Tuesday, February 19, 10pm. It's getting dark again. The bar didn't have many zombies. Only a few of it's old patrons that didn't really seem any different from the usual in their current sad state. A bullet in the head was probably a relief they would have welcomed much earlier too. Fernando also got to give some concrete feedback to the place's cook who was about to show him his favorite meat cleaver.
The bar didn't contain any clues on rescue operation, but the looting team had a chance to enjoy a small supper before moving on. Raymond on the police station wasn't as lucky. He heard the zombies shambling outside and was clutching his shotgun like his life literally depended on it. Trying to stay quiet, he grunted and groaned along with the zombies whenever the painful wounds started bothering him again.
Having searched the bar, the looting team moves back to the warehouse at 6 Golf Place in order to stock up on supplies they remember leaving behind.
Wednesday, February 20, 5am. The looting team secures the warehouse at 6 Golf Place which has only been occupied by a few zpmbies. Willie and Claudia are left to gather supplies while Fernando and Marissa do some force recon at a small general store at 2 Miller Drive.
Wednesday, February 20, 6am. The orders were carried out. Willie and Claudia were disrubted by someone banging the warehouse's door loudly. Being sure it was another zombie, they were surprised to hear a high pitched voice screaming for help outside. They opened the door carefully and found a small girl all alone outside. She said she was seeking refuge and had seen them enter earlier.
Willie would have let her in, but Claudia was more observant: she saw that the girl's skin had already turned pale gray and her veins were unnaturally visible. Her stare went blank while she was speaking and there was a small trace of drool on her lips. As Claudia grabbed her shotgun, the girl screamed and attacked her like a wild animal. She bit her in the wrist before Claudia could hit her with the shotgun's butt, kick her further away and blast her in the chest.
The wound Claudia received was trivial, but as she and Willie both looked at the dead girl on the ground, they knew what it might mean. Neither of them said it out loud, but Willie started keeping distance with Claudia and looking over his shoulder on regular basis.
Meanwhile Fernando and Marissa arrived at the store and took out zombies around it. Returning to the warehouse, they sensed something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what it was.
Wednesday, February 20, 7am. The sound of Claudia's shotgun attracted more zombies to attack the warehouse. Fortunately the whole looting team was together and managed to repel the attack. Raymond had much more difficult time in the police station. The zombies had sniffed him and were trying to breach the barricades. With no means to contact his comrades, he started loading guns around him and put one bullet aside for himself.
Wednesday, February 20, 9am. The looting team breached the store at 2 Miller Drive and was met by a few zombies still left there after the initial recon mission. The store was quicly cleared and the searching commenced.
Raymond sat and listened the zombies banging at the barricades. His beating heart pumped as much blood as pain to the wounds.
Wednesday, February 20, 11am. While the others from the looting team were searching the store, Fernando was keeping watch. From the distance he saw something that he first wrote off as his tired mind playing tricks on him. It was the silhouette of a man, but not like the others we had seen. He was walking up straight and his movement wasn't shambling. And weirdest of all, he was carrying a rifle.
Fernando called the others to take a look. Finally they decided to take aim. Willie shot once in the air to attract his attention. The man was ordered to throw down his weapon and approach slowly with his hands in the air. He complied. When coming closer, the team saw that he had some old wounds and a layer of dirt over him, but no signs of infection. The man explained that he had been exploring the city for a few days now and hunting some sort of unordinary zombie that was supposed to be like no others.
He asked for our help, but we declined. Willie suspected some sort of trick and believed we would have already met this super zombie if it existed. The man did not start arguing. He picked up his gun without saying a word and walked away.
Continuing the search in store, Willie and Claudia discovered another note. This one said the chopper would arrive exactly at 5am. It was not much, but it was definitely improvement. The discovery encouraged them to continue the struggle.
With the store searched, the team moves to an old elementary school at 9 Miller Drive. Fernando says he knows the place all too well. He used to go there when he was a kid. We are really not comfortable with the idea of finding the former students still there, one way or another.
Wednesday, February 20, 4pm. The school was quiet. Only few zombies were still around, one blankly staring at the placates featuring colorful alphabets for the first graders. No children were to be found. At all. Or so we thought. The weird things started only after the fight. Claudia swore she heard someone running in the corridors already when they entered and that someone was laughing in the distance like in the middle of playing. She says she found supplies lying on the floor she had already crossed. Willie, Fernando and Marissa gave each other worrying looks. Willie especially knew that this could have been the first symptom. The team decided to abandon the search at the school and move on.
Raymond was listening. The horde had moved closer. Barricades were attacked harder and harder every hour. Taking painkillers he closed his eyes and grabbed a silenced handgun. Here now. He was sure he could somehow improve it. Must just take this part here and replace it wirh this. Must stay focused. Focused.
Wednesday, February 20, 6pm. Trying to play along with Claudia's story of the school being haunted by its former student, the looting team slowly leads ger out. Willie decides the next target will be the warehouse at the 4 Hondo Lane, which they already briefly saw when escaping the zombies in the house at 3 Grumman Road last time. Hopefully this search will prove more fruitful than the ill fortune suffered in the house.
Wednesday, February 20, 9pm. The warehouse was lightly defended, but the zombies found the looting team while on the way there. An improvised defensive positions had to be taken and the ammo was running low. The last zombies had to be beaten back in melee, but fortunately the looting team turned out to already be quite experienced at it.
Marissa, remembering the last failure at the 3 Grumman Road, made backhanded remarks at Willie, calling him "the fearless leader" bravely "leading them to being surrounded for nothing". Fernando, who had started to respect Willie during their long trip and many fights, stepped in to defend him, but Marissa was hardly a woman to back off in front of two men. Just as Willie was about to shut her mouth any way necessary, Claudia ran to them with a dirty piece of paper in her hands. It said the rescue place would be at a warehouse.
Figuring out from all the information gathered it would be the warehouse at the 6 Golf Place, the team was speechless. Then it happened. Spontaneously. A group hug. They closed their eyes and didn't bother opening them to find out which one of them sobbed. Willie was the first to let go. He really had to choose his words carefully to make it clear that we still needed a frequency to contact the chopper and that there wasn't necessarily much time left. Now was not the time for being a pessimist.
High fives were exchanged. The frequency would be found!
With their spirits up and ammo count down, the looting team is heading back to the police station at 4 Shadow Creek Way.
Thursday, February 21, 5am. Holy mother of God, the night. It came for us like it never has before, as if to say "ha! Gotcha suckers!" The looting team reached the police station just in time to prevent a swarm of zombies from breaching the defences. They cut them down like a sickle, but only in order to get inside themselves, safe from the undead around them.
And then it started. Wave after wave they threw themselves at the barricades and traps, making us use all the ammunition we had to spare and fighting them off in fierce melee. The barricades held firmly, but were not indestructible. Willie and Marissa were repairing them as fast as they could, but were quickly running out of furniture to scrap. Claudia unwittingly showed them where the holes were. She walked quietly around the station with grim determination in her eyes and whenever she found even a small hole, she took aimed shots at any zombies she could see from there.
Fernando was trying to lift the spirit of the team and offered them a drink he still had from raiding the bar earlier. No one wanted it. Least of all Raymond who was just sitting in the main hall's bench and obsessively tinkering everything he could find, mumbling to himself. It was either the medication or then he is going mad. Willie tried to talk him out of it, but ended up just becoming frustrated and throwing a chair at him. Raymond didn't even notice it. Fernando managed to calm Willie down.
Thursday, February 21, 6am. The attacks continue. More zombies are coming. It's starting to look grim.
Thursday, February 21, 7am. Someone knocked forcefully on the back door. It was no zombie trying to tear through the barricades. Before anyone could stop him, Fernando went to see who it was, thinking it might be Marissa and Claudia returning from their patrol.
Behind the door there was a large group of dirty, rag wearing and gun toting men with a gleam of madness in their eyes that had somehow slipped past the undead. Their leader, a bald, burly man wearing a huge crucifix on his neck and holding a torn Bible in his left hand, angrily proclaimed that it was the wrath of God and the sin of the men that had brought this blight upon us. He claimed having been led by an angel to this location and knowing that we were harboring a spawn of the Devil.
Just then Marissa and Claudia returned from their patrol. As soon as the man laid his eyes on Marissa, he pointed her with his finger saying this is the "dark one" that is luring the undead to the town like ships to a lighthouse. His followers started howling and demanding we hand her over so the will of God might be done.
We refused.
The mob charged us, but were in turn flanked by the zombie horde that had been attracted there by their howling. The hunters suddenly became hunted. We retreated back behind the barricades and let our enemies take care of each other. The fighting went on for a long time, but finally they were too weak to continue. It was no effort for us to snipe the survivors from our vantage points by then.
Seeing the fight between the zombies and the mob had broken a hole into the undead horde, we use this chance to take every weapon we can carry and bug out before it's too late.
Thursday, February 21, 2pm. Our first destination is a diner at the 2 High Lane, from which we scavenge all the food we can get. But the zombies are already behind us and are not giving up now that they have a fresh trail to follow. We head South towards a store at the 4 Benicia Place. Raymond says he can't keep up. No one is paying attention to him.
Thursday, February 21, 5pm. The store at 4 Benicia Place had a few zombies that we took by surprise, but after that we were ourselves forced to fight off the horde's first waves. Forming a wall of shopping trolleys, we quickly organized an improvised defense.
It was only then that Claudia, in the evening's dim light, found a torn piece of paper pinned to the staff room's door. A weird number that at first made no sense until the realization struck her. The frequency! The radio frequency to contact the chopper was here all along! Claudia's shout of "Yes!" was drowned in the gunfire and grunts of the approaching zombies.
We now have everything we need! A radio, the frequency and the time and place of the rescue! No one wants to think of the possibility of us being too late. There is no room for such thought in this situation. There is only one thing to do now.