Old Community Story: Part 4

Sloan City Blues
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(This part by Nexus_Oblivion)
Perspective of: Heather,18
November 17th 2008
TIme: 10:26am

"hope rises with each new path taken,
even a few steps bring forth renewed determination in those who follow,
but when they enter a city...
a city they thought would bring them renewed hope...
a city they thought would bring them renewed determination to survive...
when that city burns in flames, what is there to renew?"

"There, head into that bookstore!!!" Dean shouts
The van screeches to a halt right in front of Angus and Clerk’s Bookstore, a few seconds later and the jeep stops next to us. A double story building with two large wooden bookshelves acting as both the barricade for the two windows and obscuring the interior of the bookstore.
A crescendo of blood curdling shrieks erupt as more of these Shriekers rush towards us.
Those with guns take careful aim and begin to fire at them.
"The doors are locked" shouts Audrey
"Then fucking blast it open" I shout back
I remove the shotgun I had loosely strapped on my back and throw it to Frank. He then proceeds to the door.
"Are you sure of this?" he says looking at Dean and Audrey
"Theres no time!..." Calvin shouts "...these things are catching up!"

"Stand back!" Frank takes a few steps back and aims in between the double doors and fires a shot.
They give way and I see the doors sway open.
"Quick everyone, in here" Dean shouts
Frank is the first to enter, followed by me and everyone else.

"Come on barricade the doors" I hear someone shout
"Here, help me drag this bookshelf" Mr Anderson shouts
A few of the men assist Mr Anderson drag the large bookshelf towards the door. They tip the shelf towards the door claiming that it should be stronger. The view of the outside has been completely removed and only the sunlight from the floor above us shines down.
"Alright before we get settled we need to search the place..." Audrey calls out "...I need Frank, Evan, Steve, Calvin, James, Gene, Heather and Johnny to go with a partner and search this place, once that’s done we can start to think of the next course of action"
I look at Calvin and I can see that he has already gone with Steve. James politely gives me a nod and together we search the upper floor.
"So much for wanting to escape" I say to him as we slowly walk around the top floor.
I look at him and I see he is lost in his thoughts
"James?..." I say quietly "...James?"
"There was something perplexing about this whole Operation Hammer Down..." he suddenly whispers "...Marty claimed that Hammer Down’s objective was to drop a nuclear bomb on Bowman at 9am and yet nothing happened."
"Maybe they cancelled it?" I jokely reply
"No, operations can’t just immediately be cancelled..." he replies obviously not knowing I was joking "...it was even more stranger when there was a huge military force guarding the highway, if any kind of bomb would be dropped you would have to evacuate everyone."
"And then theres that sweep up, Dean talked about...the government must have plans for this whole thing."
"Yes that’s right...I believe there was no bomb to begin with, it was a ruse to draw out any survivors who heard the transmission."
The conversation ended there when James tapped my shoulder and pointed to the severed hand on the floor. We slowly begin to walk towards it. We reach the hand and to behind one of the nearby shelves is a female body...missing a hand. I slowly creeps towards it. Just then it stirs and a blood curdling shriek erupts from its mouth.

A quick white blur rushes past my ear and I feel myself being dragged away. My mind realizes, that white blur was James’ robe and his hand holding the machete and it was him dragging me away with his other hand. I hear the sounds of footsteps rushing up the stairs.
"Is everything alright?" Calvin asks breathing heavily
Dean and Audrey arrive seconds after Calvin
"Yeah everything’s fine..." I say "...James just saved my life"
"It was nothing..." James replies "...just be careful next time"
"Well okay then..." Dean remarks "...come on down we’re holding a meeting, we need everyone downstairs, is everything clear up here?"
"Yeah everything’s clear..." I say standing up "...thanks James, I owe you one"
We descend downstairs and Dean stands on top of the counter to commence the meeting. In the meantime I quickly do a headcheck of all the people in here.
Dean is on the counter talking to everyone, Audrey is next to him occasionally assisting Dean with information, Frank, Mr Anderson, Calvin, Evan are beside her and I'm next to them just watching what's happening, I look for James who has walked off and is now meditating beside a bookshelf, I see Gene with Johnny and that Daniels kid all together beside the stairs behind me talking, Kelly and Shelly along with I think Sally are sitting down on the chairs next to the cooking section. The soldiers in the military jeep...Daneils who helped zero in my weapons, Delgato and Berman are next to him and Simon are all standing and listening to Dean and Audrey speaking. From the group of people in the center of the bookstore I notice that Mak, Will, Sherly and the other guy all listening to Dean and Audrey, I remember them from the depot. There are also 7 other people who I don't know.
I whisper to Audrey "All together there's 29 people in here......are you sure there is enough food for everyone?"
"Dean is actually talking about that right now" Audrey replies
"Now there are only enough food to last us about 2 days if we ration them..." Dean says to everyone "...unfortunately that means we also have to start looking for food as well as medical supplies......do we have any volunteers?"
No one raises their hands or says anything. Not even us until finally....
"I'll do it" I say aloud
"Heather..." Audrey whispers "...are you sure?"
"yeah I'm sure...but there's no way I can do it alone"
"Then I'll go with you" I hear a young male voice reply
I see someone from the crowd raise their hand. He makes his way over to us. From the look of him I would say he just started working in an office judging from that slightly torn suit he wore and I guessed he was about 21 years old.
"I'll help find food..." he smiles "...I lived in Sloan City when I was younger, I know this place really well"
"What's your name?" Dean asks
"Nathan Thompson" he replies
"Well does anyone else want to go?" Dean asks everyone
Once again the room becomes silent. Even looking at my group I see their eyes cast down...I don't blame them for not wanting to be put in danger so quickly.
"Can you too do it on your own?" Audrey says concerned
"Yeah we can..." I say trying to sound brave "...we can take the jeep and load it up with food and try to get medical supplies if we can."
Right now my hearts racing...prehaps this isn't a good idea
"The keys are still in the ignition on the jeep..." Capt. Daneils remarks "...you'll need someone to drive you and I can do that..."
He steps towards us
"...we'll try to get back within 2 - 3 hours"
"Alright then..." Dean sighs "...let's get that bookshelf off the door"
In less then an hour of arriving in Sloan City, I already find myself making the worst decision of my life. What possessed me to play hero? Regardless once the doors were shut and barricaded there was no turning back. The fear intensifies and I feel my heart beating even faster. I clutch the remington 870 in my hands which I learned to use from Mr Anderson. With Daneils wielding his XM8 and Nathan with his Colt .45 we make the short trip to the jeep. Despite the jeep being only meters from the bookstore. Once I was inside the vechicle I felt safe. Sitting in the Backseat while Nathan sat at the front and Daneils drove we made our way further into Sloan City

"Good luck you guys" I hear Audrey from the radio
"Yeah we're gonna need it" I say
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by Nexus Oblivion)
November 17th 2008
Perspective of: Michael,17
Time: 12:48pm

"Ah shit.....don’t do this now!"
*engine splutters*
*sigh*
"Michael...Michael wake up, we have to get out"

I tiredly stir, disturbed from my 6 hour sleep, I feel a slight pain throughout my body, I realize the pain killers have worn off. "What’s happening Williams?"
"The jeep’s engine is dead..." she sighs "...we’ll have to walk to get to Falls Creek, unless we find another vehicle"
"Where are we?"
"We past Sloan City about 5 hours ago, we’re on the Hume road, still another 2 days to reach Falls Creek sadly."
She gets out of the jeep and begins to stretch. I slowly sit up and get out myself. I cautiously stretch my body, the pain feels insignificant now as the stretching has helped ease it away. I grab the duffel bag and open it, true to his word the soldier has given me everything. Unfortunately I’m no expert in the use of a load bearing vest and ask Captain Williams for help.

In no time everything is secured, all the "mags" as Captain Williams put it are in the pockets of my vest, I have the Ka-Bar knife sheathed in an angle on my left shoulder, the Mark 23 pistol holstered on my right leg and the M-16 strapped in front of me, this attire does weigh me down.
"Oh ho..." my brain says to me as I catch a glimpse of myself in the side view mirror "...U.B.C.S much?"
"Haha..." I think to it "...yeah except the guns and cloths are completely different"
I look at Captain Williams and see that she is zipping a backpack containing what looks like military rations.
"Okay you ready?" Capt. Williams asks
"Yeah..." I say "...le- wait I forgot something"
I reach inside the jeep once more and grab the duffel bag with the files in it, using the 2 handle straps I wear it like a backpack. The added weight doesn’t seem to be much.
"Okay let’s go" I announce

We being walking down the desolate road. The brown trees and mountain like terrain seems to go on for miles, adding to the isolated atmosphere, not to mention the fact that there are abandoned cars scattered around the road, with the occasional bloody hand prints smeared across the interior. "Why not siphon the fuel from these cars?" I ask Capt. Williams
She looks at them and wonders the same
"Great Idea Michael, but the jeep only takes diesel. None of these cars look like they use it."

Just then a sound of a handgun fires behind us and a bullet hits one of nearby cars. I quickly roll behind one of the cars and Williams does the same. I quickly glance back to find the source of the shot and find a man ducking behind a car.
"That man’s a terrible shooter, Michael" my brain comments
"No, shit Sherlock at least that works for us" I reply back to it
I see Capt. Williams giving me an inquisitive look and realize I spoke aloud.
"Its still there isn’t it?" she remarks
"Ye..yeah" I respond

I look back and the man is still behind the car, waiting for us.
"Michael, I want you to make him focus his attention on you while I flank him, can you do that?" Capt. Williams whispers.

I nod, ready my rifle and wait for Williams signal. She nods back and I come from behind the car and begin firing around the shooter. I see Captain Williams crouching down and making her way towards him. I’ve figured I got the man’s attention now as he’s blindly firing at me. I don’t have any experience with any gun myself but I at least I’m doing a better job then that guy.

I come up again, ready to shoot when I realize that Williams has the man with his hands up. I walk towards them and get a closer look. The guy looks relatively clean, he was carrying the same gun the cops use. He has five o’clock shadow and he looks like a biker with his leather jacket and blue jeans. I see a set keys on his hips.
"That must mean you have a car nearby..." I remark upon seeing the keys "...where’s your car?"
"My car’s about a couple of meters from your jeep..." he replies in a British accent "...your going to kill me aren’t you?"
"No we’re not..." Capt. Williams replies "...your going to take us to your car now."
We walk back towards the direction of the jeep.
"There’s my van..." he says sadly "...I guess your going to take it."
"Does it run on diesel fuel?" I ask him
"Yes it does...why?" he responds
After 10 minutes, we managed to tie the Britain up and syphon the fuel from the van into the jeep. We decided to bring the Britain with us in the jeep.
"Alright, we have enough fuel for another 8 hours..." Williams states as we drive off again "...plus maybe another 2 hours more from those spare fuel canisters we found in the van, still wont be able to make it to Falls Creek unless we find more fuel"

"We still haven’t come up with a new song" my brain says to me

"We’ll think of something, give it some time until then..." I say "...Falls Creek here we come"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Section by Crashr)

November 17, 2008

I watch from an un-barricaded window as Heather, Nathan, and Captain Daniels get in the jeep and begin driving away. Well, if nothing else, they’re very brave. As they turn the corner, Dean starts issuing orders.
“Alright! The place is clear, but we need to know what our surroundings are. Split up into groups of two and pick an area to sweep. Always make sure the bookstore is in-sight and that you have a clear path back. Don’t enter any other buildings, and if you see one of those things, avoid being detected if possible. But if it sees you…” He motions with his gun. “blow it’s fucking brains out. Any questions?” Nobody says anything.
“Good. James, come over here.” Although I’m not sure why I have been singled out, I walk over to Dean anyway.
“Do you need me for something?” I ask. Dean nods his head.
“Yeah, I actually do. Since Heather left, we’re kind of at an odd number. You’re going to have to go alone. Can you handle that?” I just incline my head. He places his hand firmly on my shoulder.
“Okay. I want you to take behind the store. Go out the back door.” He takes his hand off my shoulder and walks to another group of people, instructing them to start barring the doors and windows. Looks like I’m on my own for now. I start to make my way to the back of the store. The prospect of being alone doesn’t worry me as much as it might others. I am still human though, so I can’t help but feel desperation. As I reach the back door, I pause before opening it. I take a deep breath. I place my hand on the knob and open the door. I’m standing in a alleyway, the exact kind that one would expect to find behind a store. To the right is a dead end, but the left leads to another street. I come to the end of the alley, but stop myself from walking out. Instead, I peek my head out, checking the street both ways. It looks clear, so I venture out. As it could be expected, the street is littered with cars and other obstacles. This time, though, the bodies are right where they should be. They are strewn everywhere, hanging out of car doors, dangling from windows, sprawling out on the pavement, even caught high up on telephone poles. Most are either riddled with bullet holes or decapitated, neither of which are immensely attractive. I look to my left again, and see another group spreading out, looking around. I wave to them, and they wave back. I remember what Dean had said about keeping the building in sight as I go down the street, away from the store. After walking for about five minutes, something draws my attention. I can hear something far off. It sounds like a combination of shouting and gun shots, though it is far to faint to really tell. I look back towards the group I saw earlier. They are to far away to hear the shots, and show no sign of trouble. I look back in the direction of the noise. It still hasn’t stopped, meaning whoever is left still has time. I draw my machete and start sprinting to the source of the shots.
After running for another five minutes, the noise is more distinct. A gun can clearly be heard, accompanied by shouting. By the sound of it, there’s only one person. As I draw closer, I start seeing fresh corpses. Most are missing limbs, and none are moving. The shouting becomes clearer, and I can make out what is being said. Almost immediately, I wish I can’t.
“Lets go, motherfucker! You want some of this!?” This is followed by a deafening shot, and a chi-chk sound, indicating a shotgun.
“What up, bitch! Happy to see me?” Another shot.
“Eat my fuckin’ shells! Who’s next?!” I come around a corner, and see what the commotion is. A lone teenager is holding off several creatures with a shotgun, the whole time yelling taunts and curses. His back is to me, so I can’t make out his face, but he appears to be about 16. He has black hair, and has a muscular build. I reason that he isn’t more than 6 foot. He dives over a car, and goes to shoot another creature. The problem is, he has no ammunition.
“Fuck!” He smacks one in the face with the butt of his gun, and tries to reload. As the creatures advance on him, I see that he won’t have be fast enough. It is time to intervene. I begin to run towards the 5 creatures left.
“Hey!” I shout. The things look over at me just in time to watch me decapitate one and smash the head in of another. The remaining three rush me, and I dispatch them each in turn. As I turn to the teenager after killing the last one, I feel the barrel being pushed into my back. I don’t have time for this. I spin around, grabbing the gun with my free hand and putting the machete against his throat with the other. As I look into his face, I see his eyes, moving around frantically. I only now notice how wild his appearance is, with messy hair and tattered clothing. His gaze finally rests on the gun, and I can see him tensing to make a grab for it. Before he can move, I lower my blade and extend the gun to him. He looks at me suspiciously, then at the gun. As if coming to a decision, he shrugs and relaxes. He takes the gun out of my hands, and throws it over his shoulder.
“’Sup. I’m David.” Realizing this is the closest thing to an introduction I’m likely to get, I respond in kind.
“I’m James. What are you doing out here?” He shakes his head.
“My place got overrun, man. Fuckin’ zombie-things swarmed us. I barely got out with my life. I guess I got spotted or something’ because those things weren’t far behind. I tried to loose ‘em for a day or so but…” He smiles “fuck it. Figured I’d take some with me. I was almost right. So where the hell did you come from?” I quickly tell him about our group, and the events of the past day. He whistles when I’m done.
“No shit man. There’s really other places infected like this?” I nod. He shakes his head again.
“Damnit. I was hoping to get away from this shit.” I can’t help but smile.
“I don’t think we will have it that easy.” I hear shrieks in the distance, and realize that we have to move.
“I will take us back to the store, but first we have to loose these things. We cannot lead them back to the other survivors. He reluctantly agrees. We run down a side street, the shrieking not far behind.
“I hope you know what your doin’, man.” Yeah, I think. me too.
(Sorry it's been so long, but here it is. I'm gonna try to be more active now. Same rule as always.)

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this part by: JhonnyRoss

November 14 - (4 days earlier):

i was assigned by our Chief to be in charge of the patrol team near Central Park. there have been reports of bizzare murders happening around there. as a Police Officer, i am responsible for the safety of my co-Police Officer and of the people of this City. we sirened our way through the park like firetrucks. "WHEEEEEEW! WHEEEEEEEW!" the siren was heard everywhere near the area. we parked our vehicles in a vacant parking lot near our designated area. then we started patrolling. i patrolled near the sidewalks where i saw dead bodies and debris everywhere.

Gilbert:
"uhm... i think i found someone.. kshk!..."

Jhonny:
"copy that... whats your position?

Gilbert:
"Central Park - Southside... hurry up. she's bleeding..."

Jhonny:
"copy... were on our way."

after hearing that, we hurried towards the southside of central park. as we were heading towards his position, we saw blood splotches everywhere. some of the blood marks are fresh. alarmed, we hurried to Gilberts position, but, before we reached him, the radio transmitted;

Gilbert:
"oh... oh shit... guys, help me... they're crazy! oh God..."

Jhonny:
"what happened? are you still in central park?"

Gilbert:
"im inside the restrooms... oh shit... im bleeding... help me..."
"THUD! THUD! THUD!"

it sounded like it was the door. and someone is hammering it...

Jhonny:
"hang on there, were coming!"

Gilbert:
"here they come! AHHH!!! Kshks!!! bshk...kresh... glurg... HELP ME!"

the radio continued transmitting Gilbert's voice. disturbed and alarmed at the same time, we hurried to his position. loading my M1911 Handgun, i armed myself for possible hostile threats. after reaching the area on where he is in before he screamed like crazy, we saw blood marks heading to a restroom to the left.

Sgt. Cortez:
"that could be the restroom where he is in. Johnny, go in there and check."

i wish i can say "NO SIR" but it is an order. Lower Rank Police Officers must obey orders from a Higher Ranking Officer. cocking my Handgun, i went to the restrooms where the bloodmarks are heading. after i got near the door of the restroom, i heard disturbing sounds like someone is chewing something. disturbed, i slowly entered inside while im pointing my gun. the room is dark. i turned on my flashlight and was horrified with what i saw. Gilbert was being chomped by 3 people whose face is covered in blood.

Jhonny:
"FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR RIGHT NOW!"

the sight made me wanna vomit but that is not the issue. the thing that made the scene more disgusting and disturbing is that the people who are eating Gilbert had some of their body parts ripped off! scared and surprised, i ran outside the restroom without noticing that they were running towards me. when i reached the outside, i fired my gun to one of them in the shoulder.

Jhonny:
"what the? he's still running... oh shit..."

Sgt. Cortez (on radio):
"Jhonny we heard a gunfire, what happened? where is Gilbert?"

Jhonny:
"Sir! Gilbert is gone. he was eaten by these 3 psychos! (pant.. pant.. ) theyre coming for me!"

moments later, i heard gunshots from behind me. it was my co-officers. i turned my back and fired my weapon. "BANG!" one of the guys got hit in the head. i continued firing till all of them hit the dirt.
my heart was beating so fast and my sweat dripped all over my face as i stared on those 3 persons lying on the ground.

Sgt. Cortez(walking towards Jhonny(me)):
"Jhonny, go back to the Station and get some back-up. it seems that the communication has been cut off. we tried to contact the station but no one answers. go back there and tell them what happened here. move...

with my head still in a state of shock, i didn't get his orders clearly. still, i went back with my motorcycle and i headed to the Police Station. when i reached the Station, something weird catched my eyes. there was a man outside the station. he was just standing there and he was silent. so silent like he will never talk for the rest of his life. as i got inside the station, all the things inside were messed up. i took my gun and checked inside, hoping that everyone is fine. as i was walking in the police station, i saw a police officer inside the office of the Chief.

Jhonny:
"sir, it's Jhonny. we need some back-up and... are you ok?"

as the man turned his head, i saw his face and was horrified! his face had been ripped off. surprised, i fired my gun and hit him in various parts of his body. "Click! Click!" im out of ammunition. while i was reloading, he was running towards me. i never got the chance to reload for he tackled me quickly. luckily, i threw him away and reloaded my gun. fired a round on his head and "BANG!" he was on the ground. i reached inside my pocket and got my cellphone.

Jhonny:
"Jimmy! its me John, listen man, there's something wrong going on around town, we need to get the hell outta here,
do you hear me--

i was cut off for a truck rammed the Station entrance where i was standing. i got unconcious and the last thing i heard was

Jimmy:
"Johnny? Johnny boy answer me what's going on?!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by Nexus_Oblivion)
Perspective of: Heather,18
November 17th 2008
Time: 10:35am

We turn left heading closer and closer to the heart of Sloan City.
"Where are we headed?" I ask Nathan from the back of the jeep
"Theres a supermarket 30 minutes from the bookstore. It’s right near Faith Tower. Take a right Capt. Daneils."
"What makes you think that the supermarket hasn’t been raided yet?" Captain Daneils asks.
"Well, even if it has been raided, there’s smaller markets around that area and a small pharmacy next door to it, we’re bound to find something" Nathan replies.
We drive by a couple of Shriekers eating a fresh corpse. They give chase to the jeep but thanks to Capt Daneils great driving skills, we manage to lose them.
Time passes and I soon spot a huge building compared to the others, that must be Faith Tower, must be at least 80 storeys high. We drive closer and soon enough spot Coles SuperMarket.

"There’s CSM..." Nathan remarks "...I guess we might have to check those other stores too from the looks of it."
A fairly huge store in itself although not as impressive. It’s a pale yellow building with steel roller barriers surrounding it. Some of the barriers have been bent and some of them look like they’ve been ripped open.
Captain Daneils parks the jeep in front of the store about 5 meters from the entrance. We slowly make our way out of the vehicle. Just as I close the door, a group of Shriekers spot us. They shriek and begin running towards us.

I take off my shotgun and cock it, I wait until they get closer but Captain Daneils has already opened fire. A quick burst from his rifle and all 4 of those Shriekers collapse. I can hear more of them and sure enough many rush towards us. Most of them are coming from the direction of Faith Tower. Daneils begins to shoot once again and Nathan follows. I start firing too but they keep on coming.
"Everybody back away..." Capt. Daneils shouts at us as he reloads "...we’ll head for the market"
We run for our lives towards Coles SuperMarket, there are still many of those Shriekers after us. We reach the entrance but a wave of fear fills me when Nathan tries to open the doors without success.
"It’s fucking locked" Nathan yells desperately.

Daneils begins firing at the monsters trying to buy us time. I look around and notice that the lower half of one of the doors has been broken into, leaving a hole big enough for all of us to get through.
"Theres a hole we can crawl through..." I say running to it "...quick let’s go"
I’m the first to crawl through. Getting down on all fours I quickly head inside. The smell as my head entered the store was disgusting, it must’ve been the combined force of rotting vegetables, meat and possible dead bodies that contributed to the smell.
I immediately stand up as I hear shrieks coming from the inside of the Supermarket. I see one charging at me from the frozen food section. I aim my shotgun and blow a hole in it’s head. I spot another coming from the confectionery section and I cock my gun and....click. It’s blitzing towards me and it jumps. I instinctively roll to the left and watch as it flies head first into the wall. It crashes leaving behind a huge crack in the wall. I pull out a shell from my load bearing vest and reload my shotgun. I quickly aim at it’s head and pull the trigger. I see Nathan come from the hole quickly followed by Daneils.

"Heather you alright?" Nathan asks as I reload my shotgun
"Yeah..." I pant "...I just got attacked by 2 Shriekers."
"You call em Shriekers?"
"Yep and you should know why" I reply cocking my shotgun.
I look behind him and see Daneils putting bags of dirt mix in front of the entrance.
"Okay we should stick together and search this place..." Daneils says grabbing a cart "...first is the canned food isle, then confectionery, smokes whatever."

I didn’t notice it at first but this place still had some food. As we walked down the canned food isle. We find cans of spam, corned beef, soup and vegies. Altogether maybe about 60 cans of food. We move to the home cooking isle. I grab a cooking pot and find 3 liters of cooking oil. I see Nathan grabbing pasta packets and throwing them in the cart. I look for water bottles but sadly it seems they have been taken. The other isles seem to either have expired products or what should have been useful has been taken already but there was a backpack I found and gave to Nathan. By the end of the trip we manage to fill up the whole cart. Now all we need was to get some medical supplies.

"Nathan, Heather, wait here while I get the jeep..." Daneils says while looking outside "...stay away from the front entrance. When you see the jeep grab the cart and shove it at the back as quick as you can."
"What are you going to do?" Nathan asks
"I’ll crash the jeep here, just be really quick with that cart or we’re all dead okay?"
Captain Daneils moves the dirt mix sacks away from the hole and crawls through. I push the cart away from the entrance and we hide behind a counter. I hear the sounds of Daneils rifle going off and then the sound of tires screeching, followed by the sounds of concrete breaking and glass shattering. Nathan immediately pushes the cart towards the jeep.

The back of the jeep opens up and Nathan tries to lift the cart into the jeep but no luck. I rush to help him and with both of our adrenaline flowing we lift the cart in the jeep and get in through the same way. I close the back and Daneils quickly drives off, hitting a few Shriekers along the way.
"What about medical supplies?" I ask Daneils panting loudly
"Forget about it for now..." he replies "...let’s get to the bookstore, too may of these things to fuckin deal with right now."
We make hastily make our way back to the book store.
I grab the walkie talkie and speak into it.
"Dean, Audrey this is Heather do you copy?"
"Yes Heather this is Dean we copy, do you have everything?"
"We got the food but too many monsters, we’ll get the medical supplies another day"
"Ahhh fuck, well that’s better then nothing. Thanks guys...and girl. Come back in one piece"
"Will do Dean, be sure to remove the bookshelf, we’ll park the jeep right in front of the store"
"Copy that Heather"
I put down the walkie talkie and I relax.
"Hahaha...we fucking did it!" I say happily
The other 2 chuckle.

We arrive back at the bookstore and park the rear of the jeep right in front of the double doors. I notice that the jeep effectively acts as another barricade blocking access to the entrance completely, the only way we could get into the store would be to go through the back of the jeep where the cart was.
I watch as the bookshelf is lifted and several people including Dean, Johnny and Mr Anderson open the back of the jeep. They grab the cart and all the food that fell out of it. Daneils, Nathan and I exit the jeep through the back to join the others.
"That is a lot of food" Mr Anderson remarks
"I know..." I reply "...I was surprised there was food still there!"
"You guys.....and girl deserve to relax..." Dean smiles "...we’ll ration these, should last about maybe 3 days minimum"
"We should leave the jeep in front like this..." Daneils says pointing to the jeep "...acts like an extra barricade and those things would have to crawl to get to here."
"Fair enough..." Dean exclaims "...now let’s serve these people some food already, I’m fuckin starving!"

"If you could see me now Michael..." I think to myself as I make my way inside "...I’ve changed for the better, I wish you were still here though"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(this part by matt_will)
Prospective: Harry
Date: 17th November 2008
Time: 10:40 am

"We shouldn't be doing this." Mak tells me as I caustiously open a door to a newsagents that was in the area my group was in.
"When did we ever listen to orders Mak?" I ask him. I peer round into the store and see that it is empty but I hear moaning comming from a back room.
"Never. I'm going to check the back room." Mak goes and walks over to the door kicks it open and shoots the zombie inside in the head. I meanwhile head over to the drinks fridge. Good there are still some left. I add the 3 bottles of coke and the 4 bottles of water to my backpack. My friend then comes back into the store with some chocolate bars and some other snacks.
"Give me some of the chocolate I haven't had any for months." He chucks a bar over and I devour it in seconds. He adds the rest to my pack and I stuff some magazines in as well. As I leave the shop I cock my gun as I see one of the shriekers round te corner.
Shrie- Pow
It goes down. As more start rounding the corner I shouted to Mak to get ready to fight.

POW POW POW POW POW POW
I downed the first few zeds through the cades but as more came through it soon became aparent that we needed to flee. So I walked backwards downing a few undead and then I reloaded.
"Get into the backroom and as soon as I'm in shut the door and barricade it!" I yelled at Mak. And true to what I expected he barricaded the door. I imediatley began pushing the roof panels up so that we could get higher. I pulled myself up and yelled for Mak to climb up to. We were safe. For now.
"That was a close one Harry," We heard a vehicle driving outside, so we got up onto the roof and saw the group of people that had left for food. I see that the shriekers in the store immediatly ran outside and gave chase.
"We should help them" Mak told me. I was about to agree when a plan struck me.
"No. They can outrun the zombies and we can escape." Without any objection Mak followed as I began jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

"Hello." I walk down the stairs to the group downstairs. Most of them had been out and come back before us.
"How on earth did you get up there?" One of the leaders ,I think she's called Audrey, says. I quickly explain what happened and she seemed plaesed with our find.
"I never got your name. What is it?" She asks me. This is met with other people asking the same questions.
"Its Harry. I am a survivor from the city of Ivener. One of the origonal zombie infested cities. I fought for four months. My family and many friends died. Heck I almost died more times than I can count." People begin getting angry. And someone from the group shouts:
"YOU LIE! MY FAMILY DIED IN A DISEASE OUTBREAK AND THE CITY WAS BOMBED INTO OBLIVION!" I never knew I would get this reaction.
"I tell the truth. Don't you correct me on things you don't know about. I saw my friends and family die at the hands of the zombies. I still wake up seeing
from dreams of that first dreadfull night when the zombies broke in and took my daughter from my hands. They devoured her right in front of me." By the time I finnish tears are streaming down my face and I storm upstairs.

(For those people who didn't know my characters name I've told you and the crisis about water is not so bad we now have 7 bottles)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by Nexus_Oblivion)
Perspective of: Heather, 18
November 18th 2008
Time: 2:14AM

*Bloodcurdling Shriek*

“Oh my God! Those things are outside!”

“SHIT! everybody stay quiet!”

“To late for that don’t you think?”

“Calvin shut up!”

I instantly reach for my shotgun and quickly stand up.
“Oh Heather you’re awake” Calvin remarks
“What’s going on?” I ask alertly
“There’s zom-”
“There’s ‘Shriekers’ outside, as you have dubbed them” Nathan interrupts as he pulls out his handgun
“Well I can see why you call them that” Calvin says smiling.
“How many are outside?” I ask
“Well Dean can only see 4 right now but they’ll be a lot more if those things keep shrieking” he replies
I grab my bag and start heading for the women’s bathroom, I notice Kelly entering the storeroom.
“Where’s she going?” I hear Nathan asking Calvin
“Gonna go and put on her gear” he replies
“That army armor she was wearing yesterday?” Nathan inquires
“Haha funny story involving that armor” Calvin laughs
I open the bathroom door and begin changing my clothes. After some time I emerge back out and head back to Calvin and Nathan.
“Really?...” Nathan says to Calvin “...did that really happen Heather?” he asks me
“Did you tell him about the mercenaries?” I say to Calvin with a smile
“Yep and how we killed them and took their cloths and equipment” he adds

More shrieks can be heard now and everyone seems to be getting scared...this is not going to end well. I head for the 2nd floor of the the bookstore to get a look at these Shriekers. I reach the front window of the store and down below I see them. More and more seem to be gathering around the front the store, like a horde.
“Perhaps they are evolving” a voice comments
My heart jumps as I turn and see James standing beside me
“They might be” I say regaining my composure
I turn around and see Dean heading towards us
“How many are there now?” he asks reaching the window
“I counted 20 but the number will keep increasing the longer we stay here” James remarks
“We should gather everything and prepare to move” I tell Dean
“Already in motion Heather but the only problem is where to go from here” he says worriedly
Audrey joins us, followed by Capt. Daneils.
“The alleyway behind us is clear...” she says to Dean “...we could escape from there and head for another location”
“But the problem is...” Capt. Daneils adds “...is that the vehicles are right where the zombies are and moving 30+ people around in pitch black darkness will be dangerous.”
I walk towards the railings and look down below. I spot the vague silhouette of Harry in his group and remember something he told me when I got back from the food trip.

“The rooftop” I utter
“What was that Heather?” Dean asks
“We could use the roof...” I tell them “...Harry told me he got here by jumping from roof to roof”
“That’s right, I remember him telling me that too...” Audrey comments “...but I checked and everyone would have to jump a 3 meter gap to get to the other buildings.”
“Then we’ll spit into groups...” I add “...half of us who can make that 3 meter gap escape from the rooftops and the second group use the alleyway”
Just then we hear a bloodcurdling shriek from the inside of the bookstore. We all rush to the railings and see some people turning on their flashlights and shining it at the stockroom door where the exit to the alleyway is.
“Kelly’s still in there...” Audrey remarks “...I sent her to check the alleyway, she must of left the exit open”
“Where is she now?” I ask worriedly

A loud thumping noise is heard, the storeroom door gives way and from the beams shone by the flashlights, I see 2 Shriekers, one of which was Kelly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This part by Xombiez

Perspective of: Calvin, 18
November 18th, 2008
Time: 3:00 A.M.

"Oh shit, no." I whisper.
"Everyone, Open fire!" Yells Dean.
A few people lift up guns, and the shriekers are down without another sound. There are others streaming through the back door now, but they are picked off as more people join in the fight. I pick up a handgun on the shelf next to me and pick off one who's practically on top of one of the survivors. one hell of a shot.
"Should we hold here, or run?" I ask.
"Hold until we can get the doors open!" Dean shouts over the constant din.
Heather sprints down the staircase and begins helping Evan, Danny and Steve move the bookshelves to open the door.
They part, and I can see that the street is mostly free, with only a few zombies between us and a straight run to a new building.
I can see James moving across the road, along with another person. The zombies all turn around to go after them, but James is quick. He takes out a few of them as I move towards the exit. Everyone is spilling out into the street and the remaining zombies are picked off.
I grab an XM8 on my way out of the store, realizing that it may be the only thing that we left behind. Man, we can get out well when we need to.
We start sprinting across the street and down the few blocks we can before they catch up. "Get to a building!" I yell.
"Gee, You think?" Shouts Audrey back. Everyone seems to take the advice, although nobody takes it the right way. James, the new kid, Steve and I slip inside an office building while the rest of the party keeps moving. I close the door behind me and James and Steve move a reception desk in front of it. They continue piling furniture in front while i move to the only door out of the lobby and watch for movement.
The new kid walks over to me and taps me on the shoulder. "'Sup?" he says. Americans. "Name's David, you?"
"Calvin." I say flatly.
"Cool. So you're, like, Irish?"
"Scottish, now if you'll kindly-" I'm cut off by a movement as a figure runs out of the darkness past the lobby, stopping just as i squeeze the trigger. The only problem is that there's no bullet, no explosion at the tip of the barrel. The figure just stands there, head cocked to one side, hands in the air, and faints backwards.
"-Shut up." I finish. Obviously he is just as confused as i am. "Shit," i say, as i realize i grabbed a gun with no ammo, and i only have one clip on me.
"What the fuck?" David asks.
"I have no clue." I turn around, extending a hand. "Sorry about the rough introduction, but if that had been one of them you can see why i didn't want to be distracted."
"No, man, it's cool. Just though i should know what to call if i need help. I been alone for a while..."
James and Steve walk over from their job and meet us at the fallen figure.
"This is Steve, Or Mr. Anderson, whichever you prefer." Says James.
"Hey." He says, extending his hand again.
"Nice to meet you, although not so much under the conditions." Steve says back. "So what would you make of our fallen friend here?" He sighs, crouching down to examine the man.
He has thin grey hair, balding at the top, and is wearing a tattered business suit. The suit is pretty cheap, one of those designer remakes for people who can't afford real suits. He has a red tie, and he's sweating profusely.
"Look, he's got a walkie." I point out.
"I'll take that t mean that there are other people here." James says.
Steve picks up the small plastic device, and pushes the button to talk through it. "Hello?" We all wait around him. "Is anyone there? We are four survivors of a large group that has been separated. We are in the building and need help."
Some static flickers over it as we wait for a response. "This is Colonel Mike Richards. I am on the third floor with twenty plus survivors. We can help you up the elevator shaft, over."
"Good, let's take it. Where're the elevators?" I ask.
Like a little miracle, a light flashes on above us. "Elevators Right" it says.
"The sign should be on. Hit the switch on the wall and get into the car. There should be a rope hanging from the top. Use that to scale the wall to the next floor. If you're injured, we can use the elevator, although we'd rather save the generator power, over."
We head over to the elevator doors, dragging our newfound comrade. They open up, and a faint music assaults the silence. Sure enough, the rope is hanging there, dangling limply from some area above the emergency escape on the elevator car.
We sling our weapons across our shoulders and move up one by one. James stays in the car, covering the rear just in case we missed a zombie.
As we make it towards the top, I see a light spilling into the pitch black corridor that we climbed. Several figures were outlined in the light. One of them reached down and helped David up into the light. Then Steve, me, and a few seconds later, James.
I saw a surprisingly happy looking group of people, of all ages and genders. Five of which were in ACU. One of them steps forward, saluting. "I'm Colonel Richards. Welcome up."
We salute back. "I'm James," James says, nodding in the direction of the group. "This is Calvin, David, and Steve." We all wave or nod to the crowd. "One of your men is in the car downstairs. He may need some help." Colonel Richards' smile dries up.
"That bastard." He growls. He steps to the elevator doors and yells down to the car below. "You fucking bastard! You can rot down there if you want, you're not getting back up this time!" He steps back, and a murmur rushes through the crowd. "Sorry, that's Rudy. He's been missing for upwards of five hours and he must have disassembled the barricade on the stairs to get down there and escape. I'll send a team to fix that." He motions at a few men and they move off down the hall.
The walkie in my bag suddenly goes off and i can hear Audrey on the other end.
"...Repeat, pick up. We are safe. Most of us, anyway. We are on the roof of a nearby movie theater and we have barricaded the only way back. We can make the leaps to some of the buildings around. Where are you?"
I pick it up. "It's good to hear a familiar voice. we're at an office building about two blocks from the bookstore and we have found more survivors, along with a military unit. What are the casualties?"
"Evan is dead, so is Danny. I'll fill you in later. Now i need you to help us out of here. Any of you have a sniper?"
"Yes Ma'am. We have a professional, why?" Says Richards.
"I have a plan to get us all over there safely. Just hang tight, I'll radio again in an hour."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by Nexus_Oblivion)
Perspective of: Heather, 18
November 18th 2008
Time: 3:16AM

"Heather wait!!!!"
"Come on, this way! in here!!"
*rushed footsteps and then door closing*
"Where are we?"

I try to look around the pitch black darkness, the thought of Shriekers being inside the building never occurred to me.
"Nathan do you have a flashlight?" I ask quietly
"No, sorry..." he replies "...we should probably barricade the door"
There’s silence, I guess Nathan’s trying to find something to barricade the door...his hands find my hip.
"Shit, sorry..." he whispers "...I can’t see anything" I knew even in the pitch black darkness, Nathan was smiling.
"Wipe that smile away, find something to barricade the door and I’ll search the place for a flashlight" I tell Nathan coldly

I slowly walk forward, one hand outstretched in the dark and the other shakily trying to hold the shotgun straight. I feel a hard surface in front of me....a wall. Using that to guide me, I continue walking until I bump into what felt like a desk.
"Heather you alright there?" Nathan loudly whispers
"Yeah I’m fine...bumped into a desk"
I place my hand on the desk and feel for something of use

Stapler.....pencil.....paper.....pencil...keyboard? no it’s a laptop. I feel around the laptop and clutch what appears to be a plug connected into it, must be the charger. I excitedly search for the power button. Upon the 3rd random button press I hear the sound of it whirring before the dark luminated screen displays the windows vista logo. Wasting no time, I unplug the charger and shine the laptop around the place. Unfortunately it’s still on the black windows vista loading screen but judging from the dimly lit surroundings, we were in what looked like a computer room, there are rows of computers down from where I was all the way to the back.
"We must be in an Internet cafe..." Nathan remarks "...yeah I remember this place, this is were all the kids go to play video games, we past this place when we went to find food."
The room went from being darkly luminated to a bright blue. I check the laptop and realize that it’s now on the log in screen....too bad, I don’t know the password.
"We have to find a safer place" I say to Nathan
"Where can we go? It’s still to dark outside" he tells me
"This is a 3 story building..." I reply "...there must be stairs, we’ll keep climbing up until we reach the top."
"If you say so Heather..." he casually says "...here let me hold the laptop"
He walks towards me and takes it. I grab my shotgun and tell him to follow me. Even though we have a light source the shadows from the objects make this place very eerie. We slowly walk towards the back of the room and spot a door, with a keypad lock.
"There’s stairs behind it" Nathan tells me
"And how would you know?" I ask with a raised eyebrow
"I worked here" he replies bluntly "try 4,2,0,9"
I press the corresponding buttons and a satisfying click sounds and I open the door.
Theres blood everywhere....

I tense up, the stairs are just a few feet away on the left but the sight of the blood across the ceiling, walls and floor unnerve me. There’s no way a Shrieker could have done this. The boxes on the shelves are soaked with blood, the ceiling is encrusted with dried gore and what is more disturbing is, there’s no body.
"There’s no way a Shrieker could have done this" Nathan remarks upon seeing all the blood
"I know..." I say shakily "...come on let’s go"
I’m the first to walk up the steps, against Nathan’s insistence to go first. We arrive on the second floor. Not the same sight as downstairs but still provides the same creepy atmosphere, there are computers set up exactly like the computer room downstairs but there is more space to move about.

I take a few steps forward with Nathan following behind with the laptop. I hear the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor to my left. I instinctively turn towards that direction only to see everything darken. Simultaneously I hear the sound of something falling down and looking behind me I spot Nathan on the floor with the laptop half closed in front of him, blood pouring down the back of his neck. I wildly aim my shotgun behind him and fire. From that brief muzzle flash, I see a club like object right near my face before I find myself on the floor.

I can barely see anymore...I can feel myself losing consciousness. Right before I pass out I catch a glimpse of a man grinning psychotically at me.

I feel a hand against my leg....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This Part by:Fredskie143

November 18,2008
It's been more or less a week since the outbreak began...

"Sloan City Times dated: November 09,2008
Headlines:a man is arrested after shooting 8 of his neighbors, he was seen in his bedroom all covered in blood and shaking with his lever action rifle. This has been the 4th incident of murder since the last 2 weeks and..."

It all got us by surprise.

What we thought of an ordinary incident turned out to be more than meets the eye.

"There have been reports of missing people all over the city, the authority says that this must could be doings of terrorists or kidnappers hoping to find a good life in crime. Meanwhile, an evidence has been found in the outskirts of the city where a corpse was found, other than this the corpse was missing his left arm, and his right hand, which looks like it has been somehow ripped apart..."
Sloan City Tonight November 12,2008
Apocalypse? it could be. God must have been tired of sending natural calamities to discipline man that he thought of sending the apocalypse. An abomination that man alone had made.

(Story continues after a while, my characters will be coming up so just wait for 'em guys, im gonna try connecting them to your characters, it will be easy as my characters live in Sloann City. This is where im gonna start my character's stories, hope to join your stories soon.^_^)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This part by Xombiez
November 18, 2008, 7:30 a.m.
Perspective of: Calvin
I am so fucking tired. I'm sure that most people are the same way. as i look around this small enclave, I see the weathered, battle scarred eyes of people who have seen death.
This dingy office building is the most solemn place i've been so far. It's really starting to get to me.
I work my way to the roof. it's almost time now.
Our sniper is in position on the roof, and Audrey's plan is in the course of being set in motion. They've been up here for an hour, and before that we put Rudy in a separate holding room and rebuilt the barricade on the stairs.
Now it's a waiting game. There are still upwards of fifty Shriekers on the streets, and there is no way that we can take them all out without attracting more. That is the critical part of the plan. The radio buzzes in and Audreys voice floats over the static.
"Geoff is sure, Colonel. we have visual confirmation from our position that they are still moving and that the building is still secure. Both of them have no signs of Human inhabitants and we are ready to move."
"Good. Hold tight until we give the signal. Remember, The bunker is two blocks north of your current position. When we fire, you move. Over and out." He smiles, massaging his temples. He then turns toward David, James, Steve and I and gives us a thumbs-up. "This is where the job gets fun. You four will use the fire escape. when it goes, run with your group. We'll be fine, and we're going to use the mountains one or two miles west to move. If we can, we'll head for the west coast, hopping from state to state. I plan on getting to the furthest point on this earth away from here. Good luck, and thanks for the help."
"No problem, man, we got you." David smiles. I nod at him and hop onto the fire escape, followed by mycomrades.
We wait at the bottom of the fire escape. I slide my new magazine into the XM8. i have two backups, and i shouldn't need them for now. Not if it all goes right.
Over my walkie i hear the signal crackle. a short beep, and the sound of shattering glass. across the street, the pet store windows and glass door explode, and the shrieks of birds, mice and other assorted animals follow. I say a silent prayer as the zombies run hollering at the store, as more and more show up, until none are outside. Now, the second part. I cover my head and turn around as an explosion rips at the store. "Oh shit, that was cool." Dave wonders. Part two involves several well placed sniper rounds in the propane store next door to the pet shop. Knowing the noise will draw the attention of many more Shriekers, we drop to the street and run.
We can hear the yellsemanatingfrom the town, and we set off past the flames to meet with the other shattered groups that have emerged from their havens to run for the abandoned military outpost north of Arlington Park. From what Colonel Richards says, It was abandoned soon after the military lost its central command, and it has enough ammo and supplies to last a large group for a few days. We can only hope he didn't lie. Now, a mob of no more than fifteen survivors running for our lives to the only hope we've had since we got to this city. We all sprint, clinging to that hope that we can make it out. I see Steve in front of me, and he looks back to see the rest of us. His eyes widen, and he starts screaming. "Run! They're right behind you!" I look back as an older man is tackled, unable to keep up with the group.

The new kill slows them down, and we make a final turn into the small compound, opening the heavy doors, ushering people inside until everyone else is in. The doors close, the many bolts slide, and the room is completely dark. I rummage a flashlight from my bag and turn it on, wasting no time finding the generator and it's stockpile of gas. As i work on the large machine. a thought comes to mind, and as the murmur of confusion and fear dies out, I turn and say "Wait, where are Heather and Nathan? Weren't they with you all?"
The murmur rises, and as the lights fade on and the generator hums the room is filled with questions.
"Who?"
"But she was never here!"
"They must still be in a building."
"Maybe they're dead?"
Dean works his way towards the front and stand in front of the crowd. "They were separated from us in the first run. I saw them enter a small cafe before we ducked inside the theater. They had a walkie with them, but i can't remember the station. Bruce knew." he finished, hanging his head.
"Who's Bruce?" I say, more to the crowd than Dean.
Audrey inhales quickly. "He was killed while we were running. He was the only one..."
I search the room as people lost interest in our conversation. Dean goes on to order them to open the boxes around the large room. the cold, cement air is only filtered by a large grated fan high on one of the walls. I sigh. Audrey walks over and pats my shoulder. "Don't worry, Calvin. We'll just check a few channels until we get it. No big deal. Heather's a fighter, I'm sure she'll make it. And I'm truly sorry. I know a lot of your friends didn't make it. Any help you need, come talk to me." She smiles and walks away, leaving me as the only one by the thick steel doors. I listen to the scrape of fingernails against it and hope that they aren't Nathan and Heather's.
I find a sleeping bag in one of the crates and lay it out under the fan. I finally get my first good sleep in two days.

As i drift off, my head swims with images of the last few days.Michael, Heather, Kelly, Mr. Anderson, Marty, the military men, and some faces of people i met only briefly in the school. Frank and Shelley. I stare at them as i nod off. At least somebody is happy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by Nexus_Oblivion)
Perspective of: ?????, ??
November 18th 2008
Time: ??:????

Shes so beautiful! Oh her face reminds me of my wife. Huh? she’s wearing military clothing....no no, can’t have that...off with the clothes. So much clothing.

There all better. Smooth barely dirty skin, oh what is this? she’s been shaving her... hahahahehe. Oh she really is like my wife, I’ll enjoy every moment of this.

No, NO! Argh! Arghhhh! Why can’t I get it up!!? FINE so be it, it’s her fault anyway. I’ll teach her abut pain and fear, like all the people who were here....but what about the other one? Oh he looks like my wife too! with one exception of course...hahahahehe but I don’t like men, he’ll suffer first. Downstairs you go!

Downstairs to my little torture chamber....yes you both have seen it but why didn’t you check inside the boxes? hrmm? My tools were there! Instruments of torture! hehahaha. Oh the man is heavy. Very heavy indeed. I hope the chains hold him up. He’s not yet stirring, can’t begin unless he wakes. I’m not going to wake him....no no no, let him have his last peaceful moments. Oh but I’ll let my wifey watch too! Can’t have all the fun without an audience.

Upstairs I go, there she is, still on the floor, naked, right where I left her. Now now wife, what have I told you about walking around naked? Alright I’ll let it go this time, come with me downstairs, I have a show I want you to see...hahaha.

There, comfy in that chair wife? Sorry I had to tie your hands and feet. I don’t want you to run away and miss the show! hehahahaha! Oh but your still sleeping too...oh well, when you both wake up I’ll begin. But the man is still has his clothes....tsk tsk tsk, off with those too! Oh wow, no wonder the wife was with you. Wifey I wish I was like that but alas you won’t see it or him anymore....after I had my fun hehehehahaha.

COME ON WAKE UP! BOTH OF YOU! hehehaha. You know I can’t start without you both awake! Oh I forgot to get my instuments, excuse me wife and gentleman. Ah there is the box, covered in blood by the others before you. Oh wake up sir and see my tools! See this here? this is my trusty flay knife! And this is my drill! oh and this lovely thing is a hacksaw! hehehahahaha, it’s alright, when you wake up you’ll see! Oh and wife, you’ll get a turn to experience my tools too! Since my man tool won’t work on you, I’ll substitute with these! You always liked using toys no? hahahaha.

Oh oh oh....you awake? good, good. What’s your name? Na-than...oh Nathan welcome to hell hehahahaha. You looking at my wife? wife, wife don’t struggle! You wouldn’t want me to slip one of these in there do you? Hahaha let’s begin the show! Watch me turn this man from white to cinnabar red! Are you watching this? WATCH IT! or I’ll fucking stick this hacksaw in there! Do you want that? I asked you a question bitch! No? Good...hahahaha now watch wife! watch the show! On with the show! Now..Nathan, I hardly knew yee! but the next couple of hours your going to wish that I kill you quickly but I wont. Hehehahaha now lets start off with your fingers! Nurse, the flay knife!

Oh you’re holding the screams back? Haha you’ll break soon enough and when you do, it will be like music to my ears! Hahaha, wife look! his first finger came off, it’s been flayed! Look at it. I SAID LOOK AT IT! There, was that so hard? What? No...I can’t let him go. On with the show!
Oh was that a little scream? Oh yes you’re nearly breaking, oh oh look, you’ve just lost your 4th finger! hehehahahaha, oh the show’s so good even my wifes crying in joy! Don’t worry wifey you’ll be next! Now sir, I’m sorry I had to break the bones with my hands, did you want me to use the hacksaw? Come on participate! Oh don’t tell her too look away! I haven’t even gotten started with your lower half yet! hahaha.

Ah there it is, music to my ears! Lucky 7 indeed! Oh sobbing like a child now...hahahehehe. Both of you, a melancholic duet! I’ve had enough of your fingers, I want some feet! Hehahaha.

Oh there’s the screams! Look wife, I won a foot! here let my place this on your lap...hehahaha. Now let me flay the other foot before I hack it off! Look Nathan! I can even flay...the flay! Oh so much blood now! Your blood is joining the countless others! Don’t close your eyes Nathan....WATCH! No you’re not listening...let me help you see! hehehahahaha. Oh look wifey, I have 4 eyelids woooo.

Oh I love the blood spurting at me! It makes the hacksaw my second favourite instrument! Oh Nathan don’t cry...you had no need for feet. here let me kiss you! Oh yes...such soft lips, Wife I see why your with him! I want your lips as a momento! Nurse, the flay knife! hahahaheheheha.

Oh the screams! You look like you had a rough day sir. You giving me lip? Hehahaha. Wife try these lips, DON’T MOVE, I told you what I would do if you didn’t obey! hahaha, oh yes they suit you perfectly. Let me test them out.....oh perfect! Hehahaha, Nathan if you haven’t noticed, I still haven’t used the drill! See this bit? see how it’s small and thin? Was that a nod? I said do you see it? Oh good, well guess where I like to stick this in? hehahaha, no no no, If I wanted it there I would use a bigger drillbit but think....THINK! Oh the sobbing again....now you understand...good. Wife did you get that? WATCH WIFE! I want you to see the entire show! hehe, or I’ll cut your eyelids too. Drill drill drill.......

My oh my......the angelic screams! how painful was that? hehahaha! Is that blood dripping? Well you have no use for it anymore! Hahaha. Wife look, he is no longer a man! Oh don’t curse at me wife...I’m sorry It’s not as good as my previous work but I’ll make up for it with you! He’s just practise....but you want to know the worse part is Nathan? How long has time past? It’s only been 40 minutes, you remember what I said before? you know about how I’ll make this last hours...well I like to keep my word! hehehehahaha.

Oh wife why are you crying still? What? You want to do this together? Okay...no I can’t trust you wife. But if you’re sure, such a sweet voice you have...okay let me untie you.

UNGRATEFUL WHORE!! Don’t run from me! Oh Nathan, wait here while I finish the wife upstairs. I’ll take the saw with me....I want her to bleed like a pig. Where are you wife? I freed you! I trusted you! What husband deserves this? oh... I see you took the shotgun! well I’ll have to be extra careful when I find you don’t I? Where could you be? under the computers? No. Oh there you are wife.
Put down the shot-*BOOM*
Argh! my leg! FUCKING WHOR-*BOOM*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This part by fredskie143

november 17,2008

I'm Jimmy....Jimmy Myers. Im a police officer and a survivor living in Sloann City.
I have been stuck here in my apartment for almost a week now since the whole outbreak happened.

Luckily, Im not the only resident to survive the outbreak. There are a lot of pockets of survivors out there.
I can see them through the lights in an office building just a block away from my apartment. I can see them, and how i wished i could join them. I dont want to be alone here with those monsters outside. Even if i wanted to,
all i have is a handgun and only 5 mags left.

Right now im hanging around my window looking for survivors who could pass by.
I turned on my television, trying to wish i could have something to watch other than blank screens and rainbow "stand-by" prompts from every channel i flip into. But what caught my attention was that, while i was guarding by the window, i heard gunshots not far from here. The direction of the sound is pointing at the local bookstore nearby. I also heard loud sounds of moving vehicle, something like in action movies when the driver screeches upon stepping on the breaks. It filled me with hope, I can finally get myself out of this hell. Once i've found a way out of my apartments, I'm gonna make a run for it towards that bookstore, and see what's cooking.

But for the meantime, im gonna prepare myself if i would want my ass outta here. I went to my kitchen, opened a can of tuna, and enjoyed a meal, which could be my last if i fail the run for the bookstore for help. After that meal, i sat in my couch, after a while, tireness touched my neck, then my eyes, and i fell asleep.

November 18,2008
2:14 am

Pow!
PoPow!!!
Bram!!

"--What the*.."
I was woke up by the sound of gunshots roaming the early morning.
As the shots kept on, the monsters outside my apartment imediately dissapeared and ran outside the building towards the direction of the noise. This gave me the hint that this could be the right time to make a run for it. I immediately wore my black leather jacket, and changed into my black jogging pants(since it's still dark out there), and I grabbed my ammo belt and holster. I hurriedly did an ammo check, and finally i was ready. I slowly opened the door and as i peaked, the area was clear. I rushed downstairs and ran outside the apartment into the open streets. Now i realized i was alone and i immediately hid behind a car. Checking the surroundings, i quickly but carefully made a run to the bookstore.

As i got there, i was surprised by the view of an opened up door, and i saw those monsters entering it.
I was almost seen by one of them but i quickly hid under a dumpster in an alleyway. By this time i heard some more gunshots and the shrieks of the dead. Where are the people there? could they be dead?. What am i going to do now, now that im in the streets?

What a luck indeed. After what i thought was the master plan to save my ass, here i am now stuck in the middle of the street, inside a dumpster. Ain't life Hell?

The next thing i knew, there was someone outside knocking at the dumpster. But the knock seems to be human, as it does not cause a loud noise. I opened the dumpster's door, and i was greeted by a familiar face.

"How are you doing Jimmy?"..he says with a smile.
"Oh my God, Jhonny--" im cut of by a scream, or more likely, a shriek. "No more time to talk, let's move!", and we both ran to an alleyway.
(I dont know when to meet you guys yet but im sure we will all meet up. hehehe...^_^)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by Nexus_Oblivion)
Perspective of: Heather, 18
November 18th 2008
Time: ??:??AM

*FUCKING WHOR-BOOM*
*click-click*
*Shaky breathing*
*Shotgun falls to the ground*

I collapsed on the floor...crying. What happened in there was too much. Nathan...Nathan was tortured by some sick fuck. I had to watch him, I watched him get his fingers and feet butchered off...his eyelids slashed away. I was there...I witnessed everything and I couldn’t do a thing. I lose everyone around me; Carlos, David, Ted, Michael, Kelly and now I lost Nathan too.

Eventually I managed to pull myself together. I grabbed my clothes and took Nathan’s handgun and my shotgun with me. I couldn’t go back down the same way, I didn’t want to be reminded of what happened so I broke a window and climbed down.
I returned to the bookstore, I managed to find a couple of magazines for my handgun. I encountered Shriekers, those zombies, inside the bookstore and decided to find a new place to hold up...I stumbled on you guys and now here I am.

I finish telling my story and stare at Jimmy and Jhonny.
"I’m sorry Heather" Jimmy says with sadness
"It’s okay..." I reply trying to sound okay "...I tried contacting the others to know where they went but my radios broken. They could be anywhere."
"Well you can stay with us..." Jhonny remarks "...we need all the help we can get, if we find a working radio we can try and contact your friends and head for their location"
"Sounds good to me" I say smiling
As a gesture of good faith I give them each 1 magazine for their gun.
"I don’t really know much about guns..." I tell them "...Just enough to know that I have a Beretta, a .45 and a Remington 870. Oh and I can reload them."
They smile politely
"Well at least you know enough..." Jimmy remarks "...alright we better find a better place to stay"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perspective of: Harry
Date: November 18th
7:40 am

"Hello? Hello is anyone hearing this?" I hear over the radio. I recognise the voice.
"I hear you." I respond thinking any contact is better than none at all. As I wait for a response I look around my new safehouse. It’s a single storey house which I thought looked promising when I had to flee the bookstore me and a large group of others were using. In the run my two friends Will and Sherly. I didn’t see them go down by I sure heard them.

"Who is this?" The voice asks. I’m beginning to get close too the name. I wince as Mak applies some cream to my wound. I got wounded when I jumped...well fell through a car window. I’m still not sure how it happened. It’s a weird world out there.
"This is Harry. I’m here with my friend Mak." I decide to respond since they probably won’t tell me who they are if I don’t tell them my name.
"Oh...I remember you. You were with the group at the bookstore. I’m Audrey." The name clicked just before she told me.
"Audrey where are you?"
"We are in a military outpost about 15 to 20 minutes away from the bookstore if you run. It’s to the East. Do you think you can make it?" Just as I’m about to answer I hear a crash from the front door. As I look down I see a group of what at first I think are zombies but as I look again I see that they are in fact SURVIVORS!
Thinking quickly I grab my Lee Enfield, check that the clip is full and go to see what the intruders want.
"Hey look up there," I hear one of them say and immediately the other four spin round and open fire. I duck as the air ripples with bullets. They obviously don’t care how much ammo they waste.
POW POW POW
I shoot back killing one and hitting the other in the leg. Since my gun is a bolt-action rifle I can’t fire as quickly as my enemy.
POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW

One of the uninjured attackers sprays the hallway with bullets and I’m forced to retreat. As my enemies come up the stairs I see Mak come out of the doorway in front and raise his two pistols. He opens fire and downs the first attacker. In a spray of blood he slips just before he dies and knocks the two behind him down the stairs. I run forward, raise my rifle and fire three more shots. I kill another one of them. My hands are shacking with the anxiety that comes from my first gunfight. As Mak raises his gun the assailants turn and scramble out of the house.
"Leave them. They won’t be back." I go down the stairs and inspect their guns. M4A1’s nice. Must have killed some military. I strap my rifle to my bag and pick up the assault rifle and about half the clips and tell Mak to take the rest.

I managed to jumpstart the car outside and got in the passenger’s seat as Mak got in the driver’s seat. It made sense since I was better at shooting that I was the one to provide covering fire. We had packed up straight after the fight and had found that there were no shriekers outside. I thought that odd but didn’t raise the issue. We were not long into the drive when we found them. They were crowding around the closed gates of a large building, which I guessed was a university of some sort.

"WATCH OUT!" I screamed at my friend. He hastily turned left and closer to the military base. A couple of the zombies spotted us and ran after, however none followed. I counted 10. I climbed into the back and smashed the window with the butt of my assault rifle. I fired of a couple of bursts at the group of zombies. I managed to kill 3 of them and then the Military Outpost came into view. Gunfire soon started and the rest of the zombies were killed. I pulled to a halt just outside the metal shutters. I shoulder my weapon and get out. We are greeted by Audrey and a group of other survivors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by Nexus_Oblivion)
Perspective of: Michael, 17
November 20th 2008
Time: 3:17AM

"Hey Michael....get up look where we are"

"Wha..? Why did yo-Falls Creek? Did we made it to Falls Creek!?"

"Now let’s just hope we find my contact"

3 days....3days we spent travelling. We arrived a day late but I never cared. I watch as the headlights from the car shine ahead into the dark early morning. I see a simple sign nearby "Welcome to Falls Creek" "Population 12000"
And what if we end up encountering 12000 reani necroli? It commented as we passed the sign
"Well just have to deal with it then" I thought back "we can minus 1 person from that number...Ashley Williams contact remember?"
Oh good, now we can deal with 11999 zombies now huh? It replied sarcastically Suppose now this mysterious contact of Capt. Williams is some sort of super soldier?

I dismiss Its remark and remember the files I brought with me from the brief interrogation back at that military camp. I haven’t had the chance to go over any of them. The files I hope will give me some insight on not only myself but those I’ve come to consider my friends, I don’t know why they had an interest in them...or even me for that matter but when we reached Williams contact, I’ll make sure to go over them.

I look behind me at Giles sleeping behind us in the back seat. Giles is his name, we picked him up 2 days ago, he tried to kill us but being the bad shot that he was...he failed. Originally we did decide to drop him off somewhere but Williams made the decision to use him as zedbait if a situation ever became dire.
Your needs before others huh Michael? It said laughingly Survival of the fittest...or perhaps those with power?
"Where we meeting your contact?," I ask Williams brushing what It said away, "who is your contact anyway?"
I knew who our contact was, hell I was just playing stupid who else could it be? I knew it would be him, MIA my ass.
"You’ll see when we get there," she replied simply, "but I know you had your suspicions already Michael.....care to guess who?"
"If it’s who I think it is....he sure does have a lot of explaining to do" I say smirking

We drive for for a short while and the moment we descended down the hill we pass by small stores. The light from the jeep showed some intact, some with broken glass and some with a combination of blood and dead bodies. As we drove by, I felt an eerie chill up my spine.
It’s impossible that 11999 residents in Falls Creek have all been killed, if these zombies where alive then they would be rushing this jeep, shrieking at the top of their lungs. I hear Giles stirring behind us...a good time too.
"How you holding up Giles?," I question him, "get enough sleep?"
"Yes I’m fine," he says half tiredly, "Where are we?"
"Falls Creek," Capt. Williams tells him sternly, "Anyway we’re nearing the meet up point, Michael get ready, we have to go on foot to reach it"
"And where am I supposed to go? I’m not staying here" Giles argues angrily.
"You will," Williams said calmly but with enough calmness that sounded like he had no choice, "you’ll stay here and we’ll leave. Don’t worry we’ll be back in an hour or two"

He went silent. I knew he was angry but better to be alive then dead I guess. We passed by a few houses, most were boarded up but looked like the people there died anyway. Still no reani necroli anyway. We stopped by an edge of what looked like a small forest. The houses where still nearby but these woods gave this place a blair witch feel.
"Our contact’s in that woods?" I comment
"Yes," Williams replied, "we’ll go on foot and walk it, short distance but keep your guard up none th-"
"And tell me what I’m supposed to do!" Giles interjected.
At this point I notice Williams losing her patience.
"Listen Giles, up to you, we are taking everything with us except the jeep. It’s up to you want you want to do. You can wait in the car, we will come back and get you but if you decide to drive off I don’t mind. Your choice"
Giles slumped to the back seat with his head done...probably thinking about what to do. Williams looked at me, signalling whether I was ready to go now or wait. I nodded to her and we both exited the car.

I could feel the mild cold through my clothing. Reaching for the back of the jeep I pull out my duffel bag with the files and wear it like back pack. I watch Williams put on her military-esque backpack and strap her XM8 to her. I asked her if we had any flashlights and she bluntly said no, she hands me the M16.
"Let’s go" she proclaims.

We walk into the dark woods with everything from the jeep, I look back and Giles still has his head down.
Ha...he’ll try to escape, he just wants you to leave before he tries anything It says happily but the thing is...Ashley has the keys haha
"What are you talking about" I think to It
I look at Williams and notice the jeep key dangling underneath her bag. How did It know?

We keep as quiet as we could, passing through various plants on the ground, hearing it brush against our armour. We walk for at least 30 minutes until we came across a clearing with a 2 storey log cabin in the middle. From the moonlight I could see it was built from logs laid horizontally and interlocked on the corners with notches, roof seemed to follow suit. It was big but the trees surrounding the clearing were even bigger.
"So your contact’s in there?" I whisper to Williams
"Yes but first let’s make sure he’s alive," she said, "raise your weapon and follow behind me"

We crept up to the log cabin. As we got closer the cabin seemed to get bigger. We slowly ascended the porch, only a slight creek from the wooden floor. We arrived at the entrance of the log cabin and I noticed something different in the wood....beside the door on the left was an electronic lock. It was small with numbers from 0-9 and a four letters W, X, Y, Z. As Williams was about to press her finger on it...when the electronic lock glowed a neon blue.
"So he is still alive" Williams remarked and punched in the code.
I couldn’t make out what she pressed.
She pressed 4, 9, 0, Y, 2 Michael It said monotonously
"4, 9, 0, Y, 2" I whispered under my breath unintentionally.
Williams looked at me with surprise, obviously she thought I wouldn’t be able to see.
"Lucky guess" I smiled
A faint buzzing noise came from within the log cabin before the door slowly opened...complete with the eerie rusty creeking noise.

Williams was the first to step inside followed by me. I couldn’t see anything inside, when the door closed behind us, a whirring sound came from somewhere to my left and above us lights instantly flooded the area. I had to shield my eyes and so did Williams. As I looked down with my hand covering the top view of my sight, I noticed that the floors was tiled white. Looking to my left I spotted in a room what looked like a grey futuristic generator that had numerous plugs connected to it. I also saw a set of stairs to my right and as well an adjoining room next to the foot of the stairs too. As my eyes slowly adjusted I looked above the staircase where I saw a set of boots and slowly looking up I noticed the boots were apart of someone wearing similar clothing to us.
I reached the mans face and held back tears....there he was.....my dad.

"Son is that you?," he said in that loving gruff voice of his, "Ash you brought him here....he’s here."
From the corner of my eye I saw Williams slowly tearing too but my attention was focused on my dad. I knew he was the contact. He had the look of both surprise and delight, the same look he would give to mum and I when he returned from a tour. I couldn’t stand still, I ran up the stairs and we met half way, embracing. I fought back tears as we embraced. Here was my dad....missing since the Iraq War and he is alive. I let go. We walked downstairs and dad hugged Williams. She cried a little but managed to pull herself together before he let go.
Michael, I know seeing your dad is wondrous and all but we have to figure out why we’re here....this isn’t just a reunion It said informatively There is something going on.
It was right, I cleared my throat before I began to speak.
"Dad, Williams, this is more then just a reunion isn’t it?," I said calmly, "tell me what’s happening."
They looked at each other before they looked at me.
"No, you’re right Michael," Williams said sounding regretful, "this isn’t just some reunion...I’m sure your dad can explain everything"
Then she saluted my dad who returned it, before walking off into the room near the stairs. Now it was just me and my dad. He still had his smile on his face while I tried to look stoic.
"Son, how have y-"
"Dad..please cut the small talk and tell me what’s going on."
I hated myself a little when I said that. I met him for only 5 minutes now and I’m acting like an asshole but he still kept smiling.
"Ha I see you have my determination," he said happily, "but rest first, I’ll explain everything in the morning."

He still had authority and he still was my dad. I followed him up the stairs and into one of the rooms. It was a bedroom. A double bed in the middle of the room and a closet in the far left with a mirror. Pretty standard but I’ve never lain in a bed for a long time, this to me was paradise.
"There’s even an ensuite," he said to me, "I’ll wake you up at 11 o’clock"
He didn’t bother using military jargon, he was my dad after all. I was about to salute him but he embraced me again.
"It really is good to know your here"
He left and closed the door behind him.

I checked the closet, mostly track pants, sweat shirts and underwear. I took off all my military gear and grabbed the clothes from the closet. I walked into the ensuite and saw that there were fresh towels on the rack and near the sink was toothpaste. I smiled at all the things I had missed for so long. After showering and brushing my teeth I pulled out the files in the duffel bag and laid them all on the bed. This was a perfect time as any to read up on some of those files.

All together there were 12 files. 6 of the files had my friends names on them, one was mine but the other 5 were names I didn’t recognize. Choosing to look over my own file I began to read it.

So know I knew...I finally know about the voice I hear in my head that seems to think for itself. That’s why It seems to notice things my mind clearly fails to observe. Guess that’s how It knew Williams had the keys and I didn’t. It’s observational skills are phenomenal.
So I guess you read the file It says jokingly The brain unlocks more and more of it’s functions and now here I am
"The only thing I don’t get is...," I think to It, "why do I have to depend on you? Can’t I learn to be more observant myself?"
You created me Michael It said courteously I can’t say anything, after all I’m still just like any other voice people hear in their head but in your case you made me a separate entity.

This whole thing seemed too weird and confusing for me. I picked up the files and placed them in the bag. I needed sleep. I’ll reread the file again so I can hope to understand what it meant more clearly tomorrow, not to mention figure out what was happening with this so called reunion.

I lay down on the soft pillow and in an instant, I fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by Nexus_Oblivion)
Perspective of: Michael, 17
November 20th 2008
Time: 11:00AM

"Michael get up"

I wake and realize no one is in the room. I look around and cannot find the source of the voice, sounds like a automated answering machine.
‘Where the hell did that voice come from?’ I wonder to myself
‘There’s a speaker near the closet Michael’ It said lazily
And sure enough, there it was, a small white speaker in the corner wall near the closet.
"Michael get up," the robotic voice of the speaker repeats, "in 30 minutes head down the stairs to the room on your right, a meeting is about to begin."

I get out of bed and head for the ensuite. After brushing my teeth and showering I dress back into the dirty military garb, as comfortable as I am in this cabin, I can’t shake the feeling I should be prepared. I remember giving my weapons to my dad before, my Beretta and my M-16, all I have now is my knife. I exit my room into the unbearably white hallway and descend down the stairs.
I take a right and enter a big room.

From where I stood, I could see a white conference style table with 5 chairs on each side. sitting on two of those chairs, opposite each other were Captain Ashley and my Dad, next to Ashley also sat Giles. I decided to even things out and sat beside my father.
"So what’s this meeting all about?" I asked them as I take a seat.

Dad tapped the screen on the table and the room instantly darkened.
‘Must be one of those electronic conference tables’ I thought to myself
A few seconds later a 3D image floated above the table. Both Giles and I had stunned looks on our faces. This green image looked like a city, it wasn’t Sloan City, I passed that on the way to the cabin.
"This is the City of Ivener," Dad said aloud, "4 months ago this city, along with 2 others were exposed to a virus that turned them into what the scientists called reani necroli...zombies in other words"
"Wait 4 months ago? Zombies existed 4 months ago?" I asked bewildered
I saw the expression on my dad and Ashley’s face
"The fuck!?"
I stood up and shot a look at my dad and Ashley. I was pissed.
"The government must be some sly motherfuckers.....how the fuck did Bowman remain stupid throughout this whole thing? Theres no way the government could keep this quiet for so long. How the fuck is that even possible!!?"
He sighed, he drew breath before speaking.
"We were quick to act, we broadcasted fake News in every state. Looping news feeds, faking events, we essentially had a tight grip on the media...the only real things the News showed were the weather forecast and local news..."
"What?" Giles said unexpectedly, "the government has that kind of power? Surely someone must have caught on to this?"
"...no they didn’t. Basically every state was isolated from the others. That way, if the virus spread to another state, no one else would know about it but that state itself. We also monitored interstate calls, we couldn’t have one person in one state communicating with another. The same went for the Internet....anyone who tried to investigate this matter who posed a threat were immediately dealt with" he added

"So what happened after this?" I ask, choosing to remain standing.
"We managed contain the 3 cities for a short period of time..."
"Did anyone escape?" Giles interrupted
"...a small handful," Dad replied, "no more then 100 people from those cities but they spread out, some who escaped where infected with the virus and soon, small cases of the outbreak were seen in various states, that was when we tried to slowly pull soldiers overseas and deploy them around the US. Coincidentally at the same time, across the Globe, outbreaks started happening around the world too. We don’t know how it happened, none of the other countries would give details. I heard Ireland managed to eliminate most of the threat, only small cases occur every now and then over there but they’re basically fine. Most others are still trying to either contain or eliminate the reani necroli"
He tapped the screen again and the map turned from the green 3D image of Ivener to a green map of the United States. I knew what would follow.

His second tap of the screen created red dots scattering around the US. I’d say about 3/5 of the US was now engulfed by the colour red.
"This Intel is a month old," dad remarked, "as everyone can see roughly 60% of the US has been covered by the virus. "
"A month old?" I commented, "I thought the military always received up to date information."
He looked at Ashley who looked down at the table.
"Unfortunately Michael," he said almost happily, "it’s kind of hard to gather Intel when you’ve deserted the military."
I laughed out loud. I literally did...by God, the Army was my dad’s calling in life but I can tell by the way he spoke and acted, he must’ve abandoned that military discipline.
He tapped the screen again and map shifted and turned into the familiar town of Bowman.
I thought of what happened to my friends....were they safe? did they stay together? was Heather alright?
"I’ll leave it to Ashley to explain this" dad exclaimed.
"Thank you sir," Ashley said as she rose to her feet, "On November 14th 2008, a Tennessee Research Facility accidently released a strain of the Original virus. The strain name was 57H. The characteristics are similar to the Original virus, 100% deadly, highly infectious and non-curable but this strain has an accelerated turn-over, meaning people turn quicker and the virus so far has caused permanently ‘fast’ zombies."
She looked at both Giles and I.

I nodded to show I understood but Giles seemed to be lost.
"Basically strain 57H is an upgraded version of the original virus..." she said to Giles, "people become zombies much faster and they’re still capable of running. The Original virus can make zombies run at first but when rigor-mortis sets in, they move at about walking pace. 57H somehow bypasses this and still allows them to chase their prey."
He finally nodded and Ashley moved on
"Now when the Government learned about the accident, they sent military personnel to quarantine Bowman. We arrived on November 15th."
I had flashback of Ted falling through the school window riddled with bullets and then myself being shot in the abdomen shorty thereafter.
"Some quarantine that was" I heard myself say aloud
Ashley glanced at me, her body may not have shown it but her eyes had that apologetic look.
Just as she was about to say something the room brightened and the 3D image of Bowman disappeared.
"The hells going on?" I ask

Dad tapped the screen again but instead of images being projected above it, several surveillance video feeds were showing on the table itself. Some showed the interior of the cabin and the exterior of it too.
‘Michael look at the video on the top left,’ It said to me, ‘soldiers are moving near the woods’
"Top left, soldiers" I say pointing to the video
"I know," Dad replied "come on, the meetings finished anyway, Ashley watch the videos and tell me when they make a move, the rest of you follow me to the armory."
"Dad do they know that you and Captain Williams deserted the army?" I ask as we follow him out of the room.
"Of course they do," he answered as he led us upstairs, "this place was built the military and I guess they’re here to take it back."
We entered a room marked Armory and it really did deserve that title. To the left of the room where rifles and shotguns all in tight rows, to the right were handguns and military duffel bags, towards the back were the boxes of ammo for the guns and in the middle was a metal table. Dad took 4 bags and threw one to me and Giles.
"Take only what you can use," he remarked, "but at least bring 1 assault rifle with you and 2 handguns."

I dropped my bag on the metal table and immediately went for the handguns, seeing as they seemed to be more easier for me to handle. I grabbed two Beretta 92s and checked the magazines, empty. I placed them beside my bag and grabbed two more handguns I that I recognise the police use in that Cops show, I look for the magazine catch and quickly find it, I checked the magazine, empty too.
"What uhhh...caliber do these handguns use dad?" I ask holding the Beretta and the other gun up.
"That Glock and Beretta use 9mm rounds, go and grab the boxes marked 9mm Beretta and 9mm Glock clips, those are already loaded with the bullets"
I ran to the back of the room and searched for the big boxes, I found them and opened it. There was at least 30 clips already loaded in each box. I took over half of each and dumped them into my bag. I replaced the empty magazines with fully loaded ones and placed the four handguns in my bag.
"You’ll need something with more stopping power since we’re going against armored personnel" dad said
He took two handguns off the rack and gave one to me and one to Giles.
"Call it the Colt .45," he told us both, "more easier then saying M1911, grab the box marked M1911 clips and share it"

Giles grabbed the box and divided the thirty clips between us. I placed four .45 clips in my load bearing vest and holstered the Colt .45 but now I needed an assault rifle. I added the rest of the .45 clips into my bag before I grabbed a rifle that reminded me of the M-16.
"M4 carbine," Giles said happily as he handed me a clip for it "need help with the putting it in?"
I nodded and he gave me a quick tutorial on changing the magazine.
"Since when do you know so much about rifles?" I remarked as I placed three 5.56 clips into my vest.
"Well...Miss Williams gave me a few pointers when I arrived here" he told me "here, I’ll add these to your bag"
Giles placed ten clips of the M4 into my bag.
I look over to my dad who was rushing with the two bags which I assumed were for him and Ashley, I saw him putting a couple of grenades into the bags and I contemplated about taking some too, before I realized that I was more likely to blow myself up then my enemies.
I weighed my duffel bag and noticed that it was still relatively light. I grabbed a Shotgun, loaded it and added it to my bag, along with a small box of shells. Now I felt ready.
"Everybody good?" Dad finally asked
Giles and I nodded and the three of us went back downstairs to see Ashley.
"Status?" Dad asked handing her a duffel bag.
"They’re still in the woods, they’ve got four teams of six, at all due directions" she remarked, Ashley pulled out the M4 and strapped both the rifle and the bag unto herself, "Sir do you have a plan?"
"I do" Dad replied, "wait here"
He left the room and shorty came back with four gas masks and a medium sized bag
"We are surrounded by woods in all direction and there’s a 20 meter clearing between the cabin and the woods.," he told us, "these are white phosphorous smoke grenades," he held the bag out, "the only chance we have of escaping is creating a smokescreen and going through it"
"Even with gas masks we still won’t be able to see" I say to my Dad, "are we tieing ropes to each other so we won’t get lost?"
He nodded and opened the bag. He gave us each 6 smoke grenades. "pull the pin and throw it, the canister will heat up quickly and could burn you..." Dad remarked.
He pulled out a very long black rope. He threaded the rope through straight gate carabiners he attached to each of our vests.
"...the carabiner should give you some movement with the rope and allow you to easily find which direction the person in front of you is going. Ashley and I will head out first, you both wait near the cabin entrance, when we give the signal, start running, just follow the rope. When we hit the woods, take extra care not to get the rope snagged."
"What are we heading for?" I ask "the jeep? What if they took it already?"
"They most likely have," dad replied, "we’re heading for my hummer I hid in an alleyway behind the houses."
It wasn’t a fool-proof plan but better then nothing. The rope length between us was a few feet long so we could move without restricting each others movement much.
"Alright better then nothing" I clap
"Good, now put on the gas masks and let’s go" Dad says

We walk out the room and Dad slowly opens the front door of the cabin. Ashley and Dad step outside while Giles and I wait near the door.
‘Need my help?’ It says to me
‘Actually yeah I do’ I say to It sarcastically in my mind, ‘can you see through smoke?’
‘No I can’t Michael but I can help you if there’s soldiers you may fail to spot’ It retorts

We wait a while until several small explosions erupt and dad roars at us to come outside. I rush out first followed by Giles and together the four of us begin running. Dad, Ashley and Giles are ahead of me and disappear in the smoke. When I pass through it, my vision is instantly gone, I look down and I can’t even see my feet.
"Keep throwing smokies!" I hear Dad’s muffled voice yell
I pull the pin and throw a grenade to my left. I reach for the rope on my shoulder and use it to guide me. It turns out I’m only a few steps behind Giles, I can just make out the back of his mask.
"Why aren’t they shooting at us?" I yell but he doesn’t seem to have heard me.
We all keep running until the smoke starts disappearing and we’re a few steps into the woods. I pull the pin on another smoke grenade and drop it just behind me.
We make it through the woods and into the alleyway where we spot my Dad’s hummer an hour later.

"Okay that was a rush!" I say removing my gas mask and getting into the hummer, "I still have two smoke grenades left!"
"That certainly was adrenaline pumping," Giles remarks, "my legs are very sore"
Ashley and Dad entered the front seats of the hummer, I was seated to the left and there was a space between me and Giles who sat on the right, Ashley hurriedly drove us away.
"Glad we made it through all that" dad remarked
"The only thing I don’t get..." I begin to ask "...is why they didn’t shoot us at all? I mean why hide in the woods and then not shoot us?"
"It’s because they didn’t want to risk shooting their own team on the other side of the smoke" he replied.

I was interrupted by It, before I could speak
‘Michael, think about it, they had every reason to take us down,’ It said to me, ‘two deserters pose a threat to the military. You escaped Bowman. They could have chased us through the woods and when we stopped using smoke grenades’
It was right. The soldiers might not have known about Bowman but they do know who deserted the army
"You know," I say slowly "they could have chased us through the woods, I mean we stopped using smoke grenades then."
"True but I know their objective was to take over the cabin. They could’ve killed us but their priority was the cabin" Ashley exclaimed
I caught on to the nervousness of Ashley. The same nervousness I saw back at the medical tent in Bowman, not the same situation but still the same nervous look.
"But the military knows your both deserters, you know their secrets, don’t you think that they wou-"
"Son," Dad interjected, "I get the feeling you think we’re lying. The military works differently depending on the objective. Why would we explain what’s happening just to trap you? or give you weapons?"
I thought about the answer ‘What do you think?’ I asked It, ‘ you set up my paranoia, what should I say?’
‘Trust me Michael,’ It said, ‘ask them why we didn’t shoot’
"So why didn’t we shoot them?" I ask Dad and Ashley
"Because we would be wasting ammo....not to mention they couldn’t see us anyway" Dad replied.
‘Tell them the military could have followed the smoke trail’ It said
‘No, I have a better argument’ I thought to It
"Then let’s go back to the beginning," I say while I slowly reached for the Colt .45 in my leg holster, "when you and Captain Ashley were outside, you were both there for about ten seconds before the smoke grenades kicked in."
I looked at Giles who was getting suspicious of them as well.
"The thing is," I continued, "the porch outside offers no protection and these smoke grenades go off in 3 or 4 seconds. How in the world did you manage to not be shot...and wait for the grenades to go off?"
"Son what were doing is-"
I pulled out my gun and cocked the hammer just as I simultaneously pulled the pin on the smoke grenade.
"Semper Fi huh dad?" I say before tossing the grenade on the dashboard

It burst and the hummer was filled with smoke.
"Out of the car Giles!" I yelled but as Giles opened his door to jump I held him back. I heard the front doors open and the sound of Dad and Ashley jumping out
"Giles get the grenade out of here" I cough while I try and get to the driver’s seat.
Slowly the smoke dispersed in the car and now, only Giles and I were in the hummer. I looked behind us to see if they were alright but I saw nothing besides smoke.
‘Thank God they didn’t use their Gas Masks’ I think to myself
"How did you know they were lying?" Giles coughed
"I don’t know," I replied hoarsely "but I knew the military would have at least shot at us before we went into the smoke"
‘You know Semper Fi is the Marine motto and not the army motto right?’ It asked jokingly
‘Yeah I knew that,’ I thought to It, ‘but I know that was good one liner’
"So where are we heading?" Giles asked
"We’re heading back to Bowman, 3 day trip" I say, "you coming?"
"Of course" Giles replied

I spot an old tape player with a cassette in it. I press play and smile. ‘Found that new song’ I said to It.

(If any of you want to write in Michael's dad or Captain Ashley Williams' perspective, feel free!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by ZAnarchy)
Perspective. Jack D. Tanner JSF central command
Location, Vatican city, Rome, Italy
November 21st 9:am 3amEST

The sunlight streamed in through a tiny plastic window in the top of the tent as the man started rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He looked up at the top of his drab green tent, smelling the stale scent that only military grade cloth seems to resonate. He stood up remembering the events of the past week, thinking of the horrific decisions that awaited him. He swung his legs over the side of his cot feeling energy that only a man whose hand is being forced could. As he slowly started putting on his dress uniform he thought of the dismay that spread across the ranks of the military when contact with D.C. was lost. Many soldiers called families only to contact voicemail. The calls that did go through heard suspicious rumors from family about the activities on the eastern seaboard
of the continental US.

He brushed these thoughts out of his mind as the speculation had already been answered, reports from England and Ireland about outbreaks of this "dead walking" disease sounded like an old cheesy movie. Yet here they were right in front of him, three pictures taken from London, Paris and New York City. The devastation couldn’t have been worse if an actual terrorist attack happened. As he affixed his blue beret atop his head he stared into the mirror, "you are Jackson D. Tanner commander of JSF central command abroad" he said projecting a confidence he himself didn’t feel. "How the hell am I going to keep these guys together?" he said in his mind, not wanting anyone to hear such a pathetic sentence. He stepped out of his tent and the sun hit his eyes roughly as he gazed across the stoic structure encircling the line of ten tents caped off by a drab green semi trailer, like the father at the end of a big table with his family. The holy city of the Vatican had taken in his little entourage offering basic shelter to the representatives of any country who had been displaced in special circumstances.

As he walked towards the trailer at the end he waved to an English general he had shared a nightcap with last night. He quickly deterred from his current destination and shook hands with the general coming his way.
"How are you feeling this morning Simmons?" Tanner asked.
"Very well, thank you for asking" he said,
"Do you think the UN will be receptive of your requests?"
"They need to see my side of things," he said
"It’s unreasonable for them to expect all of my troops to help in the siege of London when Americans are being slaughtered, all of my men would likely desert the first chance they got if I asked that of them."
"I thought of something on my way to my tent last night", said Simmons "if you send some to London to help with the liberation there then that should pay the way for International aid of your troops".
"That’s a fantastic idea I think ill mention that to the security counsel, thanks for the input". "Maybe we will get a drink later and smoke a stogie before I bug outta here, I gotta go I’m late for the meeting."
He briskly entered the trailer looking down the rows of TV banks.

One showed an aerial picture of the entirety of 5th and 6th fleet sailing west to the "states", a sheer mass of ships surrounding dozens of oil tankers transporting what would be the last of crude oil bought and paid for by the U.S. Another showed an aerial picture of Ft. Campbell TN, the last military hold out on the eastern seaboard (he recalled with admiration that the 101st airborne was the unit that held Bastogne despite being besieged by German armor during the battle of the bulge in WWII). The display was one of carnage, a makeshift "wall" had been made of Zed (as the military had come to call them) bodies around the camp and a thick layer of silicone had been sprayed over the inside rim to keep the wind from carrying the scent into the fort itself. This was not exactly planed in the beginning, but taken advantage of as claymores and other mines where placed strategically to contribute to the growth of the "wall". This had apparently masked the scent of the troops from the hostiles in the area. After all known survivors had been rescued and the town pillaged of all useable material (namely Diesel, gasoline, propane, and J-5 Jet fuel), bombing runs had obliterated the local town. A wall was being constructed out of concrete so that the makeshift "wall" might be burned before it reached the sun itself. Some troops patrolling around the "wall" had chosen to wear gas masks so the putrid smell wouldn’t distract them. The angle was getting so high that it was strategically disadvantageous for bullets could not travel through their pray onward to the zeds behind them. Air support also had trouble defining the difference from the "wall" and threats themselves.

He broke his gaze from the banks of TVs to get ahead to his meeting; they were probably getting impatient as it is. At the end of the trailer sat six televisions five of which had faces on them, across the top bank sat the representatives of the United Nations Security Council.
The Russian rep. exclaimed "you’re late",
Tanner replied "well it seems there’s a lot to do when you’re the last vestige of authority left for your country".
"Not true the Governor has declared himself president of the states west of the Rockies" said the American rep, which luckily for himself had been in Switzerland when the outbreak occurred. The rest of the workers at the UN headquarters (and the reps. as well) had been considered MIA, New reps had been chosen and centralized in Switzerland.
"Well I can’t really consider him the commander-in-chief now can I" said Jack.
"So are you going rouge on us?"
"No, I am going to rescue as many survivors as I can and bring them west, or back here to Italy if they’ll let me" he exclaimed " this peninsula is a natural safe zone with the alps to the north, if I help protect them in exchange for help with the refugees they might accept"

The Russian rep. piped up stating "your troops would be of much better use defending Europe from the mess you Americans have created"
"And you expect them to just abandon they’re families and help you for what reason". Tanner was becoming angry as this political bullshit was enveloping him "I won’t hesitate to help but we can’t abandon our country, Would you?!" He roared making them visibly uncomfortable.
"Ill send a third of my troops to the UK, but only if they’re under the command of General Simmons, he’s the only man I would trust my troops with".
The rep. from the UK perked up at the news, "that sounds marvelous, that would be a great help".
The Russian rep. spoke quickly "there has been a development of the virus in our country as well" slowing, he spoke more thoughtfully "it has popped up 100 miles southeast of Moscow" he paled a little after saying this.

A motion to Tanners right caught his attention, a tech was pointing to something he had written in permanent marker on a sheet of paper. "So tell me sir" said Tanner "why is that also 73 miles from the closet international airport? All cases of the virus spread through international flight." (Apparently at 30,000 feet the virus didn’t "turn" individuals like it normally would, something about increased atmospheric pressure). "Such things aren’t my concern" said the Russian rep knowing he had let the cat out of the bag.
"That is a very good question indeed" said the French rep "we will be expecting a detailed report concerning the fact that you have an outbreak 73 miles from its normal mode of international transportation". A very unnatural silence spread across the representatives as the depth of this new development sunk in. After a pause which seemed like ages, the Chinese rep quickly stated
"If this virus hits my country it will be almost impossible to stop because of the high density of our population" he said looking extremely worried "I move to restrict all international travel and trade".
"I second the motion" said the UK rep "we must confer with the rest of the security council immediately, however I’m sure the motion will pass".
"General" said the UK rep "I’m overlooking your request for food and fuel to operate your forces when you return to the United States and OPEC has offered a great deal of oil to you for free to help cleanse your country, I think they miss your money" he smirked.(in actuality this would inflate world gas prices instead of deflate)

"I have no doubt, but gentleman if you’ll excuse me I have a campaign to plan" Tanner said excitedly.
"We expect a report about your plans, you will report to us if you are to receive our aid" said the French rep. "Will do" said Tanner pointedly. He immediately shut off the video feed and pulled out his laptop, moving to the other side of the trailer where the screen showed US Troop movements.

He opened it up and started an outline of actions needed to be taken upon the return of his forces and before.
-Start flying army personnel out of Iraq via commercial airlines to Ft. Campbell
-Investigate rumors of paramilitary forces operating in the Northeast, if so contact and pay to guard an airport so further US forces may refuel on the way to Ft. Campbell
-Send immediate aid to Ft. Campbell
-Liberate oil refineries to produce needed fuel for campaign
-Find survivors and redirect to Ft. Campbell
-Send scouting missions north to find survivors before winter
-Set up strategic refuel points on top of skyscrapers clearing top five floors and destroying elevators and stairs below.
-Send flyer filed C-130s to major pop. Points
-Immediately send overseas elements of 101st airborne to reinforce Ft. Campbell and half of the 82nd.

He looked over this and thought to himself "it’s a start" now to organize and formalize.
He turned to one of the techs next to him and said "I want low flying C-130s deployed and dropping flyers to survivors in southeast cities from the Kentucky’s southern border and across that line east and west is the divider. I also want AWAC’s (Airborne warning and control) flying and broadcasting on all frequencies a message for all survivors in rural communities. "Tell them we’re not coming for them until next spring at the earliest because of winter setting in, our priorities are the states that will have to survive the cold as well", he paused thinking carefully about his next sentence "tell them they can move to Ft. Campbell at they’re own risk and that we’ll bomb Nashville to the ground to hopefully open up interstate 40 and 24". "Send one AWAC to the northeast seeking aide from an unknown paramilitary group and ask them to contact me by sat phone".
The aide rushed off setting that part inaction, he smiled, finally something is going right. The smile quickly disappeared as he saw a gigantic zombie hoard moving over the wall at Ft. Campbell. A line of soldiers cut lose as helicopters opened up putting a huge dent into them, artillery started bombarding the section past the wall with MLRS (multiple launch rocket system) fire pored in after that. More zombies started running out from the destroyed city with all this activity adding to the "shock and awe" of it all. The zombies drew near the inner sandbag wall but were crumbling at about that point as a line of 4 tanks supported by apc’s flanking them obliterated any group that made it past the outer wall. Soldiers in hazmat suits immediately moved in to carry the new additions to the bottom of the wall. Watching this made him think about the new Russian outbreak and if it spread to China and cringed, between Russia, China and India hell that is half of the world’s population. Apocalypse indeed he thought.

(Out of politeness please don’t kill my characters or change the current course of action at Ft. Campbell. Also I have plans for my next story which will tie up some loose ends in Bowmen if no on else is. I put the message out there that the main story characters can go to the fort; from there they could resupply or be rescued if some choose. Or as an alternate path characters may be enlisted to help rescue people up north before hard winter sets in, or simply choose for your characters not to hear the message it’s up to your own discretion)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ZAnarchy
Perspective, Lt. Leslie "Tex" Smith Green Beret SF recon detachment Echo Company 1st Battalion
November 21 11:57 AM EST

Tex stared out from the black hawk gunship at the street below watching the convoy of six fuel trucks, humvees and a bull dozer head down the interstate. Along side the Convoy sat three modified civilian vehicles, 3 "Striker" apc’s and two duce n’ half (two and a half ton payload for those not familiar) trucks full of survivors they’d picked up along the way. The helicopter he was in wasn’t laden down with survivors as one might expect as his squad of helicopters had just arrived on scene, replacing the last shift. For the last five days since the outbreak first kicked into full swing in this part of the country, this was a twice a day trip. Over all it was safe, all vehicles used were modified with rebar and other scrap guarding the windows, a device slightly modified on the front of the vehicle was placed over the radiator to protect the engine and still allow it to breath. A modified spoiler was even put at the top of the window dubbed "The Zed Catcher" to easily let the demon possessed being glide over the vehicle to be ran over by those next inline. The only issue that we ever had anymore was apparently blood in the engine is even more detrimental then water, but engineers were working to alleviate such problems. "We can’t afford to abandon anymore fuel trucks" said his CO, so I suggested what I call the Zed pitchers. Basically the whole idea started when I modified my personal vehicle with a lot of the same attachments like those on the convoy, traded two duffle bags of porn I looted for that little upgrade. Then one of many survivors we had running around aimlessly on base asked to borrow it for a little fun.

"Where exactly do you plan on going with this?" I said
"No where in particular" said this man who had some amazingly large buck teeth
"I just thhink it would be fun to take a SSunday drive and fuck with some zombies"
So I figured what the hell it’s my shift to go man the door in the heli assigned to my squad anyway so I’ll be able to keep an eye on him.
"What’s in it for me?" I said to him.
"Well I scrounged a video game counsel but I don’t have any games" he responded with a bleak look in his eyes.
I thought for a moment, what the hell I love to loot a shop every now and then on our raids into Nashville anyway.
"Ok fine but keep it under fifty, any faster then that and the Zeds damage the blast shield"
He spoke quickly with an odd look in his eye "cool, hey why do you call them Zeds?"

I laughed as I spoke "well zombies sounds to much like a cheesy film where the gore makes you laugh because it’s so lame and it takes to long to say" I paused thinking for a moment "besides what are we supposed to call them screechers? Screamers? How bout whiners, or maybe crazy crackers, on second thought how bout you just keep it under fifty and shut the fuck up!" He laughed nervously and walked to the car.

A short time later I watched from my perch in "Angel one" as the man went searching for crowds of zombies to bowl right through. I watched on as he played for an hour like he was in some twisted bumper car. In my mind’s eye I saw the man laughing manically as he barreled straight for the thickest part of any group, cutting through them like a hot knife through butter. Later as he slapped the keys in my hand , "I haven’t had that much fun in a really long time, thank you, now I can die a happy man" he retorted with a smirk on his face that almost split his head in half. Anyway here we are with two or three civ vehicles running interference like bouncers keeping the zeds out from in front of the fuel trucks, an extra mod kept them from going off a designated side of the vehicle keeping the whole idea from being counter productive.

BAAAAAMMMM

A loud noise knocked me from my revelry as a hoard of zombies who had stopped to hang out by a past abandoned fuel truck were mowed down by two of the zombie pitchers. It was all good except the drivers vision was obscured by the hoard and clipped tail of the fuel truck sending him spinning into the other vehicle to his right. Luckily the ZPers had sped up to distance themselves from the convoy and clear the mess before the convoy itself had arrived.

I spoke rapidly into my headset "All vehicles keep moving, all Night stalkers move in for rescue, Angel one and two continue with the convoy" he said referring to the four Blackhawk SF gun ships and two "Little Birds". Now normally a small pack of twenty zombies aren’t shit to a 20mm cannon that sits on the doors of our birds but we usually attract a very large crowd that follows us pretty far behind. This situation was made worse by the fact that we were right by a small town bordering interstate 24 to Clarksville, and of coarse the 20,000 gallon fuel truck in our line of fire just made it all the more FUBAR.

"Night Stalker three and four break away and cover, zeds are mounting the jersey barriers already", I spoke rapidly into my headset. "Roger Night Stalker lead falling into cover positions", and brrrrrrrrr as the six barreled cannon peppered the sides of the highway slowing down the initial zombie wave.

At this point in time the two vehicles were surrounded by the initial group, and they’re inhabitants freaking the fuck out. "Snipers choose your shoots carefully" I said, referring to the two snipers I insisted on partaking on our little adventures as the loud distinctive cracks only a high powered sniper rifle could make. "Night Stalker two drop your payload 15 meters southeast of the objective" referring to the Blackhawk with one rifle squad. I swung my M-16A4 from its position on my back and dropped one or two to help cover fire, noticing that the hoards at the side of the road were starting to make it past the gunfire.

"Night Stalker two stay low and straight with the road and cover our flanks, DO NOT LET THEM OVERRUN US"!

As Night Stalker two finished dropping off the squad and moved to cover I told my pilot to move in low over the vehicles ready for pick up, the door gunner behind me let loose as we moved in position. I saw the rifle squad had just finished dispatching the threat around the vehicles and had started pulling the first driver out. As I looked to my right I saw that our "groupies" or the zombies following us were about a quarter mile off and the zombies flanking us were overcoming the suppressive fire.

"Night Stalker two aim for the legs just slow’em down" I said laughing as the zeds started toppling forward an instant later. The squad had just freed the second driver and broke down in a line to start pouring fire into the zeds moving down the highway towards us.
"Bring’er down and pick’em up" I said to my pilot, the zeds were 500 yards away and closing. The men barreled aboard our Blackhawk as the zeds close that distance, "ALL UNITS MOVE OUT". As we pulled away the zombies stop and stare up at us as we pull away, I pull a grenade off my tack vest and lob it squarely under the fuel truck.

Seconds later I’m rewarded with the forth of July in November as the fuel truck ignites and billows flames all over the zeds who had been gawking at us. I stared in amazement as a group of 1000 zombies still stood around gawking like a number of them hadn’t just been incinerated. "Good work Night Stalker that was a very classy display of teamwork".

FFFFFEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW, I was pleasantly surprised to see a pair of A-10 Warthogs drop two canisters of napalm on the crowd below us.

"Big daddy one to Night Stalker lead heard you might need some help, over". I watched the carnage left and our wake and mouthed into the mic, "thanks Big Daddy One nothing like a little fireworks to make a job feel well done Night Stalker Lead out".

"Hell’s convoy slow to half current speed until Night Stalkers return to orbit", I said thinking about how close this situation came to unraveling. With all the troubles we have had we hadn’t even entered downtown Nashville yet, I shuddered thinking about the possible carnage that would ensue in a situation where air support to be limited. As we sped to catch up with the convoy I thought to my self that we were almost getting a little to comfortable.

The sound of the Blackhawk’s blades reverberated off the surrounding buildings behind me as I walked into the 160th SOAR command building. As I took a few steps into the building my eyes adjusted to the dark. The whole base had been on stringent energy rationing to conserve power for our solar generators, every third day all unnecessary power was shut off for twenty four hours. I continued down the hall toward my CO’s office, reading the nameplate on his door as I had hundreds of times (Col. William "El Fuego" Ramerez). Turning the doorknob I briskly walked into his office turning to close the door behind me. I was greeted with the sight of gaudy "crap" all over the walls like this was some cheesy bar, if I had an office I surely wouldn’t commit such an atrocity. This "circus" of an office assured that most of the men serving under him brought no less then two dozen of wheels of cheese which were left "anonymously" every birthday, much to his dismay. (He always stood perplexed at his office full of cheese, never conjecturing this unspoken joke). Bill stood behind his desk offering his hand to Tex, "would you like a cigar? You defiantly deserve it after today".

"Nah, I’m good I got a big lungful of napalm smoke when we bug’d out" he said stepping around a five foot high stack of cheese wheels.
"Ah well just as well, who knows when ill get anymore" he said casting his eyes at the floor.
"Well for the right price I might be able to get you some, can’t guarantee the quality but ill get you a duffle bag full of the highest priced ones I come across" a smile slowly growing on his face.
Smirking, his CO narrowed his eyes and retorted "this sounds like it’ll be pricy".
Tex spoke quickly "word on the street is we have a big operation into Nashville coming up, I want a lil freedom off the radar with my platoon".
The fire shown in the husky Co’s eyes as he spoke "breeches in security like this NEVER would’ve been tolerated before the shit hit the fan, but you’re a good soldier so ill allow your little escapade after the area has been secured.
He continued "But that’s gonna be two duffle bags one now and another later when I so request. Now onto more pressing matters, I need your unit in the auditorium at 1800 hours today for briefing on tomorrow’s mission into Nashville".
"Any heads up for me on the operation?", Tex said leaning forward in his chair.

He turned his computer to face Tex pointing at the screen of a satellite view of Nashville. "See these three skyscrapers", he said underlining them with his mouse. "Your company will be securing the rooftops, this one has a mall on the fortieth and I’ve chosen this one for your team to insert. Secure the top five floors and demo the stairwells, after securing the structures all teams will mount up and support the main objective. You’ll have forty-five minutes until the convoy arrives before you have to report to Nashville International Airport, while the convoy and second battalion airdrop on the tarmac. Your team will move to secure this Semi-truck depot", Bill said highlighting a large square on the southern most section of Nashville. "We’ve acquired six C-54 "Skycranes" for this leg of the mission operated by civilian pilots. Your platoon will secure the area, with air support consisting of two Warthogs four Blackhawks and four Little Birds. Out of the ten tanker trailers shown here find three empty ones and secure them as well and three semis close by. Then fall back to the airport pick three of your team to drive them home. This operation should supply us with 165,000 gallons of J-5 jet fuel, obviously a big help until the rest of the Army begin they’re invasion of the Gulf coast to secure refineries. Sorry to be so long winded the last part of the invasion will begin after the convoy leaves."

Tex’s eyes grew big "Are you FUCKIN KIDDIN ME" he said feeling truly exasperated, "how could there be anymore to this that’s already two field operations for my platoon".

Bill laughed "well this last part should be a little more fun, 6 Chanook transport helicopters will be dropping as many ambulances at designated points around the city.

Your teams’ electronics expert will have in his possession a remote that will turn on the sirens and lights all at the same time, then two wings of B-52s will low-altitude bomb leveling the city coordinated with 3 B-2 Spirit’s dropping 6 smart bombs keying on those ambulances. We will be leveling most of downtown except for one of the skyscrapers we used as a fire base. You can wake up now Tex it’s over".
"I’ll have a cheeseburger!". Tex said acting as thought he was rubbing some sleep out of his eyes, he loved to cut his CO some shit sometimes but when a mission was on he was all business. "So what’s this whole operation called"?
Bill’s eyes grew wide "oh that’s the best part"!

(Once again don’t kill mine I wont kill yours, the next part I will be incorporating this character with the sloan city characters.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ZAnarchy
POV Brigadier General Jack D. Tanner JSF central command
Location, Vatican city, Rome, Italy
November 22nd 9:am 3amEST
As the aide threw open the folds of the tent he startled the general.
"Damn it" said Jack "I almost just slit my own throat shaving because of you. Don’t you know how to knock?
"Not on cloth sir no I don’t" said the aide in a frenzy. "Sir I have some information that requires your urgent attention. We just lost contact with four destroyers and an Aegis cruiser all at the same time sir."
Jack’s eyes widened then spoke "was that the forward elements of the main fleet", without taking his eyes off of the mirror?
"Yes sir"
"Sounds like a Russian nuclear torpedo" Jack said continuing shaving.
"Possibly sir, there was no warning what so ever. NORAD’s radar is down right now so there is no way of telling if it was an airborne threat. Ft. Campbell is offline as well sir."
"Just fucking great someone is trying to start world war fucking three during all of this"
the full impact of this scandal sunk in to Jack as he finished shaving.
"Tell the fleet to turn around".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perspective, Lt. Leslie "Tex" Smith Green Beret SF recon detachment Echo Company, 1st Battalion.
November 22nd 0559 EST

I threw the door open to the 160th SOAR command building, briskly walking down the hall as my tired eyes slowly grew accustomed to the bright florescent light. My eyes focused on the door at the end of the hall, and thought to myself about any possible reason Bill would slip a note under my door in the middle of the night. I walked fishing the torn piece of printer paper from my pocket and reread it for any clues as to why he would use such a strange way of communication. I briefly scanned the scrap:

"Be at my office at oh six-hundred hours; speak of this to no one!"-Bill

I looked up as the door approached quickly seemingly moving towards me instead of the other way around. Damn, "I’m tired, why I couldn’t just get a good night sleep for once" I said looking at the door wirily. Turning the door knob and stepping into the office I stopped abruptly, narrowing my eyes as a bring flashlight immediately blinded me. The distinct sound of a round being chambered could be heard as I froze. The light went out and a small desk light was turned on as the figure silently sat down behind the desk. As my eyes focused I rubbed them a little shaking off the last bit of sleep, feeling a little more my self.
"What the hell Bill, you said meet you here at six and this is how you greet me?"

I had snapped and dropping all military decorum, quickly regaining my composure I stood at attention and shot a salute.
His head hung low and for the first time I saw his eyes clearly under the light as his lips drew back slowly, "I don’t think that is necessary any longer". His head hung limply between his shoulders, conveying a deep sadness.
"Something strange happened last night" he paused speaking increasingly thoughtfully, "Bravo Company disappeared"
My eyes grew wide "that makes no sense, why would they take off and where would they go? Are you sure they’re not on base? Wait isn’t your nephew assigned to that Company?"
He sat back grasping the chain of the light clicking it to the next highest setting.
"Yeah, I checked the motor pool and no vehicles are missing. That floor of the barracks is completely empty, not a single personal effect was left behind, it’s like they never even existed or got deployed."

I sat back in my chair inhaling deeply, taking in the strange information. How could they get off base without alerting anyone I thought?
Bill’s head sunk down looking at his desk, "there’s more" he said carefully.
"Both NORAD and our radar went offline at precisely 2:13 and remained offline for exactly thirty minutes. An AWAC went missing during that time, about 50 klicks west of Sloan City was its last known position. I think this radar blackout is how Bravo snuck out as well. This was all definitely an inside job".
I leaned forward and held my head in my hands, quite astounded by this recent news. He continued "I also came into contact with an old friend by the name of Richards, we were in boot camp together he was my squad leader. Anyway he’s holed up with some survivors in a four story office building, says they’re pretty dug in and have plenty of food and water and even a solar generator & battery."
"Sir with all due respect I don’t see-
"Shut up Les, take your platoon and a detachment of little birds and go to Sloan city. Rendezvous with the Colonial at the office and set up camp on the roof, I’m also gonna send two heavy lift choppers with strikers and six months of food and water" he said tiredly.
I spoke solemnly "why that much food"?
"Because I don’t think you should come back, as a matter of fact I’d like to send more men and supplies slowly to Sloan. Tell your men to bring civilian clothes with you as well."
"SIR, are you saying what I think you’re saying, you want me to…. Defect?"
"Yes and hopefully your entire company as well, I’m sending you there under the guise of searching for the missing AWAC. Fortify that building and bunker down, I’ll be sending you what ever supplies I can to help you."
I leaned forward speaking in a barely audible tone, "when?"
Bill rubbed his face as he spoke "you’ll set to leave with the rest of the operation today at twelve hundred hours and stand down until midnight. Your other Platoons will be under the command of Delta Company for the duration of that OP." He handed me a fiberglass suitcase, "This is a field grade SAT phone capable of helping call in air-strikes as well as com. You have three days to have air support before you should disappear off the grid."
"Yes sir" I said crisply as I stood up and snapped into attention.
"Dismissed"

Same POV 22nd
0637 EST

As I walked out of the SOAR building I felt a faint twinge in my knee from an old high school football injury. I had badly sprained my MCL three games before the state championship, much to my dismay. I thought back how my team had won, even thought I still got credit for being the starting running back for the season and helping my team get there. But it was hard to sit on the sidelines and watch my team win without my help. I never quite felt part of the victory and blamed myself for getting injured. That did not stopp me from partaking in the party that night though; the bad thing is after that I just never quit partying afterwards. I was barely able to graduate high school, turning toward a life of degradation and despair. It wasn’t until I enlisted that I stopped drinking, turning my life around and even enrolling in online college classes. After finishing my classes and graduating with a 3.5 GPA I sought out to become an officer. Shortly after changing job codes from a biological waste handler to give the Special Forces a shot. I started to feel lost thinking that soon that achievement was to fade away. In a way the Army was kind of my savior, turning me into the man that I am today.
Without that purpose and meaning in my life, that direction and accountability….. it just wasn’t worth it anymore. I suddenly broke into a run, not knowing where I was going but just needing to lose myself.

I ran all the way across base until I finally stopped out of breath, almost panicking. I stood up and put my arms over my head to gulp down some air. I looked around to see where I was and noticed the hospital to my right. With a knee that just wouldn’t quit throbbing, I walked into the near derelict building (guess they just weren’t that busy with the current situation, only cure being to shoot those afflicted). As I walked the halls letting my feet take me where they may I noticed a counter to my right with a young women standing behind it. The Pharmacy. She smiled at me and turned around moving off to the back of the room organizing or whatever the hell it was she was supposed to be doing. I ripped my name patch off my shirt and my rank off my collars stuffing them in my pockets.

Swiftly I clambered over the counter as she turned around looking back, but I was already moving up the far wall. The tall shelves full of a seemingly endless amount of medicine obscuring her view. As I circled the back of the room where a TV played some sappy movie, she had moved up toward the counter looking to see where the noise had come from.

I moved slowly toward her trying not to make a noise, combat boots just don’t really "sneak" well on tile floors. I closed the last bit of distance to her and wrapped my arm around her neck pulling her backwards slightly so she was off balance.
"Don’t scream or I’ll fucking snap your neck lady"!
"Ok illll Doo wht evr you wnt" she said choking back tears.

I pulled her to the back room and threw her against the desk, "sit down bitch"!
"please sir I have a husband and two children" She sobbed lightly "plllleeze don’t ra-
"Shut up lady! That’s not what I came for, I want five of the biggest bottles of Vicoden that you have and three oxy codine pills".
"Why just three pills?" she said slowly calming down.
"NOW!"
"Ok, ok please just don’t hurt me."
She quickly pulled out a very large bag off a shelf and put them in the pill counter.
"FUCK THAT SHIT just gimme the bag and a bottle."
As she handed them to me she pulled two sample packs of oxy off a shelf and held them out to me.
"Open em up and take em all" I said hissing through my teeth.
"Why?" She said not at all expecting this.
"Lady if your high you can’t go call the MP’s" I spoke very quickly.
"No" she said choking back more tears.
I pulled my side arm and lined up her head.
"Pleeze" she started to cry.
"Bitch just do it so I can get out of here!"
She slowly swallowed the four pills one by one and looked at me face sunken back as she realized she couldn’t call for help now at all.
"Now take off your shirt, this might be the last rack I ever see".

Same Pov (third person briefly, under the influence)
0745 EST

He walked down the street popping a pill as he went and swallowing it dry.
He was on his way to the officers club to stock up on some Tequila before he took his great "leap of faith". This all felt like some "out of body experience", had he really just robbed a Pharmacy and then for shits and giggles told the lady to take her shirt off? He pulled the starched white shirt from over his shoulder and stuffed it in a nearby trash can, who was gonna believe the topless pharmacist now?

Same POV November 22nd
0833 EST

"2nd Lt. Henderson" I said calling for the First Platoon’s leader. Assemble First Platoon downstairs in the conference room.
0843
"Aaatentchun" Said sergeant Delonghi as first platoon formed in the room. All men snapped crisply to attention. I looked through tired eyes at the men before him, split into three "teams" of twelve that broke into two six man squads each because of the green beret designation.
The squads fought in smaller groups, more heavily armed with more versatile weaponry and expertise between them. They rarely fought as a traditional platoon, but lately it was required against such numerous foes where they fought as the pinnacle of a cohesive unit.
"Stand down Platoon sergeant" I said.
"Gentlemen we’re going on a deep recon and rescue mission today without the rest of the company. We will henceforth refer back to typical SF combat doctrine.
Team A will be on security detail upon arrival at the designated location, team B will set up on the highest building overlooking our position. Team C you will secure that building and demo all stairwells below the top two floors.
The parameters of this mission have not yet fully developed; we will improvise in the field, were searching for a downed AWAC and will be securing a perimeter atop the building of the rescue target separately. SOCOM is out of the loop on this one gentleman, we will be acting alone and setting up a semi-permanent base of operations. B-team, we’re going in heavy; javelins, stingers, and anti-vehicle sniper rifles are permitted."
A look of shock spread through the men as they realized the gravity of such a call to bring anti-armor and anti-air munitions into the field. The five snipers in B team looked very enthusiastic to be able to use their highest powered rifles.
"All squad leaders are advised to bring thermal goggles, the rest of you will be using standard compliment gen4 NV monoculars.
Assemble at SF Helipad at 1200 hours as previously advised."

POV Lt. Leslie "Tex" Smith Green Beret SF 1st Platoon Echo company Newly reconvened 3rd Battalion
1200 EST November 22nd

"Operation kick uncle zed outta bed"

"Load up!" Said sergeant Delonghi to the rest of the platoon, as the sky filled with helicopters. First platoon loaded the extra heavy equipment into the dual bladed Shanook. Two more of the same design hovered nearby carrying two "Striker" apcs, and other amenities to set up this little "base".
Tex strolled over to the nearby "Little bird" fishing the bottle out of his bag and popping another vic. He threw his laden duffle bag down of his personal effects on the seat opposite him and motioned to the pilot a twisting with his index finger out stretched. As his little aero-limo lifted off he surveyed the cartfuls of weaponry being loaded onto the heavy transport heli.
A loud Squak came over all of their head sets as Col. Ramerez’s voice came over the radio, "Stand down First Platoon your mission parameters have changed due to new intel. New mission timeframe 0000 hours tonite, stay mobilized and r&r is granted until that time."
I grinned knowing that the real mission and their defection had just been granted. I leaned back in my seat grabbed a bottle of tequila from the duffle and cracked it. I’ll just wait I thought as the platoon dropped their packs and were dismissed.

POV "Tex" Nashville refueling outpost. Novemer 23rd
0223 hours

I looked over the ruins of Nashville in the moonlight as we flew through them, only three towers still stood everything else was laid to waste. Some survivors had tried to make it to the main downtown areas but few had survived the heavy bombardment. The zeds had taken to the ambulance bait like children to candy, thousands were vaporized instantly. Yet many could still be seen crawling through the aftermath, missing half of the lower torso yet still moving.
"Set em down boys and refuel at the towers" I shouted into my mic over the whine of the helicopters. Time to do a little looting!

0958 hours of the 23rd 25 klicks west of Sloan city

Since we had the extra room I brought another team from one of the other "platoons", bringing the total amount of troops currently under my command to 48.
I figured what the hell I’m fucking defecting anyway what does it matter how many men guard a completely safe rooftop with nothing to do but sit with their thumbs up their butts. As he surveyed the small detachment flying into Sloan, he couldn’t help but feel let down by the very service that he had devoted his life to.

If in reality aspects of the military were willingly subverting their own people then what the hell was he supposed to do about it. He popped a pill and took another swig of tequila. They were here.
"All flights hold position", I said scanning the skyline of the city noticing a mid level fog had settled over the entire area. "Heavies two and three drop payload here", they could fly back later and pick up the apcs after they had secured the locations in question.
"Angels one through four goes in high to the center of town, form up around heavy one."
"Sir" Henderson interrupted "we have com traffic to the north of town, appears to be short wave radios, some sort of paramilitary group maybe a militia."

I wasn’t happy to hear that others were farming my "field". "You heard the man radio silence from here on out, hand signals or Morris code as a last resort.
Heavy one proceeds to Faith Tower and deploy, snipers I want to know who is out there if this fog lifts. Even if its hard to communicate maintain radio silence Nighthawks one through four go in low below rooftop level to the compound and secure, fire at will on location. Heavies two and three drop off your supplies and hightail it back to base."

I watched as Team B,C,D rappelled down to the tower and took up positions. I told my pilot to move to the compound and Angel flight moved in behind us. The office building that we presumed Richardson inhabited was in the southeast section of the same block as Faith Tower. The Blackhawks had created quite a commotion as the streets filled with massive amounts of Zeds. Many ran away from us because of the sound vibrations bouncing off of buildings and echoing down the street. I looked at my watch 10:04 and told the pilot to bring me down to the building and drop me off. The squads in Nighthawk four were dropping grenades down to the ground below as the door gunners peppered the ground below. I walked to the only door on the roof as fire team A secured positions and started poppin zeds around the building. Henderson fell in behind me and motioned for two others to follow us into the building as well. As Henderson closed the door behind us we switched on our NV and descended down the stairwell into the dark building.

As I swung my combat shotgun to cover the door in front of me, Henderson opens it then stood back covering my approach. I turned back doing my hand signals telling how we would proceed. I turned around and spoke quickly, "we need to hurry close any door on our way down to the third floor". We quickly moved into the hall and started checking for a stairwell sign but found none, I moved down the hall shotgun ready to burn something. "Screeeeech". Two suddenly appeared from around a corner almost in front of me, Henderson made a head explode with his M4 as I shot the legs out from the other. The Zed tumbled forward landing on its face; I stared at it for a moment and stomped on its head twice. Just as its skull gave out with a sickening crunch, another came from seemingly nowhere and grabbed my tack vest its rotted face inches from mine in the blink of an eye. In the blink of an eye its head exploded covering my face in blood, "Sir may I take point now" spoke Henderson. "
"Sure, I’ve just never seen them up close before" I spoke quietly

As he passed me he said "ok Texquila breath" barely audibly with a smirk on his face. We found the stairwell sign and made our way towards it, the two privates closing doors as we went.

Suddenly we heard voices coming from down below, "they’re breaking through and im out of ammo". Another one said "I’ll distract ‘em" as voice A replied "nooooo Jim, damnit", Followed by the horrible screams of Jim being eaten. As we moved down the stairs and I said "Henderson switch weapons with me since your on point". I threw him my M1014 as I caught his M4 and we proceeded down the stairs to the third floor noticing a makeshift barricade that had obviously been breeched somehow from the inside. We vaulted over the desk quickly and saw that down the hall a group of twenty Zeds were bashing at another barricaded door. I saw no survivors around and hoped they had their heads down as I snapped a frag grenade off my vest and whispered "fire in the hole". The small explosion rocked the hallway as we rushed down the hall putting a round in the head of the ones who had been knocked to the ground making quick work of the group. From the stairwell we had just exited came a bloodcurdling screech and the sound of many foot steps.

"Move back to stairwell rain some grenades on em, we need to demo it before they get up here. Henderson watch our backs incase we aren’t alone".
We saw the flood stop shortly at the barricade as another explosion sent them flying back down the stairwell. The *ping* sound of grenades leaving tack vest could be heard as more of the spherical devices could be seen hitting the wall behind the barricade and bouncing down the stairwell. I moved behind the barricade and put a few rounds into the pile that had formed below, luckily for us since Zeds don’t communicate it was hard for them to recover. More from below trampled over the pile moving up to the barricade, Henderson turned and peppered the group with his shotgun killing the first 6 easily.
I spoke quickly "well be overwhelmed if we don’t blow this stairwell, private set a demo charge right here".

Without asking questions the private started examining the thickness of the concrete between floors so as not to damage anymore then necessary.
As he went about his work, Henderson reloaded as I threw another grenade down the stairwell. By now some from the pile at the bottom of the flight below me had recovered and moved quickly right back up to the barricade, I switched my M4 to full auto and unloaded on the group at around head level. Henderson had finished reloading and made quick work once again to those who were left.

The private placed a charge on the side of the stairs below the barricade and dropped another one on the opposite end of the same stair case handing me the detonator as he finished.

We moved back into the hall behind us as I pushed the button, the subsequent result of the staircase dropping down leaving a little of the platform to move back up stairs. I looked back down the hall as I saw a small hole had been blown into the outer wall of the building. I turned and strode down the hall towards the barricade cringing at the thought of having to use my real name.
"This is Lt. Leslie smith of the United States Army; I’m here to support Col. Richardson and set up a refuel point for choppers."

A face peeked through the hole and screamed in excitement as the barricade started to be torn down.
"Richardson is in another room down the hall" came a reply from an unknown voice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section by Crashr

November 23, 2008
Perspective: David

"Are we having fun yet?"
"David, shut the hell up."
This is so fucking boring!
We've been stuck in this damn bunker for five days now. I'm gonna lose my mind if I don't get out soon. I hear Dean close a door and come walking into the room. He goes straight to Audrey and talks quietly with her. I resist the urge to look up at them, but decide to listen.
"I just checked the back rooms. We're almost completely dried up here."
"How much longer do we have?"
"I dunno. Judging by the way that we're going through what's left, I'd say that this is our last day of comfort." I perk up at this. I start putting the pieces together.
If we don't have any food here, then that means that people are going to have to go out and get some. I walk over to Dean and Audrey.
"Hey guys, excuse me, but I couldn't help but over-hear our predicament." Dean scowls at me. He can be a bit of a prick sometimes. I do my best to ignore him.
"If we don't have any food, then we're going to have to go out and get some, right? And that means you volunteers, right?" Both of them seem to see where this is going and look at each-other and then at me. They walk away again and start talking, this time to quiet for me to hear. I just stand around waiting for a response. They come to an agreement, and instead of talking to me, they both start calling everyone together. Oh great.
"All right everyone, listen up!" Dean starts out. "I'm gonna be honest with you all. We're almost out of supplies, and we can't just sit here waiting for someone to come and help us. I'm suggesting that we send out a search party to collect more supplies and find us a way out of the city." Audrey nods her head.
"I agree with Dean on this. Since nobody is going to be forced into exploring, we need volunteers."
Calvin speaks up from the back of the group. "How many people are going out?"
Audrey answers quickly. "Any more than seven is asking for trouble, and we already have one accounted for." She glances over at me. I smile and shrug my shoulders. Calvin speaks up again. "Make it two. I need to stretch my legs." He says with a smile. Mr. Anderson sighs and grabs a gun. "I'm going too."
James, being the cryptic bastard he is, just says, "My blade will need cleaning after this." and walks over to Calvin and Steve. Daniels, the army guy, also grabs a gun and walks over to where the party is getting ready to leave.
"Delgato, you're in-charge of our unit until I get back." Delgato salutes and hands him an extra clip of ammo. After that, there's a bit of a pause. Nobody else seems to want to go. Finally, somebody says, "C'mon Mak, let's have some fun."
Huh. I still don't know that kids name. Calvin counts everyone who volunteered and frowns. "Where's our last guy?"
With a grin, I grab my shotgun and walk over. "Yo. Right here." Calvin just shakes his head and turns to James.
"He's your responsibility while we're out there, alright?" James nods his head and looks at me, trying to figure out how much trouble I'm going to be. I pat him on the shoulder as I walk by.
"Don't worry, man. I can watch myself." He sighs and I hear him mutter, "That is what worries me." Before I can think of anything to say, Dean is speaking again.
"While they find a way out of here, the rest of us have to organize and be ready to move the moment they come back. Start getting your stuff together, because you do NOT want to get left behind if we have to go." People start moving and packing while our small group gathers the things we need for our recon.
"Walkie-talkies?"
"Check."
"Flashlights?"
"Check."
"Map?"
"Check."
"Everyone has at least one weapon?
Everybody nods their heads. We're ready to go. Audrey comes over to us just as we open the door to go outside.
"Good-luck." Is the last thing we hear before the door closes again. We all hear the lock from inside. This is it. Do or die.

(Yeah, sorry this took so long to post. I tried to put as many people's characters in this as possible so that everyone could participate. Anyway, same rule as always.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sloan City Outskirts
November 23rd
(IrishHitman)
00.52 Standard European Time (6.52 US/Canada Eastern)

The sight of the city from the hill was not particularly impressive. Just another urban shithole like so many others that the group had passed through. A small, yet sprawling suburbia. A large collection of multi-storey buildings stretching right from the city centre up until the edge of the suburbs. A few small-ish skyscrapers. This could be any other small city in the United States of America. Except at that moment, the usual atmosphere wasn’t quite the same.

The men and women who watched the city from the surrounding hills were not local. They had no idea of the history or the stories behind this particular clone of a city. Nor would they care if the opportunity arose to find out. Not only were they not local, but many locals would have had coronaries to even see them, nor would it have been possible for them to have entered the United States in such a fashion before the outbreak.

Yes, I think I can fairly say that the general populace of Sloan City would have a word or two to say about the crowd of armed European soldiers turned opportunists entering their city, fully armed. Perhaps “raiding” is a better description of their purpose. The American media had suppressed reports of “zombies” as ridiculous, substituting the reports of “riots”, instead. The “riots” that had spread throughout the world, and it had kicked them in the teeth big-time in return for their supposed white lies. That was a month before this particular week, and the virus then began spreading slowly from the North Eastern US to the South and West. Again, the media covered it up best they could in the interest of public order.

The total number of the people in our group stood at about two thousand Europeans, and another fifty or so volunteers from Boston, mostly Irish-Americans who were simply delighted to be rescued by none other than their lost “brethren” from the Motherland. Most of those were not combatants however. Unfortunately, according to old census figures, Sloan city had over 200,000 inhabitants, with a 85%+ infection rate. And the infection had only appeared recently.

Hundreds of pairs of binoculars and an equal amount of gun scopes observed the city, searching. Not searching for survivors, the group had more practical objectives to accomplish. We had been doing so for quite a while now, observing the movements of infected and uninfected alike. Some of the troops even placed bets on what groups below would survive to certain times. Of course, the bets weren’t in cash, they were in bullets, beers, packets of crisps and chocolate. Someone lost a big bet on some reckless teenager who was being swarmed as he charged at the infected a few days ago. Many of our number had already been dispatched to the suburbs in jeeps to search, and none of them reported casualties at that time.

The Finnish and Irish leaders, Olli and myself, sat on top of a lorry at the treeline camouflaged, gaping through binoculars.

“How’s your supplies?” I asked the Finn, gazing at the sight of the city below.
“Food wise, we’re ok,” he replied, “Ammo for our standard issue is as good as it was a month ago, but we’re low on ammo for the others.”
It was our practice to use weapons we found on our raids first before using any standard issue we had. We figured, why use the precious military issue weapons when our targets are abundant in armaments. It was a good policy. Of course, we kept NATO rounds from native military bases as a reserve as well.
“Could use some medical supplies though,” Olli added, “A lot of people are suffering headaches from stress.”
“The end of a world is a bitch,” I said, putting down my binoculars and reaching for a beer.
Coors Light, warm. Absolute pisswater.

“So, how do you want to do this?” I said, “It’s a feckin’ bloodbath down there.”
My Finnish counterpart just swore as he winced at a sight from miles away.
“Shell it?” he replied, “though we might destroy some of what we want.”
“No, I don’t think it would be good for morale if we blew up a few hundred people,” I responded, “Besides, we brought those over the Atlantic on an absolute necessity basis only.”

The Finn’s radio crackled.
“Permission to fire,” said a heavily British accent, “We have a group of survivors being chased in sight, and our section would like to shoot.”
“Distance?” responded Olli via his radio.
“300 yards or so, they don’t see us,” came the reply, “The boys here seem confident they can wipe the enemy out.”

“Where are they exactly, Foster?” I asked, looking into my binoculars once again.
“See the field just below where we are? Look in the direction of the largest skyscraper and you’ll see them,” replied the Brit, “They’re putting up a fight, but they’ll be overrun soon.”

I did as he said, and sure enough, there was a group of lightly armed individuals being chased towards our camp.
“They look like they can handle themselves,” I muttered as I watched the pursuers numbers drop steadily. “Permission to fire granted,” said Olli, “Accurate fire only, stop shooting when they’re eliminated.”

“Giving some hope to strangers, Olli? I didn’t think you were a religious man,” I said, smirking.
A few seconds later, several ex-British Army snipers began firing.
“I’m not,” replied Olli over the noise, “But I’ve noticed that there’s a road nearby where Foster was talking about, that is perfect for entering the city.”

“Besides, they’re heading this way, they’re bringing a threat right to our camp.”

“Oi, MacDonald, check out where that English fella is shooting, tell me if you can see anyone from where you are,” I said into my radio, “Let’s just see.”

“No lads or targets down there’s far as I can see, ‘cept the group that’s being shot at,” came the reply, “Might be hidin’ in those buildin’s. Sir.”

“Seems you’re right, and don’t call me sir,” I said, “Who’ll go in first?”
“Want to…. How do you say….” said Olli awkwardly, struggling to translate, “eh…”
“Never mind, I’ll go in first,” I laughed, “No point tiring you Scandinavians after that shite in New Jersey,”
“Finland isn’t in Scandinavia!” Olli shouted back to me as I ran off to where the Irish had camouflaged themselves, “And you forget the shit in Virginia as well!”

“The mood has lifted,” I muttered, rolling my eyes as I made it to my vehicle, “I thought all the slaughter was getting to us.”

“Alright Tom,” said Olli, “Who are you taking with you?”
“I’ll take your lads and some lads from Boston, if that’s alright with you?” I said into my radio, climbing onto the top of my APC, “We’ll drive right down the main road, go through the field onto that road, then to around the area of the tower, take our objectives, and come straight back as planned.”

“Not likely,” said a Dubliner called O’Leary, who was observing, “some plonker’s just blocked the way by crashing a bus on the main junction.”

“Shit!” I shouted, “If we can’t get the trucks through, we can’t grab what we need!”
“Just move it,” said Olli over the radio, “Get out and use a cable to pull the bus away.”

There’s nothing like having a perfectly good road, then having it closed by some whack driving too fast. Yeah, there’s “dead” people walking around, but that’s no excuse….

“O’Leary, where are the survivors of that bus crash?” I asked.

“They’re moving away,” he replied, “Got caught up by some sleepwalkers.”
“Piece of piss,” I said as the firing from the British finally stopped.

“All targets eliminated,” said Foster over the radio, “I think we saved someone’s bacon, gentlemen.”

“Alright,” I said, “Have the Swedes come back from the suburbs?”
“I can see them heading back up now,” replied O’Leary, only half paying attention as he peered out his binoculars, “Looks like they found what they were looking for.”

The assorted vehicles with the occasional Swedish flag drove up minutes later, a few splattered with blood.

“Alright?” I said into my radio, “How’s it goin?”
“I’m ok, you?” came the amused answer in a feminine Swedish accent.
“As good as I can be at the end of the world,” I replied, “So what we doing tonight?”
“I don’t know, you tell me,” she replied.

“Would you two get a room,” said Foster over the radio.
“It wouldn’t be entertaining if they kept it private,” laughed O’Leary

A F100 pulled up beside my APC, and out of it stepped her.
To describe her, if one could imagine the goddess Athena, with a rifle substituting a spear and a bulletproof vest substituting a shield. Kinky or what? Then again, I’m a biased observer.

“We hit the jackpot,” she said, “Take a look.”
A large articulated truck pulled up (a semi to the Americans in the audience), and two Swedes opened the back. Inside it lay piles of various guns, jewellery, and cans of food. Quite a relieving sight.

“Freya, can I give the guns to Olli?” I asked, “He says he is low on ammo.”
“No problem,” she replied, “Besides, the people we picked up said there’s plenty of gun stores closer to the city centre.”

“People you’ve picked up?” I asked slowly.
Freya pointed behind me. I turned around slowly, and saw several people getting out of a pickup truck.
“They were driving around in that when we came across them, asked to join us,” Freya explained, “I took their weapons.” I immediately pointed my rifle at them, and the entire Irish section started to do the same.

“On your knees, hands on heads!” I commanded as the last one got out.
They obeyed immediately, although their faces clearly showed that they weren’t happy about it.
“Search them,” I ordered.

“I know you said no survivors,” said Freya quietly as the search happened, “But I have already searched them and thought we could use them.”
“I know, but their mere presence isn’t why I’m searching them,” I replied as O’Leary started shouting.

“This one is armed!” he roared, grabbing the .38 revolver from a man and then butting him with his rifle. Freya immediately shouted in Swedish to her people, who came running.

The injured man smirked.
“What are you smiling for,” I said, plucking my pistol from it’s holster, “Were you not told to surrender your weapons when we found you?”

“Fuck you, 2nd Amendment still exists asshole,” came the reply as he wiped a bit of blood off his lip.
I laughed. It was such a gutsy thing to say.

“Is that so?” said Freya as O’Leary handed her the man’s gun.
She pointed to her half-open coat’s shoulder, to the badge on it.
“What does that say?” she asked him.
“I don’t know, it’s in something I can’t read, dumb bitch!” he replied, “I’m not going to take shit from some foreign whore!”
I kicked him in the gut, and he rolled onto the ground, writhing in pain. I was rather pissed.

“Have a little more respect for the lady, thank you,” I said politely after fixing my shirt.
“What it says isn’t important,” Freya continued, “But you did hit the nail on the head.”

“….So?” he asked reluctantly.
“Nothing, just wanted you to know that we weren’t going to be pushed around,” Freya said after a while. She then placed the revolver against the man’s forehead.

The atmosphere became thick and tense, as we awaited the shot.
In retrospect, she probably should have killed him, but I’m getting off the point again.

“Freya, wait,” I said as I noticed her hand tighten around the old gun, “There’s no point.”
Freya’s hand relaxed, but didn’t move from it’s position. A few seconds later, the gun lowered.
She shot him in the thigh instead. He immediately yelled in pain.

I nodded to O’Leary, he knocked the man unconscious and bound his hands with plasti-cuffs.
The other survivors that had been picked up sat in shock as he was dragged off to the medical people.

“We will not tolerate plots against us,” Freya explained.
She emptied the rest of the revolver’s bullets into the air and threw the empty gun away.
The Swedes moved the survivors, pushing them to be processed.

“You turn my guts ice cold with that sometimes, you know that?” I said to her,
“Jesus, for a moment there I thought you were going to execute that guy.”

“I put on a good show, don’t I?” she said as I shook my head.

“Olli,” Freya asked into her radio, “How’s the situation down there?”
“Not good,” the Finn replied, and began to explain the situation.
Radio chatter about nuclear weapons being dropped on a reasonably nearby town circulated, although we thought that was ridiculous. Dropping nukes was a last resort, and as we had seen travelling, there were numerous survivor groups and communities, particularly in more rural areas. The watch had spotted many survivor groups being chased into dead ends in buildings, who might have tried to suck us into their problems. We discussed what to do if groups approached us for help or offered it. In the interests of safety and efficiency, we decided we would turn down both requests and offers, except for spur-of-the-moment events.

US military units inside the city were holed up in various locations around the city, and would present the greatest human threat if hostile. On the other hand, the city was crawling with sleepwalkers, which were slow infected, banshees which were loud and fast infected, and vultures opportunitist gangs operating in a similar manner to ourselves, except on a less organised and less capable scale.

I’ll take a moment now to explain a few things.
We were a ragtag group of volunteers. Originally purely military, once word got out that we were going, more volunteers signed up. People from various professions. We left the Irish safe-zone weeks earlier, just as government control of the Eastern US was lost. We had no mission, except plunder and trade. I suppose you could call us pirates, but then again, we did our thieving on land. I think we were just going to simply have something to do. All there was nothing to do in Ireland was hang around and watch the grass grow, the zombie threat had practically been eliminated there. So we left. Thankfully, we were about 50-50 male-female, so we weren’t going completely insane on the long trips. It was a good decision, as we had amassed quite a wealth of ammunition, food, essential goods and “booty”. A section of Boston had been cleared, and now acted as a base for more similar activities. I heard later that many more people had followed our example, with varying results. Quite a few of our number had returned there after having enough, although we never knew if they got back safe, and still don’t know to this day. We were a long way from Boston, that was for sure, and we would go further still. Anyway, back to the story.

Olli finished explaining, and Freya kicked me.
“Let’s go,” she said, smiling, “Plunder is waiting for us!”

“What about that group that saw us earlier?” Olli asked over the radio, “They went into the city.”
“They mistook us for US military forces,” Freya replied in my place, “At least that’s what I was told.”

“Mistook us for Americans?” Olli asked, “How?”
“At the time they came through, the Boston volunteers were on guard duty at the road,” I said, “They stopped for help but we moved them on. They saw part of the camp I think.”

“Ok, so what will we do?” Foster then asked, approaching me, “The Norwegian fella is still asleep.”
“I think we’ll just go in alone,” I replied, “Since we’re already set to go anyway.”

“Alright, we’ll help you from here the best we can,” said Foster, “Besides, I need a drink.”
“So do I,” I replied, giving Freya a quick kiss and hopping onto my APC.
I sat in the gunner’s position as usual, and Foster passed in a six pack of Miller to me.
“For the 800 years you Paddies keep going on about,” he laughed.
“Fuck you,” I said back sarcastically, “Thanks.”

O’Leary got into the driver position, and the rest of his squad piled in the back.
“Oi Tom,” he said to me, “What sorta loot we lookin’ at here?”
“Depends,” I replied, “This is the largest town in the area, there should be plenty to have.”

“Can we go?” asked Freya over the radio impatiently.
“Alright, let’s go.”

The convoy moved from it’s camouflaged position in a forest behind the outermost motel of Sloan city, and onto the main motorway into the city. We drove at a normal speed in single file, constantly observing our surroundings. Within a minute, we had come to the crash. The Jersey dividers stopped us from going around the large double length “bendy” bus. Smoke rose around it in places, from small fires underneath.

“No one get out,” muttered O’Leary, “I think I saw movement.”

Sure enough, around the bus came a zombie (I only use the word out of a lack of a better one).
At first, it didn’t really notice us at first, as it walked around, but it soon did. Shrieking, it ran quickly towards the convoy.

I smirked, and unloaded a burst of 20mm cannon fire on it.
Its head exploded after I severed a leg and two rounds penetrated its chest.
The remaining corpse fell to the ground.

“Is that it?” asked O’Leary.
“Nope,” I said.

Within seconds of that exchange, more targets began running around the bus, climbing over it and the barriers. The entire group started firing.

The zombies that had got through were quickly cut down, bullets tearing into their sides, slicing their legs and smashing into their skulls. Relentless, the hordes kept coming. One of them would be shot in the knees, and the next would scramble over the first. Their numbers were unusual to us at the time, but we later discovered that their sense of smell was greater than first thought. They had smelt our camp, but came across the remains of some of the people in the bus. A few minutes later, they stopped coming as abruptly as they had appeared.

Freya got out of her truck, with a number of her people. I followed suit.
Walking in a wide line across the road, weapons raised, we approached the burning bus.
The smell of rotten flesh and the ferric odour of blood hit us like a foul wave.

“Ugh, shit,” I said, covering my nose, “These bastards need a shower.”
We stopped just before the bus, and slowly picked our way through the corpses to the sides of it.

Every now and then, the sound of moaning would be heard, and a shot would ring out, signalling the end of it.

We came around the corner of the bus, and a stinking trail of cadavers littered the road.
O’Leary threw up almost immediately. I handed him a beer after he was done, which he drank deeply.
He then threw up again. That was the last of the warm Coors.

“How are we going to shift this then,” he said after finishing his second bout.
I looked at the bus lying on its side.

“Do you reckon I could push it out of the way with the APC?” I asked Freya.
“It might be too heavy,” she replied, with her hand on her hip, “Try it.”

We walked carefully through the piles to our vehicles, and O’Leary started up the APC again.
He lined us up so that we would push the furthest edge of the bus, and slowly approached it.
Finally, he slammed the accelerator when we were about ten yards from it.

We hit the bus hard, and it began to move.
Progress was slow, but we finally moved it enough for a vehicle at a time to get through.

“Good work,” Freya said over the radio, “I didn’t think we’d be able to do it.”
“It’s my magic driving skills,” bragged O’Leary.
I contained a laugh, and gave the order to move through.

Once the few APCs and many trucks were through, we drove off the motorway and onto the field I mentioned earlier.
In the middle of it, sat the group of survivors Foster’s men had saved.

“I see you,” said Olli over the radio, “Looking good so far.”
We drove along a path, slowly.

The survivors began running towards us.
“Hey Tom, listen to this,” said O’Leary, messing with the APC’s radio.

“Please stop, we need your help!” said a man’s voice, “We’re trying to get to the coast!”
They hadn’t spotted the snipers nearby. Yet.
“What should we do?” O’Leary asked.

“Give me the flag,” I said.
O’Leary handed me the Irish tricolour.
I lied, “We have objectives to fulfill, and cannot assist at this time.”
I then raised the Irish flag on the radio mast.

They stopped in their tracks and watched as we passed by.
“Why the hell not!” shouted a different voice.
We ignored it.

“Poor people,” Freya said as her section passed by, “But we cannot help you.”

The convoy reached the road as planned, and we finally reached the city proper.
The place was exactly as predicted, a shithole.
Bodies strewn about the place, partially consumed, windows smashed, small fires everywhere.
Just another day.

We drove towards the heart of the city.
Someone once said the history of humankind is struggle, and this was no truer than in Sloan City that day. As we drove through, we witnessed a battle that ebbed and flowed. Infected and uninfected, vying for dominance and survival. By that time, we were desensitised to it. It was normal.

We made good progress until we came to a car pileup on an overpass.
It was the quickest way into the city centre.

“Into the carpark?” suggested Freya over the radio.
To our left, a multi-story car park stood. It also had a footbridge parallel to the overpass.

“Alright,” I said, “Freya, go through the floors and clear them out. We’ll guard the entrance here.”
We drove the vehicles into the building. The Irish vehicles parked around the entrance, which was a story above the street, and the Swedes drove immediately up the ramp to the next level. Once they had passed, we surrounded the entrance on the inside with our armoured vehicles, and set up a watch on the entire 360 degrees to be seen around the building.

I jumped out of the Piranha, and looked around.
I spotted a stairwell, leading downwards. Probably the basement levels housing more car space and the air conditioning and electrical units.

“O’Leary, your squad is with me,” I ordered, “Freya, what’s your status?”
“The building is clear, although we found evidence that survivors were here not too long ago,” she replied.

“Alright, I’m going to investigate the maintenance levels below us,” I stated.

O’Leary, his squad of eight men, and myself, all proceeded to the stairwell door.
We opened it with difficulty, and found that space between the door and the walls had been taped over with duct tape. The roll was visible on the floor nearby.

“Radio silence, we may have survivors,” I said quietly into my radio, as I prepared my rifle.
I nodded at O’Leary, and he took point. The stairs were dark. We flicked on our NV goggles, and continued.
We came to the first basement level, and found it locked from the inside. We would have to use the ramp to get there. I ordered another squad upstairs to investigate from there.

We continued down to the second level, and entered a long corridor through the door.
Movement could be heard through the doorway ahead of us, although we couldn’t see any.
We stacked up beside it to the right, out of sight from the point of view of the room beyond.

Gunfire was heard above us. The other squad had found something.
I tapped O’Leary’s shoulder, and we rushed into the room.

A shotgun shell from a sawn-off slammed into O’Leary’s vest, putting him down.
The female private behind me eliminated the man who had fired it with a burst, and I had shot another who had barely missed me with an AK. The room was large, and there were large generators taking up most of the room. They were silent. O’Leary swore and got up.

Another man jumped out from behind the door and shot at us.
He was neutralised by the same private who had taken care of O’Leary’s attacker.
Whispering was heard further ahead.

A few moments later, as we approached the end of the generators, a voice called out.
“Ok, we surrender, don’t shoot!”
Several more men appeared, holding their guns in the air.
We told them to drop their weapons, and step back, which they did.

There was another door. Inside was a lit room.
We entered, and found several women, chained up or otherwise restrained.
Some were half naked, and were crying at the sight of us.

“What have you been doing here?” I immediately asked, becoming furious.
“It’s the end of the world,” muttered the man who had surrendered to us.

The female private immediately took aim and fired, but I had got my arm to her rifle first, and the shots went wide.

“Not yet, they’re going to suffer for this,” I said, nodding at the women, “Take care of them first.”
The private did as ordered. The rest of the squad were pissed. Really pissed.

“Take these fucking bastards upstairs,” I ordered, “Beat what they know out of them.”
The survivors were pushed roughly away, restrained.

I walked into the lit room, with the female private caring for the prisoners.
“Private, a moment please,” I said.
She immediately got up after giving her jacket to a woman around her age.

“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Private Sarah Prendergast, sir,” she stated after a pause.
“Ok Sarah, I want you to take care of these people,” I said quietly, “Tell them the truth about who we are, and tell them that they’re safe now.”

“Yes sir!” she shouted, and I nodded as I walked back out.
O’Leary was waiting on the stairwell.

“Are you ok?” I asked.
“Fine, I took it in the vest,” he replied, “Shaken, not stirred.”
“Good,” I sighed, “Now to deal with those pricks.”

We walked up and found Freya ordering the survivors to be lined up against a wall.
“Face them this way!” she ordered.
They did so with enthusiasm. The men had obviously told her what they found.

“Who is your leader?” she demanded while pacing along the line.
Most of them looked towards a particularly large man, who was the only one who seemed to be amused by the whole thing.

“You think this is fucking funny?” Freya said, “Let me wipe that smug smile off your face!”
She approached the man, who was considerably larger than she was, kicked him square in the groin, and pulled out her knife as he dropped to his knees.

She swore in Swedish before cutting his throat, and pushing him to the ground to die.
She didn’t sever the artery fully, and while he was bleeding quickly, she made it last longer as a result.
“Freya, they need help downstairs,” I said after a minute of watching her stare as the man’s life faded away. She stood for a moment, then walked away.

“Alright,” she said, taking a breath to calm herself down, “How many are there?”
“More than a dozen,” I replied.

Freya then barked orders into her radio in Swedish, and several female soldiers came down with various items, mostly food. They proceeded down the stairwell.

I ordered my men to line up in front of the prisoners.
“Reload.”
“Aim.”
“Fire!”

The squad shot all of them dead. Fifteen lives. Fifteen worthless, expendable, evil lives.
Just then, the second squad that had been sent to clear the first basement level returned, and their sergeant reported.

“All targets eliminated,” he stated, “No survivors.”
I sighed deeply.

“There goes the good mood that had finally returned,” I muttered to O’Leary.
“The shit has really hit the fan when people are willing to go this far for simple pleasure,” he replied, “I think anyone could become that fucked up to be honest…”

“I disagree,” I said, kicking a can on the ground, “It takes a predisposition of an arsehole to commit something like that. These people deserved what we gave them.”

Freya and Sarah returned from the basement with the women.
I ordered O’Leary’s squad away, in case the victims were wary of large groups of men.

“They’re shaken up, but ok from what I can see,” Freya whispered to me as they sat down near the door, “They’ll be fine after a while.”

“Can they be integrated?” I asked, “We need every good hand we can get.”
“Most of them were only caught in the past few days,” Freya replied, “Considering we rescued them, I think they might want to stay.”

“Give them the options,” I said, “They might just want to get the hell out of here.”
“What time is it now?” she asked.
“9.15 US,” I replied.

November 23rd
10.04am US/Canada Eastern

The women had decided to stay with us until a suitable survivor community was found for them.
In the mean time, they were to stay put under Freya’s guard in the carpark.

We decided that my Irish troops would complete the mission with support from the carpark. However, before we started off, we waited for Olli and Foster’s intel update. The Finns had brought powerful receiver/transmitter equipment as well as several sattellite dishes. They were listening in on the city constantly, and the scheduled report was late. It was supposed to start at 10am sharp.

I sat with Freya, O’Leary and the Swedish second-in-command (whose name I still can’t pronounce) on the roof of the carpark, around the truck’s radio. The sights and sounds of the city continued to rage around us, never mind the smells… The large Faith Tower stood smoking, in an ominous manner.

“What is taking him so long?” I muttered.
“Equipment problems,” Freyasaid, “The Finns were complaining of problems yesterday.”

The radio suddenly crackled into life.
“Sorry, we were being jammed for a few minutes,” Olli said clearly over the radio,
“It seems elements of the US military are still active.”

“Anyway, there’s been a development,” Foster said, “The Richardson family have been evicted due to a lack of funds.”

The Richardson family was a nickname for a survivor group that was run by US troops, under the leadership of a Cnl. Richards. We had intercepted a lot of their communications since we arrived.
They had carried out a rather audicious plan a few days earlier, to get to a bunker. It seems it had now backfired on them. Evicted due to lack of funds meant that they were forced to send out people to look for supplies.

“Where are they headed?” I asked.
“They haven’t said, but they may go under the overpass to get to the other side of the shopping district,” Foster said.
“They are lightly armed, most of the uncles stayed at home,” Olli said.

Uncles, as in Uncle Sams, were US soldiers.

Chatter was heard in the background.
“We’ve just spotted a large horde approaching your position,” Olli said.
Screeching was heard in the distance.

“We hear them,” Freya said, “They must have caught the scent of the prisoners.”
“Prisoners?” Olli asked.
“A long story,” I replied.

“Are there any other Uncles or vultures we need to look out for?” Freya asked.
“A few, but none are your in your immediate area or near your objectives at the moment that we can tell,” Foster said, “We’ll advise you if that changes.”

“Alright, thanks lads,” I said, turning the radio back to the survivor radio station that was playing a country song at that moment. Freya then turned it off.

“Ok, I’ll go prepare my people,” I sighed, walking off back down to the first floor.

I walked slowly, so it took a few minutes.
In that time, I decided how were going to fulfill the objectives.

All my men (and women) had gathered on the entrance floor, and we prepared to beat back the hordes.
I ordered charges to be laid on the street outside, right in front of the building.

We took positions facing the entrance, and prepared for the attack.

Sure enough, just as Olli and Foster had said, a group of a few hundred infected came charging up the street, shrieking.
I sat watching them, irritated at the sounds they were making. I was too used to it to be fearful.

The group entered the designated blast zone, and we waited a few seconds to allow as many of them as possible to group up before they came up the ramp at us. O’Leary pressed the detonator, and we all looked away.

The charges blew them to kingdom come.
Bits of former people flew everywhere, sticking to walls, cars, lamp posts. There were still some moving, however, and they sprinted up the entrance ramp.
We opened up on them, and the bullets ripped them to shreds.

A few got up to our line.
We switched to our standard issue, as the forward unit got involved in a hand-to-hand struggle with the infected. We shot the remaining ones, but not before a few of ours were bitten. They began to change immediately, and we cut them down with no hint of hesitation.

When the firing stopped and the smoke cleared, we gathered the corpses that were nearby.
"What do we do with them?" asked Prendergast.

The mood took a further nosedive after that.
We couldn’t bury the dead anywhere as the street was entirely paved over, so we burnt them.
We burnt our comrades in a separate fire.

The briefing for the attack afterwards was done in a solemn tone.
We couldn't afford to wait.

A map was pinned to the wall, and a light set up so we could see it.
I started.

“We’re here, in the Lincoln Overpass Carpark,” I stated,
“Our first objective is just over the bridge about two hundred and fifty yards from the end of the footbridge.”
A hand shot up.

“Yes?”
“Can we not move the cars from the overpass?” said a corporal, who seemed to have noticed my reference to the footbridge.
“Not immediately, so we’re going to use the footbridge to recon and gather what we can while the Swedes try and clear the way,” I replied.
The troops weren’t happy with that. I didn't blame them.

“Won’t we get jumped by every banshee in town?” asked the same corporal.
“We’re using standard issue, and use of lethal force at will is authorised,” I stated, “That includes any survivors you find suspicious, and especially armed Uncles.”

“Our objectives are to recon the area, eliminate threats, and scavenge from the nearby gun, jewellery, pawn, surplus and food stops,” I replied, “We’ll have mortar and sniper support from here.”

I explained the entire procedure from start to finish, talked about the contingency plan, and designated the squads’ tasks.
They still weren’t happy, but they got up to go anyway.
We proceeded up the the floor where the footbridge entrance was.

On the way up, we passed the rescued women.
They cheered us as we passed, shouting their thanks once again. They seemed a lot more vigorous now that they had some food in them and were safe. Similar reactions were quite common amongst others we had rescued. I remember Freya telling me something about endorphins being released due to relief, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Perhaps I should have.

A Swedish machinegunner was guarding the footbridge, although no shots had been fired yet.
I nodded to him, and he nodded back.

“Alright, let’s go,” I said, proceeding onto the bridge.
As always, O’Leary volunteered his squad for point duty.

We walked down onto the street, off the bridge. The reasonably large buildings of small and medium businesses lined the streets. A hotdog cart lay abandoned on its side on the pavement. The street was empty, for the moment. The squads immediately took their positions.

We advanced up the street, on either side of the road, tensely.

“See anything?” I asked into my radio, "Stop here for a moment."
I looked through the newspapers from an abandoned news stand.

"Government urge calm as riots continue" stated the Sloan Post.
The message of "The National Inquirer" was far different: "Russian virus continues to wreck havoc".
I picked it up, and leafed through it. The headline was about the only thing the paper got right.

The squads reported in, with no sightings all around.
“Good,” I replied, “The gun store is just ahead.”
“Prendergast, hotwire that old pickup over there,” O’Leary ordered quietly.

The private ran to the vehicle, cracked the window apart with her rifle butt, opened the door and got in.
In the mean time, we had reached our first objective.

“Squads C through F, guard the forward area out there. Squad A is with me, Squad B, you’re on rearguard,” I ordered quickly.

O’Leary kicked the door in just as the pickup roared into life.
We went inside. The place had been cleared out. It felt like a crypt.
Even the back rooms had been raided.

There were a few weapons, but no ammunition.
“First objective is empty, move to the second,” I ordered, cursing to myself as we left.

O'Leary's squad jumped on the pickup, and we went down the street for two blocks.
The next objective was a supermarket and pharmacy.
We arrived on the supermarket’s block, and crossed the parking spaces punctuated with yellow rolled bars. It was a butt ugly building.

The squads created a semi-circle defensive ring around the door and pickup, and I approached it with O’Leary and Prendergast.
It had been destroyed by a crash, from what we could see. Not a good sign.

Infected ran around the corner in the opposite direction from where we came from.
The troops immediately opened fire on the targets, which were mixed between the slow sleepwalkers and the fast banshees.

We proceeded inside. Empty shells, empty bodies and empty shelves greeted us.
“Fuck,” I said to myself.

“The storage in the back might be untouched,” said O’Leary.
“I’ll get the pickup,” Prendergast shouted to us as she ran back.

We made for the backroom door. It was hidden by a shelf that had been pushed against the wall.
We dumped the obstruction away, and tried to open the door.

It was locked from the inside.
I quickly pulled out my pistol and unloaded a clip into where I thought the locks were.
The fucking thing still wouldn’t open.

O’Leary and I tried to ram it open ourselves, to no avail.
Prendergast pulled up in the pickup, and got out.
She watched our futile efforts.

The rest of the troops were inside in a few minutes, and resting at the entrance.
The infected had been fought off without a casualty this time.

"Ok, this isn't going to open," I said, "Let's head to the pharmacy."
“Wait a minute,” Sarah said to us, “Let me try.”
O’Leary smirked, and we both walked away and sat down on the tables that were nearby.
We didn’t even bother to watch the private’s attempt to open the door. We sat down, and cracked open two beers.
We pondered on what to do.

"When are we going to head home?" O'Leary asked, "A few people have asked me, mostly the civvies."
"Well, that's a matter for everyone to decide, isn't it?" I stated, sipping a beer, "When we've scouted out enough places, then we'll be ordered back."

We almost shit ourselves in shock when an explosion rocked the room.
Turning around to see what the hell had happened, our shock soon turned to hilarity.
The door was open, and the private looked very pleased with her handiwork.
“Door breacher,” she said, walking gingerly into the doorway she had opened.

“I like her,” said O’Leary, chuckling to himself, “Should have thought of that.
“Let’s not mention that one to Freya…” I said quietly.

The rest of the squad followed the private in, and a fresh wave of foul smell hit us.
No doubt had the front doors been closed, we would have experienced it earlier.

We found plenty of canned goods and water, and loaded it onto the pickup.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Section by Crashr)

November 23, 2008
Perspective: James

“Alright, be careful now. Calvin, you and me on point. Mak, I want you and your buddy coming in right behind us. James, David, and Steve, you guys stay out here. If you guys get swarmed, haul ass inside. We all clear?”
Sergeant Daniels definitely doesn’t waste time. As I step back from the front of the supermarket, I hear Daniels quietly counting to himself. Once he reaches three, he runs into the store with gun raised and Calvin close on his heels. The two of them get a few feet in, and then stop, dropping to one knee. Mak and his friend are the next ones in, stopping once they reach Daniels and Calvin. None of them move as they look around for any sign of the creatures. After a minute or two of silence, Daniels stands up. He motions for me to come forward. I oblige and walk over to where he and the others are waiting.
“James, I want you to scout out ahead. It looks like it’s too tight to use our rifles, and you have the most experience with hand-to-hand. If you run into trouble, just shout.” I nod my head and put my hand on my machete. As I start to walk down the aisles, I take note of my surroundings. All of the shelves have been emptied and there are bodies everywhere. It looks like everything is dead and gone. I call out to Daniels and the others that everything is clear. I finally reach the back of the store, and stop in my tracks. The Recon group is not far behind, and they soon see what I am gaping at.
“Phew. Would you look at that. Someone blew this door open.” Says Calvin.
After inspecting it for a second, Daniels speaks again. “Yeah, what’s left of the door. Looks more like a hole. Could’ve been a door breacher. The size of the hole in the wall looks close enough…”
The un-named one clears his throat impatiently. “Which means?”
Daniels glances at him and then back at the door. “Which means that whoever was here before us was military.”
“Wait a second, I didn’t think there was even any military left in this city.” Says Mak. Daniels thinks for a second before answering. “That’s what I thought too. There hasn’t been any chatter over the walkie-talkies.”
“I think we should be a bit more careful from here on out.” Calvin suggests. “Military here doesn’t have a habit of being friendly. No offence, sergeant.”
Daniels smiles. “None taken, though I agree. Let’s check some of the other stores and see if they missed anything.” As we walk out of the store, we find David and Mr. Anderson leaning against a car and talking.
“Hey, you guys find anything good?” David asks as we walk over to him. We fill in him and Mr. Anderson on what was inside the store. David puts his hands behind his head and lets out a frustrated sigh. “Well that’s just great. Now we have to worry about zombies and this mystery military-operation bullshit. I never knew the end of the world would be so much fun.”
Daniels nods his head while saying, “That’s how it works, so we’re just gonna deal with it. Let’s check the other stores. Maybe there’s something leftover.”
As we check the other stores in the shopping district, it becomes obvious that everything of any importance is gone. As we come to the last building, night is starting to fall. Calvin sighs and sits down on the curb.
“This was a complete waste of time. I didn’t even get to shoot anything.”
Mr. Anderson speaks next. “I wouldn’t say that quite yet. It’s getting dark, and I don’t know how good these things can see during the night. We need to find shelter.”
Daniels nods his head and starts looking at the buildings around us.
“We should probably go for a multi-story building. We can barricade the stairs and hole up inside.”
“Great idea captain, but where the hell are we gonna find anything higher than one story in a fucking shopping district?” David adds sarcastically. I decide to speak up.
“We aren’t. We must leave this area and find an office building of some sort.” Mak suddenly jumps into the conversation.
“What about the university? It’s just a few blocks over and away.” He says, gesturing in the general direction with his hand.
Everyone nods and agrees.
“There’s a good chance that there are other survivors there, and they should have supplies too.” Says Mr. Anderson enthusiastically.
“Don’t get too excited just yet,” says Mak’s friend. “we have a long way to go before we get there, and it’s not getting any brighter out here.” Even as he speaks, I notice the light fading from the streets.
Daniels starts moving forward and calling out directions. “Mak, take point and lead the way! Calvin, you and me will follow behind him! David, Steve, follow us. James, you and him,” he indicates to the nameless one, “watch our backs. We don’t have much time, let’s move!”
We set off at a light run, following Mak in the order Daniels directed. The sun is almost completely gone, and the streets are devoid of any life. It is an eerie mood, and nobody says a word. It’s a race against time, and is one I don’t plan to loose.

(Yeah, here we go. I'm planning on writing more on what happens, but just wanted to get this up in the first place. If you see any errors or incontenuity's, let me know and I'll change it. Same rules as always.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This part by Nexus_Oblivion)
Perspective of: Michael, 17
November 23th 2008
Time: 4:53PM

‘You’ll take my life but I’ll take yours too
You’ll fire your musket but I’ll run you through
So when you’re waiting for the next attack
You’d better stand there’s no turning back’

‘Welcome to Sloan City.....’

‘Michael, where are we headed?’

‘....well, the only place I could think that would be safe would be the Sloan City University....’

‘Alright, well I always wanted to go to university’

‘...so did I Giles.....so did I’

We pass by the welcome sign in our really old Chevy Camaro. The hummer ran out of fuel and we were lucky enough to find this chevy with keys still in the ignition. My stubble has grown back and I again, smell like a mixture of sweat and dirt, Giles is no exception. We’ve now been travelling for roughly three and half days. We managed to scrounge some food in a gas station and we’ve stored it all in the boot, along with the duffel bags. Days are becoming colder, probably because of the approaching winter but none the less I have to get back to Bowman...it’s a long shot but either my friends are there or not, they’re the only people I can trust. I continue driving towards SCU.

Sloan City University...I know how to get there, I was supposed to go when I finished high school in two years. It’s the only place I know that seems safe to me in this city. Sturdy steel/brick permitter walls, then there’s a big open space and the building kinda looks like the university from resident evil outbreak. We’ll only be staying there for the night before we head to Bowman but I want to be safe.
"So what is so important in Bowman?" Giles asks
I don’t know..." I reply "...I’m hoping my friends are still there"
"When was the last time you saw them?"
"That would be the early morning of November 16th..." I say "...I know, I know, they’re probably long gone by now but I want to start there."
"If your sure Michael" Giles says in a worried tone.

We arrive at the gates of SCU. Even in the car I could see the blood and occasional chucks of flesh in the what should have been the green university grounds.
"It’s getting dark..." I exclaim "...it’s 5:45 now, let’s head upstairs and find a room and hold up there."
"Should we grab the food?" Giles remarks
"Nah..." I reply "...just grab a few cans and some bottles but bring the duffel bags, we need the weapons"
I get out of the car slowly and look around, nothing out of ordinary. Giles opens the boot and hands my duffel bag to me. I sling it across my back and we both head for enter the university through the damaged security gate.
"Think the zombies did that?" Giles whispers
"No, looks more like a car did that..." I say looking around "...come on, we’ll stay in the dormitory."
"And where exactly is the dormitory?" he inquired
"The main hall and to the right. Big sign says Dormitory..." I say spreading my arms out "...don’t worry we’ll be on the top floor and we’ll barricade in a room."

We walked through the grass, careful not to step on the blood or the bloody chunks on the way to the university steps. Unfortunately we are exposed, we stick out like a sore thumb on the open grounds and when we hear the blood curdling shrieks behind us, we knew we were at a disadvantage. Six had come through the same damaged gate and ran towards us.
"Fuck we’re exposed out here" Giles had to remark
"I know Giles!" I stated "...come on wait till they’re closer and shoot."
It didn’t take long until the first two were at least five meters before we fired. I aimed for the head as best I could with the M4 carbine and fired a 3 round burst. It fell and eventually we took down all six but we also attracted twice as much as before....now at least twelve runners were after us.
"Fuck it and run to the university" I shouted

We bolted as fast as we could to the university. I managed to step in some bloody goop in the process and as I ran up the university steps, I looked behind me and saw that they no longer chased us....but I caught a glimpse of a woman...a woman who looked familiar even though she wore military clothing, she got the zombies attention and was running into one of the other smaller buildings in the university grounds.
"That looked like Heather..." I stammered "...Giles take my bag and head inside."
"What? Michael we sti-"
"Listen..." I interrupted "....take my duffel bag, go inside and immediately on the right there’s a big sign that says Dormitory, walk through and there should be some stairs on the left. Take it to the top and lock yourself in a room. Leave something on the door so I know where you are. Something out of place."
"Michael, don’t leave me along" he pleaded
"Trust me..." I said reassuringly "...take my bag and follow my instructions."
I handed him my bag and began to run off to the building where the woman entered. I didn’t know what that building was there for, I never entered it but that woman looked very familiar.
‘I don’t suppose you can confirm that it was Heather could you?’ I asked It
‘I don’t have have telescopic vision but she did look very much like Heather, Michael’ It replied

I ran as fast as I could to the building. When I got close enough I realized that it was
a theatre, "SCU Theatre".....what a crap name. By now it was nearly dark. The sun was becoming a tanned orange and what was worse...I didn’t have a flashlight.
‘I serious have to get a fucking flashlight’ I reminded myself as I stepped into the theatre entrance.
Not really as dark as I thought but time was against me because soon it would be dark. I can see dark stains on the tiled floor but no bodies. The ticket booths to my left were empty and the massive double doors at the end of the hall were blocked by chairs and such, I couldn’t see the zombies that followed.... but I could hear them. I gulped air and headed for the source of the banging.

The banging was getting louder and so were the shrieking. The corridor I decided to take was getting very dark which made me move at a snails pace. I kept as quiet as possible until I reached a door that was swaying back and forth, the banging and shrieking were coming from behind it. I checked my assault rifle and made sure it was firing on full automatic. I peeked through the gap the swaying door was creating and noticed that five zombies were banging against a double door, I also saw costumes and wigs in the room.
I gulped some air before I positioned myself in front of the door with my rifle and aimed where I thought their heads would be.
"Okay...here I go"
Just as I was about to take a step inside, I heard gunshots and I ducked behind the wall. I peaked back into the room and saw one zombie down and a two bullet holes through the double door.
"Fuck that, I’m the one playing hero" I whispered and kicked the swaying door open.
"Get down!" I shouted, intending that statement for Heather as I shot into the chest of zombies. They went down and I clicked the rifle to fire in 3 round bursts and finished them off. I heard the double door slowly opening. I turned and stared, at first nothing appeared but then a gun came through the door, it was empty because the slide was past the hammer thing. Hands, followed by arms and then a beautiful face emerged. It was Heather.

The room was dark and she must of missed me. I was standing a feet away from her but she still didn’t see me, I figured, standing in the darkened corner of the room contributed to that. I got a nice close up of her despite the near darkness, she still looked relatively clean, her curly hair seemed to now be half wavy which to me added to her beauty, her face even when she looked serious was still cute, she did look odd in military gear and it hid her legs which I decided to use it to in my introduction.
"Well it’s no skirt but it’ll do" I said charmingly
She immediately turned around to face me
"Who are you?" she asked in a voice I found so comforting despite the tone
"Heather..." I whispered smoothly "...if I gave you three guesses you still would never know but here’s a clue, I got shot back in Bowman"
She looked bewildered and then I saw her face change from seriousness to happiness
"Mi....Michael?" she said brokenly
I stepped out of the corner and into the center of the room which now, was becoming too dark to even see her properly.
"You wouldn’t happen to have a flashlight on you by any chance?" I asked
She pulled out something from her vest and pressed it. A flood of light shone in my eyes.
"Argh! damn it....Heather.....geeze"
I covered my face but I could feel a hand gently pushing my arm away from my face. Our eyes met and she cried.

We hugged....kissed....basically nothing but the sound of us.
‘Sorry to interrupt another reunion Michael’ It said sarcastically ‘but we have to go and meet Giles remember’
"Oh shit" I said aloud
"Huh what’s wrong?" Heather asked
"Come on, I’ll explain everything once we’re safe, we have to get to the university."
We ran out of the theatre and ran to the university. I didn’t care we were making so much noise, I found Heather....now I had to find the rest of them. She asked more questions but I told her to wait. We ran up the university steps and into the hall. It was completely dark but at least we had Heather’s flashlight.
"Here take this..." I said handing her my Colt 45 in my leg holster "...give me your gun and take the clips"
I handed her all my clips for the Colt 45 and I holstered her empty gun.
"Okay...we’re heading for the dormitory’s top floor, gotta a friend there, we should be safe" I said quietly
"Alright" she replied
Heather’s flashlight was shining towards the very back of the hall of the university when something darted past it.
"The fuck was that?" Heather remarks
‘Well....?’ I said to It "...was it a zombie?’
‘No, too fast to be one....it was a man carrying a machete’ It replied
"Stay here and I’ll check it out..." I whisper to Heather "...keep the light shining where it is"
I saw her nod and she raised her gun. I decided the safest bet right now would be to walk beside the light and not directly in its way.

There were big human statues in the hall, perfect for someone to hide behind, which may have been a cool design feature for the university but now just pissed me off.
‘Just tell me if you spot anything’ I told It
‘Don’t I always?’ It retorted
I kept walking beside the light, dreading each time I passed by a statue, first a statue of a man holding a book, then a statue of a woman holding scales, then a man sitting down and thinking, followed by another man holding a sword. By now there was a fair distance between me and Heather, my eyes adjusted to the limited light and I could see my surroundings better. I was about to turn and head back when I heard something beside me in the dark
‘Machete!’ It warned me

I instinctively raised the stock of my rifle to my face and felt a heavy thud. I almost lost my footing but managed to muster the strength and push whatever struck my rifle back. I saw the light from Heather’s flashlight violently move about and disappear. I saw someone swing something metallic but this time the figure struck my rifle away, I grabbed my Ka-Bar knife and slashed nothing but air. The figure grabbed my knife arm and quickly brought the blade of his/her machete to my throat.
"Heather run!" I yelled, with the machete still on my throat.
I felt the person loosen their grip a bit at the mention of Heather’s name and I used the opportunity to push the hand holding the machete away from my throat. I swung my elbow behind me but hit nothing, the person hand jumped back holding the machete in front of him. I pulled out Heather’s empty pistol and pointed it at him. I heard a shotgun cock behind me and felt a barrel on my back, I dropped the gun and raised my hands.
"Finally some action around here!" the voice behind me said happily

Flashlights started luminating the hall now. I looked where Heather was and noticed that she was struggling with a male soldier who dressed similarly to me.
"Leave her along" I shouted
‘Michael, if your quick turn around and pull the trigger on the shotgun, you can take out the man with the machete.’ It said to me
I pretended to walk to her and felt the barrel again
"Hold still you-"
I turned as fast as humanly possible and this time, my elbow connected, the guy wielding the shotgun fell to his knees. I made a split second decision and decided to hold this guy as hostage instead of shooting machete-man. I grabbed his shotgun from his weakened hands and pointed it back to him.
"Unless you want me to shoot this cunt...." I shouted to them "...let Heather go"
"Wait! Wait!" someone shouts
I look up and notice that it’s Heather saying it, the soldier has let her go and she’s jogging towards me
"I know these people!" she continues
"You know them?" I inquire "...I’m guessing you know the guy who just tried to decapitate me too huh?"
"Yes.....that’s James, martial arts and machete wielding genius" she smiles
"And who’s this?" I ask stilling keeping the shotgun on the guy
"Him I don’t know" she says
"Then let me tell you" a familiar Scottish voice replies.

"Ca...Calvin?" I say stunned
"Aye..." he replies comically "...that’s David on his knees"
I immediately help David up and hand him back his shotgun
"No hard feelings?" I ask with a smile
He shoots me an angry look "Fuck off"
"Okay...Michael comes back from the dead and already everything is off to a good start" Calvin remarks
I laugh and look around, a lot of faces I don’t recognize.
"Well, I might as well make the introductions..." Calvin says "..gather round everyone"
I shake hands and greet everyone and even receive a hug from Mr Anderson who I didn’t recognize, Heather too shakes hands with the people she didn’t know. Then I think of Giles.
"Oh shit, well Captain Daniels, since your the leader. I suggest we head for the dormitory’s top floor and stay there for the night. I have a friend who’s waiting for me right now."
"Alright sounds good, we can’t drop our guard now, same plan as the supermarket but this time Michael joins Calvin and I as pointmen and Heather you stay with Mr Anderson, James and David. Everyone clear?"
Everyone concurs and I retrieve my assault rifle off the floor. I feel the stock and the handguard, no scratch marks or dents.

It takes us another ten minutes before we reach the top floor of the dormitory.
"Which room is your friend in?" Daniels whispers
I look at him "Don’t know...look for something out of the ordinary on the door or something"
"Like a knife?" Calvin remarks, shining the flashlight on a nearby door.
I follow the light trail and see a bowie knife stabbed into the door, the same one as Giles.
"That’s him in there" I whisper
"Good..." Daniels says quietly "...go inside and we’ll sweep the area"
I nod and slowly walk to the door.
I pull the bowie knife out and knock as quietly as possible.
"Giles, it’s me Michael, open up"
I knock again and door slowly opens. Giles sticks his head out and notices Daniels and Calvin.
"Don’t worry, they’re my friends" I say
I look over to them and nod. They begin moving past us.
I enter the room with Giles and he closes the door.
"Lucky you found them here and not in Bowman" he says relieved
I hand him back his bowie knife "I know....they’re sweeping the top floor now, let’s help them out."

First we swept the hallways, then we entered all 50 rooms and checked them. It was tedious but we cleared the top floor of three zombies....specifically James did it. We quietly barricaded the four stairs using clothing we stacked together as they made the least amount of noise setting up.

It was 7:23PM when we set up patrols. I grabbed Heather, Calvin, Mr Anderson and at their request James aside to talk about what I had learned but I deliberately left out my my dad’s involvement and my "mental condition". After I had finished, I learned of what they had been through while I was away. It was already 8:05PM and we all agreed that when it was safer, I should tell everyone what I had told them. For now though we had to rest....I went into a separate room with Heather.

"So they had files on all of us?" she asked as we lay on the bed.
I gazed into her eyes before I stared at the ceiling "Yep, on seven of us, including me and five people I don’t know."
"Where are the files?" she whispered
"Hehe, well I left them back at the cabin..." I said
We both giggled.
"...but what about you? I mean with all the things that happened to you, my life seems like a cakewalk."
She stared into the ceiling too "It was tough....but you told me to strong and that’s what I’m doing."

I held her close and closed my eyes. In about 5 hours it would be our turn along with Mak, Harry and Giles to keep watch.

I drifted off into sleep.

(Anything wrong let me know :D, same rules apply)

~~~~~~Keep this at bottom of page~~~~~~~
(NOTE: I (Nexus_Oblivion) have decided to create a rough map of Sloan City which we (the writers) can freely edit. This should make our writing less contradictive to each other when we refer to locations and such. You can find it in the Community story map page. Remember its still a rough map and everyone can add new locations if you wish but make sure not to delete locations already in the map without first consulting the person who put it there.)

John_234	Latest page update: made by John_234 , Jul 8 2010, 8:44 PM EDT (about this update About This Update Rename - John_234 No content added or deleted. - complete history)
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xombiez

let's get something straight... (page: 1 2 3 4)

Feb 26 2009, 11:40 PM EST by Crashr

Thread started: Jan 12 2009, 6:29 PM EST Watch

this story takes place over the course of only two or three days. a few people refuse to acknowledge this, and it's been getting a bit annoying to the rest of us who have been writing for the last two pages. another thing is that recently somebody added to the first community story page. the first! granted, he was a new writer but this is really essential people, because there have been way too many continuity errors in this story, and it has to end. chances are that if you're reading this that you haven't done anything wrong, but I still insist that you check back to make sure.

the last thing I want to adress is thy there has been an obvious drop in story frequency recently, and I encourage all writers, especially kuthiani and crashr, to begin contributing again. Nexus should be given a break, he's written half of this page if not more.

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kuthiani

It's been a while, huh?

Feb 19 2009, 5:23 PM EST by xombiez

Thread started: Feb 18 2009, 1:45 PM EST Watch

Well guys, I've got some good news and some bad news.
Good news: I'm back. I finally have time to get on the site again these days.
Bad news: I don't think I'm gonna be writting anymore.

Sorry, but I do have quite a few variables affecting me. I may come back later and start again, but for now it's in my best interest to continue my pause in writing. Besides, I have to be approved to become a rwriter now???

BUT, I've got some good news too.

I think I'm may make the community story into a published book.
This would mean that I'd re-write it all and really focus on making it something that everyone can enjoy. I would do my best to keep the original story, and try to keep everybody's characters (although I would have to take some liberties).

But I realize that this might seem unfair to some people. That's why I'm going to have another option as well. Please visit my profile and find out the other option. Thanks guys.

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Crashr

New page, anyone?

Feb 15 2009, 6:09 AM EST by IrishHitman

Thread started: Feb 12 2009, 9:40 PM EST Watch

I think that with Nexus having us meet up in SCU could count as a significant event and the start of a new page. Not only does this seem like an appropriate place too start somewhere new, but this page is also getting insanely full. Any thoughts on this?

The story of a man and his wheelgun. (Please read.)	Bren	Better The World Today!
Rule #1	Tales of the World War Z	Short Zombie Story
free guns :} for the usa , uk ,Canad and the Aussies or the Kiwis	Station 5	amazing
On Grammar	Tax Payers	Well, I've lost faith in Remington for a while.

Old Community Story: Part 4

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