"Ophelia?" Roberta asked quietly as she double checked the trailer.  She also made sure both ponchos were still hanging up, securing their space.  If the other woman had left, she probably would have taken it.

She also checked to see if there were any roof access.  It would be ideal in their current situation as they could sleep safely on the roof and check their surroundings from above.

If she couldn't find her, she'd just have to sit tight.  No use wandering outside looking for her and drawing attention to their location.  While she waited, she tried her radio reception.  She wanted to listen in on the various frequencies and then try to get a message back to the Farm that they were doing well and staying the night.  No locations or names because she never knew who was listening.

Ophelia wasn't on the trailer. Her poncho still hung at the door. Her pack still rested on the table where she had left it. Peeking outside she noticed only a handful of undead wondering within a few yards of the trailer. None of them were feeding on Ophelia's corpse. She had either slipped out quietly or she had been taken quietly.

Chancing the undead in a calculated risk, Roberta even managed to mount the ladder alongside the side door to check the roof. No sign of the other woman. Looking around from the roof she was surprised to see that several of the trailers had holes in their roofs that looked like they had blown up from the inside out.

Monitoring the radio was difficult. There was lot of atmospheric static. It made her think of the radiological matter in the atmosphere. It was probably garbling the radio's available frequencies. She couldn't pick up the farm.

It was unlikely that the other woman would have gone quietly if she'd been abducted.  Roberta guessed that she must have slipped out to look around.  It was possible Ophelia had an agenda of her own she wanted to check in on.

Hoping time would resolve the mystery, Roberta went back to the map and pulled out her phone to take a picture of it.  It was annoying to have to turn it on and off all the time when she wanted to record something, but battery charging was not as easy as it used to be.  She also wasn't expecting any calls, either.

She thought about picking off some of the infected, but thought they might be a good deterrent if there were any unfriendly survivors around.  In the end, she ate what Ophelia had prepared and waited for her to appear.  If she didn't reappear with the sun the next morning, then she'd start to really worry.

Digging through everything Roberta came across a purse. Inside there were several cellphones and several chargers. In a plastic bag she found two pair of white athletic socks. Under a rolling chair was a pair of women's Adidas cross-trainers in white synthetic, size women's 8 1/2. In a desk drawer she found a shrink-wrapped brick of ten D-cells, Energizers actually. Someone had rolled a fleece blanket into an improvised cushion and left it in a chair. A suitcase of men's casual wear was slid under a small table for holding needles, syringes, alcohol pads, sterile gloves, and tongue depressors.

Time passed and there was no sign of Ophelia returning. Checking her watch it was about seven in the evening and the rain clouds had rolled in, again. By ten past eight she heard the first pelting thuds of rain on the trailer's roof. Still there was no sign of Ophelia.

Roberta collected up the phones and chargers, as well as the socks.  Batteries were nice, but heavy.  And she didn't have anything that needed them at the moment.  Speaking of which, she made sure she'd turned off the laptop.  Didn't need it running down it's batteries.

The missing Ophelia was a little more worrisome.  On the plus side, the rain would help mask her if she were out and about.  On the minus side, Roberta wouldn't be sleeping on the roof tonight.

She set about putting a chair or something in each of the entrances.  Something that would deter entry while leaving them open.  More of a hindrance to the infected than a barrier.  She wanted a little early warning to wake her up if something did try to climb in.

Wherever Ophelia had gone to, Roberta wished her luck and a safe return.  She wasn't about to set foot outside, wandering around aimlessly, to look for her.  Scooping up the fleece, she found a good place away from either door and tried to make herself comfortable for the night.  She made sure her headlamp and gun were where she could get them in the dark.

"Stay safe out there," she whispered, before trying to get some sleep to the patter of the rain on the metal roof.

Morning came with a start. The cawing of crows near the main entrance woke her. She sat back with a rueful smile thinking a breakfast of fried crow might not be bad. Roberta rose, stretched her way through a touch of yoga and calisthenics to get the kinks out and the blood flowing, and put herself together. Boots, pistol, and a cup of instant coffee later would find her checking the area, carefully, again from the doors. To her surprise she spotted Ophelia. Across the broad lot, several trailers away, the other woman was in the gap at the back of a semi truck and the nose of the trailer it hauled. What was so surprising was that Ophelia was entwined in a man's arms and engrossed in a passionate kiss.

Startle by the sight, Roberta turned and fumbled in her backpack for her binoculars.  Was she kissing the man or was it an infected biting her in the face!  And where did HE come from!

It seems Roberta may have discovered the other woman's agenda for coming back into the city.

Roberta was shocked and embarrassed. Ophelia was actually kissing a tall, lean man with the looks of an underwear model, the physique of a pro-athlete, and the scars of someone who has spent too much time fighting. He was young, maybe mid twenties. And they were really into each other, as their roaming hands would attest. Roberta saw more of their flesh than she wanted to. After a time, she went back inside wondering who he was and why was she so secretive about him.

Packing everything up and getting ready to take their haul back to the farm Roberta was left twiddling her thumbs. Taking a look, with the intent of shouting to Ophelia, Roberta saw that they were gone. She sighed. What the hell!

Roberta wasn't going to be able to wait around forever.  Though she didn't want to leave the other woman behind, the longer she stayed, the more dangerous it would get.

Figuring her poncho had dried out a little too much to be effective, she decided to play it safe and stab a few of the infected that were trapped in with them.  From the elevated entryway of the truck, it would probably be safe to use her spear to draw them in close, one by one, and stab them in the head.

If Ophelia hadn't returned by the time she'd regooped her poncho, the other woman would have to fend for herself.  She was the one that abandoned Roberta first, after all.

OOC: Roberta Johnson rolled 2 using 3d4-1.  Combativeness Check.

Frustrated with Ophelia's random dalliance and awkward AWOL status, Roberta went to the door to lure in the first of the undead she intended to tackle with her spear. He annoyance was furthered by the fact that this first undead was a mere child that had died from what appeared to be a stab wound to the side. Her anger began to creep into her thoughts. The thing drew close and Roberta stabbed it with all the strength she could muster. The spear pierced the undead child's head horribly, easily, and messily. The spear shot forth, exiting the thing's skull and as its lifeless body fell her spear was wrench forward from her hand and impacted the pavement causing the blade the snap of at the knife hilt.

The first thoughts through her mind where 'wow, that was impressive', which was immediately followed by 'awe, goddamnittohellsonofabithshitfire!'. She took a breath. This was ridiculous, why would she just wonder off on a booty call?

Without her spear, Roberta felt a little empty handed.  She still had her hand gun, but it was loud and counterproductive in most situations.  And to top it off, she wasn't going to cut up a child to smear her poncho with it.

Looking back through the trailer, she tried to find something to replace the knife with.  She could use medical tape if she could find some.  A stopgap was the best she could hope for until she could get another good knife.  Someone at the Farm could do a better job of it, but she'd need something until then.

Robert had gathered materials for a new spear. She had surgical tape, zip ties, a quarter roll of duct tape, a handful of disposable scalpels, a screw in broom handle about five feet long, and screwdriver that was about ten inches long. Still holding out hope for something with a little more heft to it she began opening lockers in the floor marked hazmat suits, hazmat bags, cladding locker, tool locker, and fire suppression locker.

The names were accurate. There were flat boxes of disposable hazmat suits, masks and gloves. Then she uncovered cases of various sizes of plastic bags. Another search yielded rolls of plastic, yellow and red hazard tape, buckets of chalk, and bags of fiber for soaking up liquids. There was a locker full of small fire extinguishers, cat litter, fire blankets. The last place she checked made her smile. There was sets of three shovels, picks, axes, pry bars, ice chisels, mattocks, bolt cutters, and rakes.

She'd definitely keep the screwdriver as a close combat backup weapon.  A pick handle for a club would work well, but she really wanted something longer.  Unfortunately, none of the long handled tools had anything good for a straight, sharp, stab.  The ice chisels looked good, but were too heavy for her.

Maybe she could make something effective.  Picking up one of the metal rakes, she hefted it and thought it was something she could work with.  If she could cut off the straight tined portion, she could straighten out the remaining metal arms to be like a two pronged fork.

She tried her idea using the bolt cutters, trying to cut at an angle to leave the metal ends sharp.  Then use the handle as leverage to bend the arms against something in the traile to straighten them out to be a few inches apart, but parallel with the rest of the handle.

She thought it would be nice to wear a hazmat suit covered with goop, but it would limit her vision, be super hot, and tough to run in.  She thought using the fiber bags might be a better option to soak up a lot of goop and use it like a sponge.  Keeping portions in separate plastic bags to apply as needed.

OOC: Roberta Johnson rolled 9 using 3d4+2.  Ingenuity Check, rake into spear.

Roberta tinkered and toiled for a couple of hours. She had just finished making her new spear. It was a marvel. After a near fiasco at strengthening the tines on a rake she began looking for a better material and had a thought. The rods use for hanging the FEMA workers' clothing were tubed steel that fit into one another. Fully extended it gave a reach of nearly eight feet, but closed in if was only about four and half feet in length.

Next came a few screws, a leather loop at one end made from a purse's shoulder strap, and ultimately she discovered a way to get one of the foot long triangular ice chisels detached from its short, heavy shaft and mounted to the the steel tube. With a moments work, Roberta could extend her now five and half foot long spear to near nine feet. A few test stabs in the trailer that left holes in the sheet metal sides, Roberta decided it would work well. Hefting the spear, it came in around three pounds and felt maneuverable. Once she found some paint she would eliminate the reflection of the steel.

She had packed half a dozen bags with fibers. Used a roll of duct tape to fold and tape her poncho into a sort of hooded over coat so it was easier to get into and out off. She even went so far as to make impromptu ties down the front with zip ties and ink pins to make loops and toggles to keep it closed and in place.

"That looks productive." Ophelia called out suddenly. She was standing at the end of the trailer where she was carefully moving Roberta's door blocking furniture aside.

"I had to do something after you disappeared," Roberta replied indignantly.  "You could have at least said you were going out to look around and not to worry."

Roberta started packing things up.  They still had time to backtrack their way out before it got dark.

"Look, you're right." See replied to Roberta's agitation. "Let me get my stuff. Five minutes and we can take off."

True to her word Ophelia was ready to go in five minutes. With a bit of quick pistol work she finished off the handful of undead around the trailer. They began retracing their path back through the camp. The long corridor was silent. But the early morning sun, besides heating their stick covered ponchos to sweaty disgust, also illuminated the corridor through the many office windows. The only trouble spot was the room that the undead had been lured to the day before. It was full of milling undead. Chancing it the women strode past quickly with little more notice than buzzing fly.

Once they made it back to the area of the container housing they ran into their first real obstacle; the area was filled with milling undead that seemed to be facing towards the fence. Roberta's first thought was that Ophelia's paramour had drew their attention when he made his own escape. But as suddenly it occurred to her the man could have been devoured by the undead as well and she stopped being annoyed with the other woman. Regardless they could see undead milling by the hundreds to the right and left along the fence line amid the housing containers.

"Ideas oh great one?" Ophelia asked with faked humor.

Roberta looked to see if they could retrieve the radio they used last time.  She wasn't sure, but it might have turned off when it finished the disc.  Otherwise the batteries were probably dead.

If they could use it again, they could lure them away from the fence and get past without a problem.  However, she was curious as to what they were interested in.

"I'm going to look for the radio we used last time," she said quietly to the other woman.  "You use your camera stick to see if you can see over them and figure out what they're looking at."

No use sneaking by them only to run into a street gang or something.

Roberta found the radio. Replaced the batteries. Rewound the old cassette tape. And returned to Ophelia.

"It's a man. He is trapped in the barbed wire that was at the top of the fence. He fell, wrapped up and is hanging just above the undead. He cut up and bleeding but I think it is all superficial. He seems to be trying to cut himself loose but not necessarily free. He must be afraid of just falling into the undead on the other side of the fence."

She showed the image to Roberta. The man was older. There was something familiar about him too. Then it hit her. The man was a part of the military band of marauders near Ringgold. Had those people wondered north now? Or was he acting alone? Either way, they were murderers.

"I've seen him before," Roberta explained grimly.  "He's not a nice person and runs with a bad crowd.

"We don't want him to know we're here and he's not worth helping.  If we can't find any clear fence here, we might backtrack into the building and see if there's a window we can go out and around."

She surprised herself that she was willing to leave the man to his own devices, but she'd seen a lot in the past weeks.  The farm was too important to put in jeopardy for the likes of him.  Had she not recognized him, it would have been another story.

"Understood." Ophelia said. She didn't offer any questions. "Let's head to the right, over there by that big tent. It looks like there is a stack of crates over there. Could give us a good look along the fence. With all of his commotion we might be able to cut a new exit."

Roberta followed her pointing hand. It appeared that Ophelia may be right. The crates had been blocked from their view before by the tent, but they were really tall. And really quite close to the fence.

"If we didn't have the wheelbarrow, we might be able to drop off of those crates to the other side of the fence," Roberta observed aloud.  "But let's try your plan of spotting a good spot from the crates to cut a new hole."

She took the wheelbarrow for a stint and wheeled it toward he crates.

"Slow and steady," she reminded the other woman.  "Stay sticky and steady and we'll make it through."

At the crates they discovered several things. The first was the recently, nearly devoured corpse of an older woman. So little remained that recognizing she was a woman was only possible due to the fact that he skull was intact despite the atrocity that was her body. The corpse was on a second level tier of crates. Just the right height to turn the poor woman into a buffet. It was gross, it was smelly, and it was very disheartening.

Next they discovered that the  crates offered a great view down the fence line. And further, they discovered that the fence was cut some thirty yards further along. The cut was high, maybe fifteen feet up, with a step ladder on the back of a Ford van on the outside and an carpenter's ladder strapped the fence with wire and extended out to the top of the last container home in the long line of homes. Had it not been for the curvature of the fence the pair of woman would have spotted right of on their first search of the fence line.

Lastly, and by shear happenstance of stepping through the lid of a crate, Roberta discovered that there was a whole crate of amoxicillin in bottles of thirty pills each. Her mind immediately jumped to wondering what else was in these crates. So much just sitting and going to waste in the worst place it could be in. It was an aggravating thought.

Roberta slid out of her backpack and filled it with a dozen or more bottles before trying to fix the lid.  Now that they possibly had a reliable method of traversing the city, a larger group could come back for more.

"Let's try that setup over there," Roberta said quietly, nodding in the direction of the hole in the fence.  "If we can, we should see if it's been used recently.  This could be someone's hunting grounds already."

The hole high up in the fence wasn't ideal as they wouldn't be able to get the wheelbarrow up there.  They'd need to shuttle what they had to the other side and then find something else to carry it all in.  It was just too much to split between them.

Thinking ahead, she looked around to get good picture of the layout.  Later she'd make a sketch to help anyone else navigate the area.

Roberta scanned the area on the other side of the fence from their planned egress through the fence. She realized that is had been an area of construction from before the rising of the undead. The signs to beware, drive carefully, avoid taped off areas, etc. were still prevalent around the construction zone. So were several big piles of gravel and sand used in making cement.

The area had a number of large holes in the ground. Some were covered by massive metal plates that could be driven over while others were wide open. They looked deep, dark, and thoroughly imposing. There were a number of large excavation vehicles; several big bulldozers, front end loaders, grading machines, roller-packer machines, and a big dump truck. They were dusty and weather exposed, so they had been there the whole time since the first days. Why they weren't moved or used was a mystery. Was there fuel in them?

She could see a couple of blocks into the area. It was bordered by a series of strip malls, small shops, city offices, a church, and plenty of alleys and side streets. There was a good number of undead shambling about the area too. She estimated their number at a rough two hundred fifty over an area of four square city blocks. Why? Was it the scent of the man in the fence?

"I don't like how many there are over there," Roberta said to Ophelia.  "And if we started up one of those big trucks, it would just draw them all in.  I've driven over them with a huge farm tractor, but I'm not sure how any of those would fare on pavement slick with crushed bodies.

"Though," she added after thinking about it, "what if we lowered a radio over the edge of one of those big holes a few feet and turned it on?  They might all just head right for it and fall into the hole.

"We could just wait until they'd thinned out enough and then keep going."

If they hadn't packed anything they could use to tie off the radio, some shoelaces off of an infected wouldn't be too hard to get once she tried out her new spear on any that got too close to their crates.  Or perhaps the body they already found had some laces?