Aberrant: Dead Rising - Chapter 8a: The Refuge Does Dallas

[Mr Fox]

"This is Morgan, we are enroute and will be there in less than five. If you can keep them contained, I might have something that would do the job. I've been working on a new trick."

((OOC: Dawn, just let us know when we are sync'd back up timewise.))

[Priest]

"Ummm ... Wesson, if a few get out ... well, we have a firing squad here."

The sinking impression Priest was getting was that the 'supers' were beginning (or well past beginning) to see humans as helpless, or useless for anything but standing around and breeding. That was an uncomfortable sensation.

Suddenly, the sooner he got away from this situation and the enclave, the better he would feel. His people were people damn it.

[Dawn OOC]

Gradually, the materials holding the door gave. With a snap, one of the poles gave, following by the barricading debris skittering across the floor. Seeing that he'd done what he could, Wesson retreated to the join the others at the front of the store.

They didn't have to wait long. Dark forms began to shamble forward out of the artifical night of the interior of the store, toward the living beings waiting for them.

[SalmonMax]

"Damnit," Myfwany muttered. "How much longer?"

Remembering that Jon could move fast, she unhooked her walkie-talkie from her belt and brought it to her mouth.

"Jon, this is Myf, please pick up."

She gave Jasmine an apologetic look and said, "We'll need all the help we can get."

[Jasmine Gentian]

Jasmine shook her head slightly, looking a little disbelieving.

"You trust him to let those things out around other people, huh? In a fight? You think they're gonna care whether they attack zombies or people, once they're loose of him? I know if I was some kind of sick parasite, I'd go for the fresh meat and not the dead meat. And he obviously doesn't have control. He might be more dangerous than the zombies - he's certainly faster, and almost definitely stronger."

She paused for a moment, wondering how well this doctor knew the man she had brought into Fox's Refuge. Then she shrugged, and turned back to watch the approach.

Maybe this place is a mistake, if they're going to let people like that in. Maybe it's time to go. I think I did better on my own.

[Priest]

By the time the first zombies came stumbling out, the team, plus Min, were fifteen meters away, by their vehicles. Seven rifles spoke in a steady rhythm. Inhale, exhale, squeeze the trigger. They repeated the process with practiced ease. Zombies stepped up and zombies fell down.

"Keep those headshots coming," Priest called out, inciting the mantra of the zombie hunters. Having a horde of zombies crawling toward you was likely to invoke panic. It was hard to get around that, but the sounds of the rifle and the proximity of others doing like you were doing helped.

"Wesson, keep them boxed in. Funnel them toward us."

"I've got the rig turned around Boss," chimed in Leo.

Guns spoke and the humans held their line. If they could keep them piled up in the narrow opening, they could win this. If.

[Wesson]

Pride of youth. Wesson, will have to break the news to priest. Wesson doesn't care how big Priest's cock is. Wesson is not a fucking hero. Wesson doesn't care if the reinforcements were human or not. A half a dozen men may have the fire power to kill dozens or hundreds, if not more. That was not point. More fire power would make this fight safer.

He picked up a car and threw it towards the side of the herd.No really caring if he got any zombies under it, that was a bonus.

[SkyLion]

Originally Posted By: SalmonMax

"Damnit," Myfwany muttered. "How much longer?"

Remembering that Jon could move fast, she unhooked her walkie-talkie from her belt and brought it to her mouth.

"Jon, this is Myf, please pick up."

Jon had turned his radio off when he had left, not wanting to hear whatever they were saying about him. They had no idea how hard this was for him...all they saw was the monster and not the man.

After several minutes of catharsis he reached up and dried his face, rubbing the moisture out of his eyes. Returning to his senses he switched on his radio. They would be coming back here after all and he would need to open the front door.

He jumped as the channel squawked to life.

"This is Jon. I read you, over."

[Dawn OOC]

The zombies shambled forward, drawn to life by their own endless hunger, hands reaching to embrace food. All they received were the kisses of hot steel as Priest's shooting line shot again and again. It was all very calm, very professional; aim, fire, select next target and repeat. Even the unknown variable, Min, was sure and competent as she carefully picked off monster after monster.

They were slowing the wave, but more were still coming. Typical zombies. They never caught the hint that they weren't wanted.

[Priest]

"Wesson, we need you to cause a bit of a distraction while we reload. Otherwise it's reloading in the vehicles."

It was the job. This is what his team could do. There was no denying the danger most of them faced, but that's why they didn't live behind brick and concrete walls. Min was working out well. Maybe she would like to join the tribe if Wesson got a day job ... or maybe Wesson could be brought around to their way of thinking. It was't "Saving the World", but it was real work for the real world. It needed to be done ... and it was freedom.

[Wesson]

Picking up another car and just sucked it. Pride would get people dead. He sinks his finger into the metal, to grip on the frame. The yelling he was just get his balance set. He ran into the mass of zombies. Into the breach once more.

[SalmonMax]

She saw Jasmine's doubt and disgust, and it stirred her stomach...but there'd be time for reckonings later. After the zombies were fought back.

"Jon...there's trouble at the Wal-Mart. Zombies. We're all on our way there."

Do I tell him to stay, or to go help?

She hesitated, and finally did neither, instead speaking what was on her mind directly. "They need help. If you're in control, if you're sure, they could use you. If not..." She shakes her head. "Then we'll need to talk after it's over. Either way, talk to you soon."

She clicked off and leaned her forehead against her knee.

"You know," Myf said to Jasmine, "He never showed any sign of being out of control before. It worries me a lot. If they're getting the better of him somehow, or...I don't know. I don't know what to do."

[Dawn OOC]

"Granddad!" Min shouted as Wesson picked up a car and raced to intercept the zombies. Priest felt a flare of danger surround her; then it faded before he could do more than register it. Instead, she loaded her gun faster than he believed that a non-super could manage and began to shoot again.

Priest's team followed suite, as Wesson laid into the zombies with his car. It was remarkably good at keeping the flesh-starved monsters back, until the frame bent and then cracked. Min's body posture became more tense, but she just focused on her task with the professionalism that she'd learned in the Army.

[Wesson]

"I ain't gonna die. Not today."

Noticing that the car had done it's job he ripped the car into two. He threw the parts into the mass of zombies and fell back. Still making sure he was in the middle ground.

"Priest, it may be a good time to fall back.Now"

Clicking on his radio.

"Calling to all points, need an ETA. We are falling back now."

[Priest]

Over the headsets to the team,

"Everyone, evac to your rides. Min, Wesson run to the Hummer."

Priest waited to until everyone else had turned before joining them for their sprint to their rides out. With luck, they could roll back a hundred yards or so then set up their next firing line.

With no one falling down, or other sort of catastrophe, Preist was grinning vividly. This was life. This was vengeance.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan looks down seeing hem about to make a break for it. "Alright everyone grab some firepower and cut loose into the zombies. Let's give them the cover they need and get back to business."

[SkyLion]

Still sitting on the floor, Jon let his head fall back and hit the wall in a gesture of personal resignation.

"Roger that. On my way."

Sighing heavily he stood and ran a hand under his jacket, feeling the worm's squirming, oblivious to the human concerns of their host pr how much trouble they had just made for him.

"Hear that? It's time to redeem yourselves for the betterment of mankind."

Only a gurgle answered him.

They were content now having just fed on the putrescent fluids within Jasmine's dead father. The worst part wasn't that he had to taste it...but that he actually somehow enjoyed the flavor.

"Fat and happy eh? We'll soon change that..it will burn a few calories just to get to the others."

It would almost be humorous, had the truth not been so grisly, the sight of Jon conversing with his burbling belly and no one around.

"Shall we then?" Letting himself out of the bunker, Jon armed the security systems and dashed off. Hopefully it would not be too late.

[Jasmine Gentian]

Jasmine glanced over the horde that was mostly free of the building. She called up to Dan and Fox, projecting her voice over the din of firepower and the moans of hungry monsters.

"Why don't you land on the roof? It'll give you a good place to fire from and I can head inside and start clearing them out from behind!"

[Mr Fox]

Fox did as suggested and quickly slipped out of the harness, but he never actually landed. He didn't want to waist even an erg of energy getting aloft again. He'd long since realized it was easier to just maintain his flight than turning it on and off over and over.

Once free he sailed out over the entrance to the Super Walmart that the deaders were emerging from. Hell, with this many of them bottled up no wonder they hadn't seen that many walking around the area. He waited till Wesson had fallen back and reached forward with both hands. He'd been working for a while now on figuring out how to use his power to attack and over the last week he'd stolen a few minutes here and there to figure it out. He still hadn't gotten it to actually work though, only fizzle out so far. Hovering in front and above the mass of zombies he clicked on the radio, "People, I am about to try something. I don't know if it will work or if I'll explode like a kernel of popcorn so don't rush in for the next few seconds."

Having given a warning he started focusing his energies in his hands letting them build for a moment until they started to tingle and then sting with all of the stored energy. When he could finally take it no more he released the energy in a flash of brilliant light and something that lanced out blasting all of the zombies within a fifteen meter radius of it's center. Damn! That worked better than expected! Better remember not to do that when anyone is in hand to hand combat. That wouldn't be very nice friendly fire...

Click to reveal..

Attack:

(23:18:22) ChatBot: (Captain_Morgan) rolls 7d10 and gets 5,3,10,4,10,10,3. (1st die is mega)

3 successes

Damage:

(23:25:14) ChatBot: (Captain_Morgan) rolls 6d10 and gets 9,7,5,1,1,6.

[4] + 2 = 6 damage successes to all zombies in the AoE.

[Dawn OOC]

Priest's crew had rolled back, and the zombies advanced. At Fox's call, all the living stopped and held back, letting him rain fiery death on the mass of zombies. A sickening smell, not unlike someone frying up rotten bacon, filled the air. Zombies cooked; most collapsed and didn't move again.

Fox's experiment was successfully, but it was horrific to view.

There were still more of the monsters, and they were still advancing.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan started Firing into the the crowd of Zombies from the air.

Click to reveal..

First of two shots

(20:49:28) ChatBot: (Dan_Hawkins) rolls 8d10 and gets 2,8,4,2,1,8,8,6.

(20:49:37) ChatBot: (Dan_Hawkins) rolls 2d10 and gets 3,7. (5 successes)

(20:49:44) ChatBot: (Dan_Hawkins) rolls 7d10 and gets 5,5,9,9,3,6,4.

(20:49:49) ChatBot: (Dan_Hawkins) rolls 2d10 and gets 4,3.

(2 successes)

damage rolls

(20:53:19) ChatBot: (Dan_Hawkins) rolls 13d10 and gets 7,3,10,2,8,5,4,5,9,3,8,7,9. (7)

(20:53:35) ChatBot: (Dan_Hawkins) rolls 10d10 and gets 1,6,4,2,1,2,8,1,4,8. (2)

[Jasmine Gentian]

As soon as Fox and Dan lowered the sled close enough to the roof, Jasmine jumped off and took off towards the entrance hatch. She skipped the ladder and jumped, landing on the floor of the back stockroom with a soft thud. She stood up and broke into a run. She reached the large double doors that had been forced open and braced herself with a hand as she leapt over the massive pile of debris that had been blocking the door.

The last of the zombie mob was stuck at the bottleneck that the massive exit and entrance doors formed. She could hear them moaning and pushing their way out of the entrance, and the crowd was so thick she couldn't see anything beyond them, other than the sky through the windows above their heads. Then suddenly, that sky was filled with a flash of white light so bright it made Jasmine cry out. She shielded her eyes and with her arm as she heard the horrifying sizzle of burning flesh and inhaled the sickening smell of fried decay. But after a moment she recovered, and glanced back up. Whatever they had done, it hadn't seemed to affect most of the ones still inside the store. That meant they were hers.

Outside, Fox hovered above the group of zombies, and everyone who had taken the opportunity to reload began to aim again. Only Dan's shots rang out from the ceiling, and before Priest had a chance to issue the command to fire again, they heard a crash of shattering glass as the body of a zombie came flying through the large glass windows above the mob. It sailed past Fox and hit the ground not too far from Priest's crowd. The skull has been crushed in to the point of decimation, and the undead thing didn't so much as twitch. From inside, the sounds of zombie slaughter continued uninterrupted as Jasmine proceeded to fight her way through the swarm. To those still living, it was a beautiful sound indeed.

[SalmonMax]

More cautious than Jasmine, Myfwany followed her but kept a watchful eye out as she went. When the explosion of Fox's attack went off, she stepped up the pace and got into the clear just in time to see Jasmine go to work. That's when she realized she probably hadn't needed to call Jon after all. Between whatever had caused that blast, the shooters, and Jasmine...it looked like they had this zombie mob contained.

She advanced carefully, along one of the walls and sure to keep her distance from Jasmine. On seeing the people outside, Myf concentrated momentarily on the 'life-lines' as she was starting to think of the strange energy phenomenon as...and was momentarily startled at what she saw.

The zombies, despite their movement and hunger, had no connecting life lines. Not within their bodies, not linking them to other living things. For all that zombies were referred to as 'undead,' Myfwany had always thought of them first as infectees of a pathogen. Technically living in some ways, even if that life was grossly undermined and simplified from its previous form. Even viruses lived, in some fashion, after all.

But whatever 'energy' she saw; whatever this 'stuff' was that made up that webwork, the zombies weren't in it. Each one was a hole in the web. Not even the cells in their bodies were part of that network anymore, for all that they seemed alive.

For the life of her, Myf couldn't explain, even to herself, why that fact unnerved her the way it did. She stood there, staring aghast at the zombies as if she'd never seen one before.

[Wesson]

Just fucking great. Push the zombies into us. Don't help us push them back. Make them come to us faster. Wesson picked a truck up and went back into the mass of zombies, yellling.

"Father, can you hear me? How have I let you down?I curse the day that I was born, And all the sorrow in the world..."

In to the fray he went. He was not going to let these monsters lay one hand on his Min. He was not going to let anyone else die today. He was singing not to scare the zombies but to set his on pace up. To control his breath. The truck prevented him from feeling bones breaking. the sound rowned out by the impact of the half of a tonne of metal into the walking corpses.

Click to reveal..

Sorrow

[SkyLion]

Trailing a cloud of dust in his wake Jon jammed into the parking lot mere moments after Fox's impressive display of pyrotecnics. The two leeches were coiling around his body, leaving moist lines of mucous on his coat. They hissed and snarled as he smelled the air for the direction of dead blood.

[Priest]

Now people were crowding the scene without too much plan or coordination ... because they could of course. They had transcended the zombie menace and weapons of man. It filled Priest with a meloncholy.

"Watch your fire. Watch your fire," he cautioned his people and Min.

[Jasmine Gentian]

Jas still had her microphone on, and at the sound of the truck crashing into the pavement perilously close to the doors of the Wal-mart, they heard let out an uncustomary swear.

"What the hell was that? I'm trying to draw some of them back in here to get them off of you guys, but if you're going to keep throwing stuff I need to get out of the way."

They heard the the sounds of impact over the microphone as Jas managed another zombie or two.

"Sorry about the first one, I overshot. Do you guys want us to clear out of here?"

[Dan Hawkins]

After watching the blast from Fox, Dan smiled. This would be fun.

He started shooting them, once in the head in a cold robotic fashion. Through it all the bare beginnings of a smile was on his face.

[Priest]

Over the mic,

"Does anyone outside of my team have a plan? If not, please keep an eye out for friendlies. No more volcanic blasts; no more throwing vehicles. Not unless you give a shout out and a five second wait time. There is zero reason we should lose someone on a mission like this. Zero."

Did no one give a shit?

[Jasmine Gentian]

"Gotcha. I'll keep dealing with the ones inside then so that I stay out of the friendly fire range, and let you guys handle the ones outside. Let me know if there's a change in plans."

Jasmine clicked off the mic for now, so that they wouldn't have to keep listening to the sounds of her killing zombies. She knew Myfwanny was inside, keeping an eye out and could let them know if anything happened. She still had her headset turned on though, so that she could hear what was going on. She reengaged the zombies then, and kept on going. It was what she did best.

[Dawn OOC]

It wasn't too much longer before the last of the zombies were gone. What had been a place of horror was now cleansed, and the gathered supers could take pleasure in that much, at least.

Moving into the WalMart, they began the slow job of picking through the supplies there. Much of the food had been taken or was spoiled, lost when the refrigeration failed. The clothes were a better bounty, as were many hardware tools. The gun rack had been cleaned out already, and even the ammo in the back had been raided. Given the keys left in the door of the ammo cage, it looked like employees had taken those.

[Jasmine Gentian]

Jasmine helped gather up everything that was salvageable that they would be taking back with them. She helped load up the trucks, and then went to find Fox. She looked weary, though not in any real physical way. The day had been a difficult one for her emotionally, and she was ready to get done whatever else needed to be done, and move on.

"Captain, what's next on the list? Do we have other places we're raiding? There wasn't a lot of food here - are we trying for somewhere else? Or going back to the labs? What's the plan?"

[Mr Fox]

Fox looked up from his check of the corpses to make sure none of them would get back up when Jasmine walked over. "Eh? Oh, yeah, the phone book lists a Half-Price books just to the south of here about four miles or so along the highway. Figured we'd hit that next then check in with the Refuge via shortwave. I'm going to pick up a box van if I see one and see just how many books we can cram in." He called over the radio, "Anyone that wants to join us, the next stop is Half-priced books, according to the map it's only about 10 minutes down the road. We could use a few extra hands to help load books if anyone's free."

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan nods. "I'll be there Fox." He flown back to where he'd left the humvee and retrieved itand had since loaded about half of his Humvee with batteries of all kinds, up to and including car batteries, having been doing that after killing the zombies.

He helped secure the Sled to one of the other trucks and then

climbed into his own Humvee and sighed. Another fun-filled day of scrounging.

[SalmonMax]

Myfwany jogged over to join Fox.

"I'd like to go," she said. "At the very least I can help make sure you don't wind up with a bunch of New Age stuff in your medical library."

Though the way I seem to be doing things lately, maybe that would be better.

[Jasmine Gentian]

"Alright. See you there."

Jasmine walked silently over to the Hummer where Jim was waiting. She climbed in, and leaned back into her seat. After a moment she reached into the back and grabbed one of the cans of soda he kept around for mixing drinks. She popped it open and took a long drink, trying to keep her mind off of everything that had happened for now. After a moment, she spoke quietly, her voice not much louder than a murmur over the roar of engines starting up as they got ready to head off.

"Jim.. when we're done for the day, will you go back with me to my place? I'd like to finish what we started.. if you don't mind."

[Wesson]

"Maybe you guys would be willing to stay here and we can get a few useful things. people only took what they needed right now. They left a lot of stuff that would be useful over the term. Speaking of long term, we may want to go a libary. geological maps would help in more ways than i care to list.'

He then moved to min.

"We did it."

He didn't need to say anymore about it.

[Mr Fox]

Fox responds to Wesson over the radio, "That sounds good. If you know where one is or can find on let me know. I know the University of Texas at Dallas is just south of there along 75 somewhere, but I don't know where. After we hit the book store which is close and known, I can make a scouting trip to try and find the Library."

[Dawn OOC]

It took a bit of time to find a box van that was still operational - and even that one had to have spark plugs changed - but they were rolling soon after that. The day was half gone already; killing zombies and looting Walmarts took time. Super physiques, already food-starved at normal times, were now audibly crying for nurishment.

They found the Half-Price books right where the map said it would be - or would have been. A fire had burned through this shopping center, and with no working fire protection, there was little left.

[Mr Fox]

Fox grumbled. Clicking on the radio he got out of the truck and turned off the engine, "Ok folks, phone book makes mention of a public library. Rather than waist time driving there to find out and clearing the roads to get there, I'm going to make a quick flight over to see if it is still intact. Back in 10 minutes."

((The library is just north of the old town square and by air it will only take 5 minutes to get there. If he knew exactly where to go he could find it in less than a minute.))