambushes set up with machineguns on the best routes to the hills. They weren't taking prisoners."

"To be clear I don't have a name for these motherfuckers. I just call them whatever the worst thing I can think of and they like to dress up like soldiers so "Army"."

He ran a hand through his hair and looked at Zoe.

"I got one group out. One. Ambushed the ambush team. Burnt one kid alive when I shot the flamethrower he was using."

"Wasn't gonna tell anyone about that..."

"Anyway there's a lot more between here and there but I reckon that should clear it up."

He could remember the look on that woman's face as the Subaru drove away. Those people weren't running from Zeke, they were running from him. It seemed natural these folks would want to get clear of him asap as well.

“You’re a natural leader Troy” Sam said after a while. “You’re dedicated to the goals you set and you stop at nothing to help others”.

“You’ve convinced me that you’re the best person to be following around; I trust your initiative and that you have my back”.

“I completely understand if you’re more a ‘lone wolf’ sort of bloke; I don’t wanna get in the way of your mission, though I still intend to help your people make it to George’s refuge”. Sam gazed over the dozens of people milling about.

“I also have my own mission to deliver this, well, these cases and if what George said about a colonel escorting the scientist to his refuge, then helping these people get there is a ‘two birds with one stone’ situation for me”.

Noticing that he’d been shifting his weight from foot to foot while he spoke, standing at the end of the table, it occurred to Sam that Zoe’s backpack was uncomfortably heavy cradled in his arms. “What did you say was in this thing again!?”. He looked down at Zoe with an eyebrow raised.

Zoe raised an eyebrow as Troy so blatantly commented about her odour before lifting a corner of her mouth in a slight grin as he caught himself and apologised. "Vicodin, yes. Be careful with that stuff." She warned as he struggled with the drugs name.

She listened with a frown as Troy detailed the local militia. Zoe didn't necessarily disagree with training children in combat, it was practical, and she was not so emotional about the innocence of childhood. Not anymore. She stated as much, in more sympathetic terms, "Their intent may be poor but everyone needs to learn to fight." She shook her head sadly, "Just not against each other."

She averted her gaze when Troy mentioned the flamethrower. She had seen similarly nasty things over the recent months and had no words then just as she did now.

Happy that Sam broke the awkward silence she joined him in addressing Troy, "I only just arrived, and you were the only one who put a foot forward. Lots of people here looking for guidance, lots more out there too. As I said, as long as I am here, I will help with what you need. Whatever needs to be done."

She looked back to Sam returning a raised eyebrow, "You can probably put that down. It is mostly just canned food with some candy and drinks."
This message was last edited by the player at 09:51, Tue 16 Mar 2021.

An older man stepped out of the crowd. He wore a faded Tennessee Volunteers cap and a knee brace on his left knee. He smiled as if it was not the end of the world.

"I'm John Vance. People used to call me 'Jo-Jo' Vance." He said making quotes with his fingers. "I was the Training Coordinator at the university of Tennessee Knoxville for more than twenty years. I want to thank you, but you have to realize everyone here is beat. Dehydration is setting in, made worse by the stress, and many people haven't slept in over a day. This would be a good time to lick our wounds, get strong, and make a game plan."

People nodded their heads. No one doubted the man's observations. Everyone was experiencing what he was talking about. But some felt there was something else to be said. And Jo-Jo Vance didn't disappoint, he dropped a bomb on them.

"I came through Chattanooga about a week ago, maybe as little as five days ago. Sorry, I've been on the run for a while and I've lost track." He seemed a bit embarrassed by the admission. "I was with a small group of survivors working with a rag-tag group of soldiers and cops fighting the walkers, uh the walking dead that is, further north of here. We were overrun and forced to flee. You've seen the hordes coming from Chattanooga,anyway, I, well, I don't know how to say this."

He paused for moment, not for effect, he seemed genuinely unsure of how to explain what he was about say.

"Alright, so the military cordoned off many areas with really large populations of those things and used nuclear bombs on them." He said. People moaned, others cried, many just looked at him in confusion. "The nearest cities to us right here that were bombed was Knoxville and Birmingham as far as I know. There was a big effort to trap half a million walkers in Murfreesboro but the bombers never made it. I don't know why."

He paused as people began asking questions and interrupting; who did that? How many of them walkers? Where's that at? How do you know this is true? He waved for everyone to quiet down. It was authentically authoritative while being genuinely pleading at the same time. He had done this before.

"Look. The people I was with, except for Marsha over there by the water cooler, they all died as we fled." He licked his lips. "There's a new threat among them now. Many of those undead are irradiated and they are causing contamination problem with the areas they wonder into. We were hiding out just north of Chattanooga and four of our group died from radiation poisoning."

Florence snapped her fingers and spoke out suddenly, "Holy cow, they're walking fallout factories. They will contaminate everything they come in contact with."

"Well. Fuck."

That last bit was apparently too much.

At first it seemed like he was going to stand up but the surprise used up the last vestige of energy from wherever Troy had been pulling it and he leaned forward and fell sleep with his head resting on his arms on the table.

"Zzzzsnxxxx!"

Faint snoring rose from him as his back rose and fell.

Zoe listened to Jo-Jo with a frown, an expression of slight worry on her face. She looked to Troy as he commented and was briefly concerned as he collapsed into sleep at the table.

Sure that Troy was just sleeping off the wound and the drugs she looked between Jo-Jo, Florence and Sam, "So, short of being directly hit by the explosion the dead are instead... saturated with radiation? This is a problem. Those still in command of the US Army must be informed." She shook her head, "It is unlikely they have boots on the ground so close to a tactical nuclear strike. They are possibly unaware of the results of the nuclear fallout."

Her frown deepens, and she checks off her points on her fingers as she continues, "If major population centres have been bombed then there could already be millions of these radioactive dead. Huge areas of land will be effected and unusable as the dead pass over the country. This is going to limit survivors in viable places to live and remove the ability to scavenge from these areas too. We also can not remain in one place long; as soon as the dead arrive we will need to retreat. However, we also can not afford to let them just push us out. Eventually we will run out of land and we will be pushed into the ocean or die of radiation poisoning."

She seemed unaware of any panic her hypothesis could start. It was just stated scientifically and factually as though holding a college lecture.

"We need to fight back. We don't have a choice now."

“Strewth...” Sam simply exhaled the word as he dropped down onto the bench beside Troy.
He placed the backpack on the ground at the end of the table and slumped forward with his arms resting on his legs.

“Suppose this complicates things a tad huh?...” he said, balling his hands into fists and opening them again repeatedly.

quote:

Those still in command of the US Army must be informed

“I admire your optimism, but I doubt there’s anything left of any authority in this world now. I mean, I came from a base only a few days ago now, but from what I’ve heard from Troy and from the sudden change in the atmosphere when I was on the base, I doubt it’s even still functioning under any authority”. Sam didn’t mean to sound harsh or to shoot down Zoe’s hopes, but he wanted to bring her up to speed as he was in the same position as her only a few days earlier, only his obliviousness to the sudden change in the world almost got him killed twice.

"Senora, tell them the radio call." Hank said as he handed out more food, roasted squirrel and rabbits, the critters several people shot with slings and arrows on the way here. "Tell them all."

Carol nodded, and stood up. She looked resigned in a way that left everyone feeling uneasy.

"For those of you who haven't heard, three weeks ago a call went out over radio and still functioning phones. The president said that the U.S. was the only still functioning government but this event had destroyed too much of the country's infrastructure. He announced the formal dissolution of the nation and its government. Everyone was advised to do their best to survive and rebuild. He promised the remaining governmental support to a handful of groups focused on stopping this plague or whatever it is. Then he went off the air."

More moaning, crying, cussing, and arguing followed.