(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?"