Aberrant: Dead Rising - Double Down [complete]

[BlueNinja]

Monday 30 April, 2007

Outside Adam's trailer, 0730

He'd gotten up early that morning, slipping out from between Karen and Fa without waking the women up. With the morning sun, he sat on the lowered tail of his pick-up truck, an open laptop on one side, and a jumble of metal parts on the other. Julia sat on a barstool a foot away, occasionally reaching into the toolbox to pass things to Adam. "Hmm, does this look right?" He pulled on the handle, with a protesting metal sound in moved.

"Needs grease," she said. "Or you'll wreck it. Like the last attempt." She grinned impishly as he glared at her. "Want me to check the stores?"

Sighing, he tossed the awl in the toolbox. "Yeah, you do that, and I'll clean these up. Maybe I can turn some of the shavings into shotgun pellets," he mused, as his niece got up and ran off. Setting down the ammo press, he turned off the laptop - even with the solar panels, it made sense to conserve power.

As he started to sweep up the scraps of metal with his hands, he paused and cocked an ear towards the trailer. He could hear the voices faintly, and they sounded unhappy. He moved closer to his home, listening to the argument within.

"... why you're letting yourselves be treated this way," Becky's voice came, low and angry. Adam sighed quietly. When was she going to give it a rest?

"Because I don't want to die," Fa's voice came back, just as low and angry. "A degree in music and ten years playing violin on the Strip didn't exactly prepare me for the end of the goddamn world! Other than grunt work, there's nothing I'm qualified for to give myself any status here."

Karen continued, cutting off Becky's response. "I was an advertisement writer. I watched my husband get sick, die, and then rise up and eat my children. I don't want to die, and there's only one way someone's going to protect me."

There was silence from inside, then the sound of footsteps. Adam quick-stepped it back to his truck, carefully not looking over his shoulder as the trailer door opened and slammed shut. A moment later, Julia called out, "Hi mommy!" and then dashed up to his side. "Got some! At least, if 'heavy duty industrial grease' is what we need."

Adam grinned, and threatened to ruffle her hair with his dirty hands. Popping the lid off the can, he used a fingertip to start smearing the grease up and down the shaft on the ammo press, moving on to all the other moving parts, actuating them to ensure a good coating. Once everything was well lubricated, he nodded. "Ok, bring me the brass and the new bullets." Reaching underneath the truck, he pulled out the barrel of gunpowder they'd mixed up last week.

With his niece watching breathlessly, he set up a spent casing with a new primer, a carefully measured scoop of gunpowder, then pressed the bullet in place. "Here goes," he said, and let Julia pull on the handle with him. Silently, it moved down and clamped the bullet into place before retracting. "It looks good," he mused as he examined it. "Only way to be sure is to test fire it."

"Yay, zombie hunting time!" she cried, and dashed into the trailer, leaping back out a moment later with her .22 pistol. "Let's go!"

Chuckling at her eagerness, he grabbed her arm and wheeled her away from the truck. "Hold up, pilgrim," he admonished. "You know the rules. No driving if we can save the gas. And holster that pea-shooter, you know the rules."

With a careful eye, he watched her double-check the safety and stick it in the waistband of her sweats. "Now, I'm going to check with Dave before we go out."

Taking his hand, Julia skipped most of the way inside the building. They stopped at Dave's office, and knocked on the open door, causing Dave and Brandon to look up. "Got the ammo press working. Loaded up one 9mm. Want to test it out. Anywhere in particular you want us to check it out?"

"Taking the kid along?" Brandon asked, ignoring the glare Julia sent him. "We could use some more cement. I'm sure more zombies have shuffled into that Home Depot. Check it out, test the ammo, and come back with a pallet or something."

Adam glanced at Dave, who considered it and nodded. "Keep an eye out. Mike thought he saw another flicker zombie yesterday. Lined up a headshot, but no body." As Adam's face grew concerned, Dave shook his head. "Can't prove it though, he hasn't slept more than an hour a night since you guys came back from that bookstore run. Might be he's just jumpy."

"I'll keep my eyes peeled, and my bombs ready." Taking Julia's hand, they headed outside the building and paused on a flat spot of grass. "Ready?" She nodded, and the ground dropped away, looking down on the gloomy interior of a Home Depot. Picking her up in one arm, Adam dropped, landing on the top of the shelves. He set her down carefully, then looked over the side. "See anything?"

She started to shake her head, then paused, pointing towards the open rolling door at the front of the store. Adam looked, feeling as though it was rushing towards him, then caught sight of two zombies, feasting on a body. The light spilling in was bright enough he couldn't make out many details. Holding a finger to his lips, he led the way forward along the top of the shelves. At the end, they paused, perched on the edge like a pair of gargoyles, looking down at the carnage. Julia swallowed carefully, then glanced at her uncle.

Drawing his own pistol, Adam changed his stance slightly. She mirrored his stance, pulling out her pistol. Pointing at the her, then the left zombie, he sighted towards the floor one-handed. He held up three fingers, then two, one, and clenched his fist. The two shots rang out in a split second, sending the two zombies tumbling to the floor, brains and blood leaking across the floor. They exchanged a nearly-silent high-five, then Adam took her in his arm again, leaping down to the floor. "Ok, concrete mix. Where's construction supplies?" They squinted at the signs in the darkness, then moved across the store.

Ten minutes later, they had a pallet three-quarters full of cement bags. "Ready to go back?" At her nod, he reached for the pallet, grunting and lifting it above his head. "Remember, drop through and roll out of the way quickly." She nodded again, and with a grimace, the floor fell away. Julia grabbed the edge, swinging down and dropping ten feet to the grass back in camp. Adam followed a moment later with the concrete, lowering it carefully to the ground.

"Excellent," Dave said, emerging from the building. "That will help us set the posts for the outer wall, once we get the holes dug. Any zombies?"

"Just two. We each took one out. The re-used casings seem to work just fine." He fished it out of his pocket. "At most, we're only going to get three re-fires out of them, more like two. After that, we're going to have to melt them down and re-cast them."

Dave nodded. "Good work. What's left?"

"Most of the lumber is still there. Probably nails and screws, as well. We could put up a couple of good buildings, as long as we don't aim for anything super impressive like interior plumping or electricity."

"Sounds like a plan. How much do you think you could drop through?"

"Depends on how much of it you want broken. If it was only a couple at a time, sure. But if I drop a whole stack of lumber, the stuff on the bottom is going to crack from the weight of the rest landing on it." He sighed, and rubbed his nose. "If any of the stores were closer to the city edge, I'd say put together an overnight expedition, fix up an 18-wheeler, and load it up to drive back."

Dave nodded. "We'll work on a plan over the next few days. Probably, you'll do repeated drops to one of them with a couple of people, fix up a truck gradually, then pull one marathon loading session and drive it back in a hurry." He paused in thought. "Come see me tomorrow. In the meantime, can you take the cement to the south-east boundary?"

"Sure, no problem," Adam said. Putting away his revolver, he lifted the pallet with a grunt, and started the long walk to the border fence.

[BlueNinja]

Wednesday 2 May, 2007

Spring Valley Ranch enclave, near the south border fence

0430

Two gunshots sounded across the still, pre-dawn air. Adam was awake before the second one came, and the women in his arms awoke to that one. Without a word, he was out of bed, pulling on his pants as he opened the bedroom door. Behind him, he could hear one of them check the magazine on the shotgun, then the handoff so the other could get dressed.

He was out the door a moment later, leaping up on the roof of his truck to look at the southern fence. Another shot rang out, and the RVs and the main building were all filled with other men and women filing outside. "What's going on?" he heard Dave call.

Adam slipped off the roof, then opened one of his drop-teleports, looking down at the southern fence from thirty or forty feet up. Another gunshot sounded, much louder, and the muzzle flash from the rifle lit up a small crowd of zombies pressing towards the fence. A few of them had fallen into the pits, and three of the four shots had been enough to kill. Adam dropped through, firing off a 'bomb' towards the group. It detonated before he hit the ground, the shockwave making his clothes snap and rustle before he hit the ground.

He stood up carefully, shading his eyes from the dust flung into the air. Behind him, he heard the bolt of the single-shot rifle slam back home, and a worried voice. "Did you get them all?"

Adam frowned, looking around as the dust started to settle. "Hold on, I can't see anything. Let me move towards the pits, and I'll," he was cut off suddenly as a zombie lurched out of the dust, slamming into him. The open slap was hard enough to bruise painfully, but it managed not to grab him. Snarling, Adam reached for the pipe, only to remember that he hadn't grabbed it when he left the trailer. Ducking another lunge, he picked up a rock, bashing the zombie in the arm with it.

Another shot rang out, the bullet whizzing between the two of them. "Hold your fire, you idiot! Hold your fire!" Winding up, he hit the zombie in the chest as hard as he could with the rock. With a wordless shriek, it toppled backwards, the rock shattering under the impact, the chest pulped. Before it could get up, Adam had walked over and punted its head clean off.

Turning back to the fence, he stalked angrily forward. "What the hell were you doing? Trying to shoot me?" he demanded. As the guard stammered, and tried to apologize, he snarled something and dropped through, back to the encampment near his truck. "Excitement's over," he said loudly enough for Dave to hear him. "A couple zombies, maybe a dozen. They're all extra-crispy recipe now."

"That's the third night in a row," Dave murmured, just loudly enough for Adam to hear. "We're going to need a better fence."

Waving a hand in dismissal, Adam turned back for his trailer. "Yeah, yeah, tomorrow. I'm going back to bed." He took the steps in a single bound, closing and locking the door behind him.

Becky and Julia were sitting up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. Fa was here in the kitchen, watching out the windows with Adam's revolver, which meant that Karen must still be in his bedroom with the shotgun. "Uncle Adam," the girl asked, "are the zombies going to be here again tomorrow night too?"

Sighing, Adam closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose gently. "I don't know, sweetie, but I'll see what I can do to make sure they're not."

[BlueNinja]

Wednesday 2 May, 2007

Spring Valley Ranch enclave, Dave's office

0800

Dave, Adam, Brandon, and Karen, stood around a rough map, drawn on the back of a visitor information form, printed before Z-day. "So, here's the proposed plan. Take out most of the lawn, build a couple of dorm-style buildings to house everyone in."

Brandon rolled his shoulders. "Good for winter. But in the summertime, we either need electricity, or some big-ass windows to keep people from sweating to death."

Adam reached for the pencil, and another piece of paper. "The problem isn't putting up the buildings, that'll be easy. It's keeping the zombies out." He drew for a minute, then turned it around. Everyone else smirked. "Yeah, yeah, stick figures are the extent of my artistic abilities. Look, we need a wall, because if we end up with more than a dozen zombies, they're going to take down that fence in about five minutes."

"So, what are those, exactly?" Karen said, pointing at the line of blocks he had drawn on the paper. "Building our wall out of legos?" Dave chuckled as Adam rolled his eyes.

"No, cars. There's gotta be at least a million damn cars in the city. We've got a dozen here, that don't run anymore, and another fifty or so in the fifteen miles between us and the edge of the city. Line them up, and we have a barricade that zombies can't walk through with a couple minutes of effort." He made another attempt at drawing it, before Karen took the paper from him.

"So, just line them up like this?" she turned the paper around, showing a line of cars bumper to bumper.

"Well, mostly. To really make them stay in place, we want a ditch, at least deep enough to completely stick the outside tires into. I can pick up one end of a car, so moving them isn't a problem. We need to dig a ditch about a foot deep just outside the fence, then line up the cars with the outside set of tires in it, then we can dismantle the fence and add it to the barricade." Adam noted the sour looks on the other men's faces. "Yeah, it's a lot of work. The alternative is waiting to see if there's even more groups of zombies bearing down on us right now."

"It is a lot of damn work. Hell, if you could find a good supply of industrial steel beams, it might be easier to build a brand new damn wall." Dave thumped his forehead against the doorframe behind him. "Except we'd still have to do the damn digging." He glanced around. "I don't suppose anyone knows where we could find some nice construction equipment that you could get working?"

Adam snorted and shook his head. "The engines, I could get to work. But if it was something else, even I'm not that knowledgeable. We're going to have to do this by hand."

Brandon shook his head. "We've got three months of food right now. And our crops aren't looking so great. I mean, there's a reason why this place was a ranch, and not a farm, back in the days before it was a tourist spot in the mountains." He gestured at the sketches. "This kind of heavy labor means we need to give the people working extra rations. We're going to lose at least two weeks of our food supply to that."

Adam nodded. "I figured I'd have to go on food runs before collecting cars. There's a Costco next to that Home Depot I got the cement from. I was planning to take a trip there soon anyway." He glanced at Brandon. "Probably alone, so I can just drop back with a pallet or two. Unless you had a better idea."

Dave nodded. "Any of the lighter boxed goods - cereal, chips, potatoes - we've got some sheets, I can get some people to hold them so you guys can just dump them back. Then the heavy stuff, the cans and jars, you can bring back by hand." He sighed, and looked as his original sketches. "Then you can get the rest of the building supplies the same way, and then we can see about building a car wall."

Sighing, Adam nodded and waved a hand towards the door. Karen opened it, and led the way out. "Ask around, see if there's a couple of bodies willing to go along on a food run. Armed and dangerous, of course."

She started to turn away, then turned back. "How many? And are we taking personal requests for items?"

He closed his eyes to think about it for a moment. "If the store is fairly clear, we'll grab clothes first, then food. If it's bad, then we'll grab whatever is closest to the door, then run home. Take requests, if you make it clear we might not get them."

0930

Adam emerged from his trailer, Karen on his heels. He paused, taking in the number of volunteers. "Wow. Too many people. No more than six." He looked at the two dozen people ranged before him. "Brandon. Rich. Karen. Black Dave. Rabbit. Taunya." He picked faces that looked the least desperate - desperation was too likely to get you killed. Or worse, the people with you killed. He waved irritably at the others, and reluctantly they dispersed, returning to their previous tasks. "Brandon knows the plan. We're dropping into a Home Depot. Next door to it is a Costco. I haven't actually been in there, so we have to do it the hard way. And while they might be 'next door' that's still something like a quarter of a mile from store entrance to store entrance." He glanced at the group. "Everyone ready?"

Karen held up the shotgun, and Taunya cocked one as well. Everyone else had pistols of some kind, and most had a knife on their belts as well. Adam nodded again, then gestured everyone to gather around. "The drop will be onto the shelves at the top of the store. Just in case there's some of them close enough to touch on the floor." He took a moment to glance at everyone one more time, then the grass dropped out. Everyone swung down, landing on the shelves, and Adam dropped into the middle of them.

Black Dave pulled out a flashlight, turning the beam on and sweeping the aisles below. "Clear," he said. "I'll hold the light until someone else can get to the bottom," he stopped talking as Adam stepped over and simply dropped off the side, two dozen feet to the ground. "Um, ok, here's the light." The flashlight dropped towards him, and Adam caught it carefully. "Keep the light on, I'm climbing down." He swung down, carefully moving down from shelf to shelf until he was at the floor, then reached out for the flashlight as the others started climbing down as well.

Within a few minutes, they were all on the ground, moving quickly towards the front of the store. "If we run into isolated ones, let me bash them," Adam said, picking up his favored length of pipe. "If they start coming from different directions, take the smaller groups and let me handle the large ones." They paused near the door, letting their eyes adjust to the sunlight, then stepped outside.

The sunlight came with heat that hit them like a thrown blanket, and despite their adjustment, everyone was blinking furiously as they took the first steps outside. A dozen zombies were scattered around the parking lot, and all of them turned as the humans emerged from the building. "Alright, move along. Costco's down along that side of the building." Carefully, they turned the corner, Brandon's pistol firing as he took the first step. "Any more? No? Good. No need to hurry," Adam paused as he moved into sight of the main parking lot. Home Depot and Costco were the side of the parking lot, with a six-lane street, and across that a mall. "Scratch that, let's start hustling for the store so we can get them to bunch up."

Moving at a slow job with weapons at the ready, they covered the quarter of a mile swiftly, pausing near the doors. Dave paused at the rolling door to the store, which was closed and padlocked. "Was this part of the plan?" he asked sarcastically.

"On the bright side," Adam said, "we shouldn't have to deal with zombies inside." Reaching over, he yanked on the padlock, tearing it free of the door. Dave and Brandon each grabbed a handle, counted down, and threw it up, Dave bringing the flashlight up right away. The immediate entryway was deserted. "Move inside, just hold the door for a minute." They did as he asked, and watched the zombies from the parking lot get closer. "Maybe more like two." When there were enough, Adam fired off a blast, tearing most of the crowd to shreds and stepping inside. The door slammed down a moment later, leaving them in near darkness. Some weak sunlight filtered down through filthy skylights, enough to see the shadowed hulks of stacked pallets. "Anyone shopped in a Costco before?" Rabbit raised a slim hand, peeking out from underneath her baseball cap. "Alright. Flashlights first. We all need to see around here."

The teen led the way, halfway across the store, Dave at her side waving the flashlight beam before them. She paused for a moment to dump several packs of batteries into her backpack, then turned down the aisle. "Here we go," she pointed. "All shapes and sizes." Adam and Brandon both instantly reached for the smaller mag-lites, ripping open packages and dumping batteries into them. "Duct tape's a little further down, if you want to put some on the shotguns." Grinning, Dave moved a little further down, and soon everyone had their own beam of light.

"Good. Let's dump some tables full of clothes, then we'll start hunting for food." Adam led the way back to the tables they had passed. Dave and Brandon stationed themselves at the corners of a table full of jeans. "No, that's not enough. Let's load up the table, then tip them all."

Taunya looked doubtful. "That's a lot of weight to lift. Not all of us are Superman."

Adam grimaced. "Neither am I. Would you like some new clothes? I know I would." Rabbit was already dumping packages of bras and underwear on the table while they spoke. "Yeah, like those. Well, maybe not those," he blurted as the top set turned out to be black lace panties. "Ready?" The men grabbed the table again, while the three women kept the area around them swept with light. "One, two, three!" The concrete floor dropped away, sunlight streaming upwards for a moment before an avalanche of denim and cotton blotted it out. Adam rolled his shoulders to loosen them up, then brought up his flashlight and pistol to bear again. "We can probably get one more set of clothes, then on to the food stuff."

They repeated the drill with a table full of socks, t-shirts, and towels. Grouping together again, they lift the tipped-over tables where they lay and moved down an aisle. "Oooh, Lucky Charms!" Rabbit said, and grabbed two of the jumbo boxes off, twirling around with them in her arms. "Man, I've missed this stuff." The others smirked at her, then suddenly Karen and Taunya swung their shotguns up. Rabbit dropped to the ground in an instant, and both shotgun blasts ripped over her head, splattering the zombie to pieces. "Where the fuck did that come from?" she shrieked, her voice sounding tinny through the aftereffects of the blasts.

Adam took two more steps past the zombie, shining the beam around the center aisles of the store. "Good question, since it came from behind us," he growled. "Everyone, heads up. Please tell me we just missed it in a hurry, and it's not another zombie that can maybe teleport or maybe go invisible. Move like we're in a combat zone again." Rabbit picked herself up off the floor, gathering her cereal boxes again. Quickly, the men staged two pallets of assorted cereal, and dumped them when Adam's drop opened. At the end of the aisle, they did the same thing with a few pallets of snack mix and nuts. "Ok, last one will be a couple pallets of cans. Fruits and veggies. Where's that?" he asked Rabbit.

"Um ... two aisles that way," she pointed towards the back of the store. Taking a deep breath, she raised her pistol and flashlight and started leading the way. A few feet ahead of her, darkness swirled in the air, and a zombie solidified out of nothing. Rabbit's gun fired, tearing away half of its neck before Dave's shot slammed the head backwards. They all watched with scared fascination as the zombie's head slowly came back up, the bullet clearly embedded in the forehead without penetrating the skull. As it reached for Rabbit, Adam stepped forward with the pipe and smashed the zombie in the forehead hard enough to fracture the steel into dozens of fragments. The zombie itself went flying backwards in a spray of blood, bone, and brains.

Brandon spoke up. "I'd say we have thirty seconds to grab those cans and get the fuck out of here," he spoke in a shaky voice. "Let's move." They detoured around the zombie, and halfway down the aisle Adam reached out and pulled out two pallets of canned vegetables. The drop opened, and everyone quickly swung through, out of the way as Adam lowered the pallets through one by one. He stood up, and the portal closed, leaving him in almost darkness. Spots swam before his eyes for a moment, and he raised the hand with the flashlight to rub them before going home. The beam of light crossed the zombie's legs as it lunged for him, giving him just enough warning to sidestep the groping hands.

Whirling, he swung the flashlight, shattering the aluminum frame and plunging him back into darkness. "Son of a fucking bitch!" he swore, and threw the remains before him. Leaping into the air, he heard the zombie crash into the food supplies on the ground, before landing one foot on its back. Sprawling to the floor, he turned it into a roll down the aisle. His eyes were just adjusting enough to see the shadowed form back on its feet and moving towards him. He tried to aim, and opened fire, emptying all six shots towards its head. "How do you like them apples, huh?"

Adam got to his feet, dumping the spent cartridges into his hand and reloading as he gazed at the still form sprawled on the ground. Keeping the gun pointed, he moved around it, looking at the cavity of the face, where at least one bullet had the luck to go through an eye hole and scramble the zombie's brains. "And stay down," he spat on the face, then kicked it just hard enough to snap the neck. Taking a deep breath, he centered himself, and dropped through the hole in space to land in front of his trailer. "I'm all right," he called over to the other raiders. Karen flung herself across the few feet separating them and into his arms. "I'm all right," he repeated, holding her and stroking her hair.

"What the hell happened?" Dave said from behind him. "They were saying something about getting jumped by more zombies?"

Adam nodded, setting girlfriend number one on the ground. "Three. At least one of them could teleport." He took a deep breath. "The last one jumped me right after I dropped the pallets through. Did everything come through alright?"

"Yep, no problems. Enough clothes to give most of the camp another full set, and enough food to start the digging project." Dave sighed and wiped a hand across his forehead. "We'll be starting it tomorrow. I want to know, is it safe to go back there and get more?"

He shook his head, running a hand over the stubble that was starting to grow in. "I don't know, Dave, I honestly don't know. I took out at least fifty zombies in the parking lot before we even went in the door. Which was locked from the outside, I might add, and we didn't see any of them until we'd been in the store ten minutes." He sighed again, and finally holstered his revolver. "I'll look again tomorrow. But if we go back, I want anyone who goes with me in the biker jackets to reduce the chance of getting bitten."

The enclave leader started to turn away before Black Dave stopped him. "Those teleporting zombies, they're extra tough. I put a bullet dead center in the bastard's forehead," and he lifted a slender finger to demonstrate. "Damn thing didn't even penetrate its skull. Adam here shattered a steel pipe on its head to kill it."

Dave looked at everyone from the scavenging party, and all of them were nodding, grim-faced. "Well, shit," he said eloquently, then strode back inside.

[BlueNinja]

Thursday 3 May, 2007

Spring Valley Ranch enclave, the lawn

0730

Adam and Brandon stood behind Dave. The older man had actually pulled out his Air Force uniform to address everyone before work got started this morning. Well, everyone except the sentries manning the fences. "Alright people, listen up. I'm sure all of you have been woken up by the gunfire the last few nights. I'm not sure why more zombies are finding their way here, but we've got to do something about it. Our fence is good for warning, but if a good sized pack of zombies shows up, it's not going to last long enough to really protect us. So here's what we're going to do."

He paused for a moment to clear his throat. "We're going to start digging a ditch just outside the fence." He held up a hand to quell the murmuring that raced through the few hundredstanding before him. "The ditch is going to be the anchor point for a wall big enough to stop the zombies from just walking right in to camp. It's a lot of physical work, so anyone who puts in a whole day of digging gets an extra ration at the end of the day." The next round of murmuring was more appriciative.

"Adam's going to be doing more supply runs over the next few days. Then, anyone with car mechanic experience will be needed to get the supplies for our wall here. Once the ditch is dug, we'll be getting every dead car from here to the city edge and building a wall of steel and fiberglass five feet high, all the way around this place." He glanced out at the crowd. "Volunteers for digging the ditch can form a line here in an hour. Until then, everyone get back to work."

Turning, he headed back inside, gesturing for Adam and Brandon to fall in behind him. Once inside the office, Brandon drew himself up to a parody of attention, saluting with a trembling arm. "Reporting for duty, First Sargeant!" he barked out in an intentionally breaking voice.

Dave glared at him until Brandon dropped the salute. "Quit being a putz. Now, we need to go back to that store. I want people who are damned good shots."

Adam held up a hand before he could continue. "No more than six people. Yeah, more guns might give us an edge, but I just can't make my portals any bigger. If we have to leave in a hurry, I don't want to leave anyone behind." He paused then nodded. "And I need a new pipe."

Chuckling, Dave reached underneath the desk, pulling out a yard-long length of steel bar. "This do? Good. Alright. You, Brandon, Mike, Taunya, Black Dave, White Dave. Get them together, leave ASAP, look for some more non-food stuff. Vitamins, shampoo, stuff like that. Empty out the damn pharmacy. White Dave's a paramedic, he can tell what drugs are good, what already expired, after you're back."

"I want to bring Rabbit along too. Yeah, she's a lousy shot, but she's been in the store for more than ten minutes in the dark." Dave sighed, but Adam put on his best determined face.

"That makes seven," Brandon added, "but I didn't think you were counting yourself. We should be ready to go in half an hour. If there's more of these Chris Angel zombies, we'll turn them into smears on the floor." Dave nodded wearily, sitting down and reaching for the latest inventory totals.

Outside, they paused. "Give me a minute to let my family know the score," Adam said. Brandon grinned, clapped him on the should, and headed around the other side of the building towards the budding orchard.

Opening the door, Adam stepped up into the trailer. The four women in his life were all sitting quietly around the table, eating canned peaches straight from the cans. "Is there another run today?" Karen said, almost eagerly.

He held up a hand to stop her. "Dave picked the team today. He wants the best shots, in case we get more now-you-see-me-now-you-don't zombies. Maybe next time, depends on how it all goes." He gave Julia a reassuring smile as he spoon drooped in her hand, dripping syrup on the table. "Just wanted to let you all know where I'm going, and not to worry. I'll be back in a little while."

"And ready to recharge, right?" Fa asked with a knowing smile. Adam blushed slightly, and Becky frowned, jabbing viciously at her breakfast with her spoon. "Come back safely, Adam," she added, more seriously. Both Fa and Karen got up from the table to give him a more-than-perfunctory kiss, and he made sure to pick up Julia and twirl her in the air before stepping back outside into the sunlight.

He looked at the gather people. "Taunya's getting some extra shotgun shells, and Rabbit's using the toilet before we head off," Black Dave spoke up as Adam started to open his mouth. "The rest of us are locked and loaded." White Dave held up a hunting rifle with a scope, everyone else patted their pistols.

A moment later, Taunya and Rabbit came trotting up, weapons at the ready. "Alright. Everyone gather around. I'm going to try the same thing, dropping us onto the shelves near the front of the store. Ready?" Once he got a nod from everyone, he raised a hand, and the ground dropped away in front of him. Everyone swung down, flashlights and weapons at the ready. Mike landed right on the edge of the shelves, and only Rabbit's quick grab of the edge of his shirt kept him from going over the edge. Beams swept the aisles below them, and the top of the neighboring shelves, but there was no sign of more undead.

Reaching out, Adam took a flashlight from Mike, took a deep breath, and calmly jumped to the next aisle, and then the next one. "How many aisles to the lights, Rabbit?" he called back.

"Um ... three? Maybe four. The batteries are always at the inside end of the aisle. Then the lights are right next to them." She pointed towards the center of the store. Adam nodded, turned the light back in front of him, and jumped one more. "They should be right below you now."

As the others watched, he vanished from sight, only a few flickers of reflected light coming back up to the ceiling showing he was moving. After about five minutes, Adam appeared at the top of the shelves in one mighty leap, and more readily jumped back to them one shelf at a time. "Alright, here we go," he lowered the duffel bag to the shelf they stood on and dumped out a dozen battery-powered camping lanterns. "First thing we're going to do is double-check the front doors. And leave two lanterns near the door, hung out of zombie reach. Just in case those magic zombies are somehow getting in through the hole I ripped in the door when we came in."

"Then the pharmacy, right?" White Dave said. "Are we splitting up to gather supplies, to cut down on the number of portals you have to open?"

Adam looked around the group, mostly at Brandon. "I don't really want to," he said reluctantly, "but we can. Brandon and Rabbit with me, and the rest of you move through the pharmacy. Dump everything into boxes, and then we can get it all home at once." He pointed towards the back of the store. "The three of us are going to grab more canned goods, then a beer run if there's time."

He stepped over to the edge, grabbed Rabbit one arm, and as she squeeked in surprise, stepped off the edge to land easily on the floor. "Climb down quick, everyone on this side." He and Rabbit kept watch as everyone else climbed down. "Alright. Front door first, then we can split up."

In a clump, they moved for the front door. As they grew closer, pounding started echoing on the rolling doors, and moaning could be heard. "Hold on," Adam said, moving closer to the door. Bending down, he couldn't see to the closest car, there were so many zombies packed in front of the store. Taking a deep breath, he put his finger up to the hole, then jerked back in surprise as the zombie closest tried to reach for it. "Eat nuclear fire, motherfuckers," he muttered, then put his finger back to the hole for just a moment. The bomb-shaped burst of light passed straight through several zombies, then detonated.

The doors bent and crumpled with the impact of zombies against them, but they held in their tracks. Adam put a hand over the hole to keep the dust out, then peeked back outside. The nearest cars were now melted blobs of metal and fiberglass, and other than twitching parts and charred bones, there were none left to threaten the weakened doors. "We're set. Rabbit, you put a lantern over that door, I'll get this one. We'll probably hear them if the doors come down, but just in case, the light might help."

Once the lanterns were hung, the group moved off, passing the silent pizza counter and into the pharmacy section. Adam, Brandon, and Rabbit peeled off, heading towards the back of the store. Along the way, they all stopped to grab small packages of things to stuff into their bags, for personal use or trading requests back home. Once they reached the canned goods aisle, the other two swept it, while Adam pulled two full pallets down from the first shelf up. Grunting, he held them over his head and backed out of the aisle, the other two covering him as he opened a portal and lowered them through. They repeated it twice more, with varied tins passed below to the waiting workers.

"Whew," Adam said, wiping sweat from his brow. "What next, beer, soda, or something else?" He waved around. "We've got most of a store to choose from."

Rabbit glanced around. "One more aisle over is stuff like sugar, flour, and rice. That'll go further than the beer, even if it's not as popular." She turned the flashlight beam to shine over a half-empty pallet of mandarin oranges into the next aisle. "And we pass the spices and cooking stuff on the way back to the pharmacy."

Adam and Brandon shared a glance. "Sounds good to me," Brandon said. "Let's move around." Flashlights raised, they ducked into the next aisle, and Adam pulled down a pallet each of rice and flour, dropping it in a portal back to camp. On the way back, they paused to fill up their packs with plastic bottles of pepper, salt, and Mrs. Dash spice mixes. Then pounding started on the fire escape door at the end of the aisle. "When do these bastards quit?" Brandon muttered, and they ducked away towards the front of the store.

Black Dave was sitting on a couple of plastic totes, stuffed full of ziploc bags full of pills. Taunya had trash bags, filled with vitamins and hair care products. "Send some good stuff back?" Mike asked, coming out the pharmacy door with another plastic tote.

"Veggies, fruit, and a pallet each of rice and flour so maybe we can do some actual baking. I'll get some beer depending on what you guys have." He looked at their haul. "Will it hurt this stuff if it just drops through?"

White Dave followed Mike, his gun and light on top of his box. "Shouldn't. I left behind anything that absolutely needed refridgeration. I can't guarantee all of this stuff is good, but we cleared out every prescription drug they had." Setting it down, they formed up a good stack. "Plus there's all the OTC stuff out here. Taunya already started gathering some of it."

Adam glanced around. "Ok, sixty seconds, grab everything and be back here. We'll lower through the medicine, then grab the beer on our way out." He counted out loud as everyone ducked through the area around them, slinging their goods into trash bags. As he reached five, everyone was back in front of him. "Totes first, then the bags." The men grabbed the plastic boxes, kneeling on the floor with them prepared. As the portal dropped open, they lowered them through, dropping them a few feet to the grass. The bags followed, and the portal closed. Everyone stood back to back for a moment, letting their eyes readjust and the spots fade from their vision.

Adam led the way to the back of the store, and they paused near the meat area. "Is it just me, or do these meat freezers look ... unusually empty compared to the rest of the store?" Black Dave asked, stepping towards one. "Um, I think this is where the zombies came from," he said. "There's empty meat wrappers in here."

Brandon and Adam stepped up to join him, shining their lights into one of the coolers. Adam looked up, turning his flashlight towards the actual meat counter, and the window back to the butcher section. A zombie suddenly pressed itself up against the window. "Crap. Either some employees stayed in the store, or there's an open door back there." He glanced over his shoulder. "Let me deal with them, and keep an eye out for any who might have left the meat section."

As the zombie came through the door to the store, Adam leapt over the cooler, swinging downward with his steel bar. Its head crumpled, and crashed to the floor. Inside, two more looked up from their feat of fungus and maggot-covered steak, lurching towards him as he recovered. Behind him, White Dave's rifle spoke. Adam swung the bar again, sending the two zombies splattering to the walls. Behind the butcher room was a hallway, and from within came faint sunlight. "Crap, there is a door open! Keep watching the store, I'll close it and be right back."

He ducked into the hallway, and saw what was keeping the door stuck. Someone had managed to crash their car into the open door, tearing it off the hinges, and leaving the animate arms and head of a zombie stuck to the hood of the car. Grimacing, he gave the zombie's head a nice, brain-scrambling thump, then moved around behind the car. Tossing the bar into the hallway, he bent down and grabbed the bumper.

Heaving, the car tilted up onto the driver side doors. Bracing his feet carefully, he dragged the car backwards, ignoring the horrible shriek of metal, backing the entire car into the doorway. The flat rear tires and the back window met the doorframe at the same time, and he took a moment to catch his breath before giving one more pull. The window crumpled, and the car became truly wedged into the doorway. Picking up his bar, and taking the flashlight back out of his pocket, he moved carefully through the butcher shop and back to the rest of the group. "Door's closed," he grinned.

Three dead zombies lay in the aisle between the produce and the group. "No problems here," Brandon said, ejecting his clip to replace the bullet he expended. "We ready to get some beer?"

Adam nodded, turning towards the back of the store and following Rabbit. She stopped next to the beer. "Not much choice here, but it's better than nothing." She pulled a twelve pack off an almost-empty pallen on the floor, ripping open the box and popping open the first can to take a pull. "Also, none of it is much good warm," she said as she made a face.

Adam looked up a shelf, at the first shelf of full pallets. "Bud and Miller alright?" No one spoke up to protest, so he pulled a pallet of each off the shelf. "Alright, ready set go," and the portal opened. All the humans swung through, and Adam held the pallets together above his head to drop through after them. The pallets barely passed through, and then the darkness was gone. "Home again, home again," he muttered, lowering the pallets to the grass.

Dave emerged after a minute, as Brandon and Rich were supervising the supplies getting carried to the sheds where they were kept. "Very good haul. White Dave's already taken the medications into one of the RVs to sort through it. I don't think it'll help anyone who gets the zombie sickness, but even the plain old flu could cripple us." He clapped Adam on the shoulder. "Shame there's only crappy beer, though."

Adam grinned, tearing the plastic holding the cases in place. "Have one. They're warm, of course."

Dave grinned, opening a can for himself. "So, tomorrow, we'll need more supplies. I had more people volunteer for the ditch digging than I had shovels for."

"No problem. Same party, we'll grab shovels, nails, screws, and as much wood as I can get through the portal. Give me a few hours to catch a nap and we can do it this afternoon." Adam leaned on the pallet and opened a can for himself.

"No hurry. It can wait until tomorrow. Then maybe we'll have enough ditches to start the wall. One thing worries me, how are we going to put up a gate to get vehicles in and out?"

Adam looked south, towards the fence. A pair of shots rang out, and everyone glanced that way, the same fear copied on every face. "Honestly, I'm not really worried about it right now," he said. He turned away, slamming the rest of the beer and crushing the aluminum down to a ball bearing. Fa came up to join him from the fields as he reached the trailer, and they disappeared inside.

[BlueNinja]

Sunday 6 May, 2007

Home Depot, Sunset Boulevard, Las Vegas

1635

Brandon and Mike held the cart steady while Black and White Dave watched aisle. "Ok, last set," Adam said, taking a deep breath. "Ready to drop in three, two, one," and a moment later the concrete dropped out from beneath the cart. The plywood boards on the cart dropped with it, and the cart bounced on a beat-up king size mattress. Rich, Karen, and a few other volunteers were on hand to grab for the bouncing wood, steadying it and getting it out of the way.

The portal shut, and they took a moment to let their eyes adjust again. "Incoming," Black Dave said, and raised his pistol towards the door. "Again," he added. Letting his breath out slowly, he fired, cutting down the first one. White Dave turned around, raising his rifle and taking down another one. Taunya moved to the back, watching the group. They still weren't sure how many of the deaders were inside the store.

Adam sighed. "Alright, let's gun them down. We need one more load of two by fours. Can't do it with them tottering towards us." He pulled out his own revolver, taking a moment to aim before blowing the head off another zombie. Rabbit backed off near Taunya, helping to guard their backs while the men kept up the gunfire. In about five minutes, there was a pile of a few dozen corpses, all now missing various parts of their heads. "Reload. Then closer to the doors to grab the last set."

Everyone moved in new bullets, then moved closer to the doors. "Hey, Adam, why haven't we closed these doors the way we did in the Costco?" Rabbit asked.

Adam pointed up at the roof. "Costco has skylights, crappy though they are. We close those doors, then literally our only light will be our flashlights." He sighed. "I am tempted to drag over a couple of cars to halfway block it, though."

"Maybe next time," Brandon said, stopping next to the pile and sweeping his lights around it. "Right now, let's get these and get out of here. I'm already on my second reload."

Nodding, Adam helped them pull out the boards. Rabbit pulled a length of rope out of her backpack, and when they had enough of them stacked up in the aisle, she ducked around the men holding them up and tied them in place. "Ready?" Adam counted down again, and a few dozen two by fours dropped through to the camp. Everyone dropped back through.

On the other side, there was a sudden rash of screaming, and Adam looked around. As he watched, a zombie flickered, vanishing from sight like a bad VHS. "Weapons up!" he shouted, leaping to the top of the nearest RV. "Hold your fire until it's in view!"

Dead silence ruled the enclave for several moments. Then Adam heard someone scream, and turned, leveling his arm. One of the other women was being held by the zombie, trying desperately to bend away from its teeth. Two bullets hit the zombie's skull from two different directions, jerking it around and tearing the woman loose from the bony grip. Then Adam let loose with a blaze of fire, screaming as he felt fiery pain racing up and down the nerves in his arms and boring into his skull.

The zombie's charred skeleton crashed to the ground, and the women had fainted dead away. Some of her clothes were burnt, and undoubtedly she had some burns, but Adam needed a moment to gather himself back together again as the pain faded. "Everyone alright?"

A number of affirmatives came back from the area, and Adam leaped from the RV to the woman's side. Her skin underneath the remnants of her clothes were bright red, with a few blisters, and there were angry scratches on her arms. "White Dave! We got injured! Possible contamination."

The former paramedic came jogging over, his rifle still at the ready. "Bitten?" he asked worriedly."

"No, clawed up. Not as bad as Jason was." The paramedic winced in reminder of the bad gut wound. "But she'll have to be kept under guard until we know for sure."

"Jason didn't turn. He just ... rotted from the inside out." White Dave shuddered again, then kneeled down next to the unconscious woman. "I need a stretcher!"

Half an hour later, they had Susan (that's what her name was, Adam discovered, when her husband came running with the stretcher) in the room used as their medical ward. White Mike had cleaned the scratches and stitched them up, and cleaned off the burns while Robbie held her hand and tried to help her control the screaming.

Dave pulled the two men aside once she was comfortable. "What the hell happened in there?"

Adam sighed. "Right before the last load, a new crowd of zombies shuffled in. Thirty, maybe thirty five. We gunned them all down before they moved much past the doors." He leaned heavily against the wall, rubbing his brow. "We got the last of the wood, brought it back, and apparently that one followed us in."

The older man also rubbed his temples with his fingertips. "So, that one clearly teleported. I didn't see it vanish, but I did see it reappear." He glanced at White Dave. "I also saw it take two bullets to the head without even flinching. How many of these damn things are there?"

"I wish we knew," Adam said. "By my count, that's between three and five I've killed." He looked at their leader grimly. "What worries me more, is are there a fixed number, or are regular zombies somehow developing this ability?"

Dave shuddered. "Will our wall even hold them back?"

"No way to tell. The others all seem to have gained access to buildings through open doors, and that one came through my portal." Adam rubbed his temples again. "I think the wall will stop them, if we make sure there's no holes large enough for them to move through."

"You can't be sure, though." It clearly wasn't a question, and he shook his head in response. "Tomorrow, start getting the cars. There's already enough ditches finished to put up the first forty feet on either side of the road."

Adam nodded. "I need a nap," he said. "That last blast, my head is killing me now." He blinked widely a few times. "Whatever my limits are, I just passed them."

White Dave spoke up. "As the closest thing to a doctor, I have to agree. He needs to rest. Especially if we're going to be moving cars and putting up buildings." Moving over to the locked cabinet, he sorted through and pulled out a bottle of tylenol, tossing it to Adam. "Get sleep. Tell me how you feel tomorrow." White Dave looked meaningfully at their leader. "If he's not up to it, then tomorrow's supply run goes on hold. No arguments."

Dave the leader looked back. "We'll see," he said heavily. "I hope we have the choice to let you rest, Adam."

[BlueNinja]

Thursday 10 May, 2007

Spring Valley Ranch enclave

Dave's office, 1300

"It's cleared out," Adam said.

"Crud." Dave leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling for a moment. "So, other than the one we cleaned out ourselves, the other two Home Depots we can easily reach are wiped clear of anything useful."

"I still wish we knew what idiot set fire to the second one." Brandon shook his head and cleared his throat. "Hard to get anything useful from a burned-out hulk."

"No zombies in there," Adam pointed out. "But you're right. There's what, another two stores? And some construction wholesalers." He sighed. "Then we're out of cement mix and good building lumber."

Dave sighed. "We can, at least, finish the roofs and set up two walls. It'll keep out the worst of the sun and the dust." He looked up hopefully. "I don't suppose you know somewhere else to get stuff?"

Adam shook his head glumly. "I could probably get us to some other large cities - LA, San Diego - but we'd be facing the same problem that someone else could have cleared them out." He shrugged. "I'm guessing that some people tried to fort up on the southern part of town. Unless they got a bigger food stash than we do, I'd also guess that they're dead."

"You're awfully charitable, assuming they would have survived the zombies." Brandon signed. "Yeah, there's one more out on western Trop, but that's pretty far into the city. No worse than the one on Sunset, and thank God we don't have to drive."

The three men sat there glumly for a few moments. "If we can't find enough cement to finish the walls, that's going to be a problem. Any other ideas?"

Adam sighed, and nodded. "Only one. Dig a bigger ditch - big enough to stand up the cars with the trunk buried. Then brace them on the back with the dirt. Dismantle buildings to ensure everything is closed up and we have a walkway for shooters." He looked up grimly. "That means a whole hell of a lot more labor. And dismantling the part of the wall we already have done."

"And getting even more food. Unless the fertilizer we added to the crops helps, we might not make it through the winter." Dave groaned, and cushioned his arms on the desk. "Too bad we don't have more people with powers like yours, Adam. We might be able to get the wall finished in time."

Brandon and Adam shared a worried look. "Is there a time limit we don't know about?" Brandon asked.

Dave picked up a calendar sitting on top of the other papers on his desk. "Over the last two weeks, I started tracking the number of zombies killed each day. It's been going up, slowly but almost consistently." He waved a hand vaguely towards the perimeter. "I've made sure all the dead zombie bodies have been stacked and burned. Don't want to spread the damn infection any further than it already is."

He seemed about to say more, but paused, listening. Adam stood open, opening the door to the office as one of the sentries came running up. "We've got an incoming vehicle. SUV, I think. And a mob of zombies behind it." Without a word, all three of the men were on their feet, grabbing their weapons and jogging to the fence. The vehicle was still at least half a mile away, limping along on the road.

"Get ready," Dave shouted, and pushed open the gate, striding forward to the start of their car wall. A half dozen other sentries joined him, and by the time the vehicle came up the road, driving on two flat tires, everyone had picked their targets. Dave led the firing, and the closest zombies exploded in blood and gore. The car slewed through the gate, staggering to a halt behind the men. "Hold fire," Dave called, and gestured to Adam, who turned two-thirds of the crowd to charred cinders.

Rich and Taunya stepped up towards the car, weapons still at the ready. "Step out of the car, and keep your hands in sight," Brandon said, gesturing with his free hand towards the man behind the wheel. "Step out!" Slowly, the man popped open the door, and the woman in the passenger seat did likewise. Swearing, Rich brought up his pistol as the man exited.

"It's not infected!" the man said hurriedly, holding up the bandage on his forearm. "It's a cut, I got snagged on some barbed wire two days ago. It's days old! Have a doctor check me over!" He was sweating madly, and the woman from the passenger seat was sobbing while Taunya checked her over.

Adam jogged back into the compound, getting White Dave while the rest of the sentries finished off the last zombies. The two men trekked back to the entry. Carefully, the paramedic took off the bandage, and checked it out. "Yeah, he's clean," and the men with guns relaxed. "He might come down with tetanus if I don't get it cleaned up right now, but he's not going to zombie on us."

"Thank God," their leader said, coming over. "Who are you people? Where'd you come from?"

The man leaned back against the side of the car, while White Dave cleaned out the jagged slash on his arm. "We were with a settlement down in Boulder City. Yesterday, we got overrun with zombies." He swore briefly with pain, and the woman with him helped a young girl out of the back of the vehicle. "They ripped down the fence, killed most everyone. We were on the south side, managed to get into the truck, but the front tires went flat as we drove out on the highway."

Everyone nearby exchanged worried looks. "How many people were in your settlement?" Adam asked. "How many of them had powers?"

Their new arrival looked at Adam oddly - until the bald mechanic held up a hand full of golden light. Gasping, he shuffled backwards, and the woman picked up the child whispering something in Spanish. "No one, no one can do something like that. What are you?"

Adam and Dave exchanged another worried look. "What's your name?" Dave asked.

"Jesus Rodriguez." He pronounced it the Mexican way, Hay-seuss. "Are we safe here?"

Shrugging, Adam picked up the front end of the vehicle and started wheeling it backwards. "Safe as anywhere else in the apocalypse. Head on inside, I think some of us will be picking your brain for what your defensive setup was."

Gathering the woman and the child, they removed a few things from the back of the SUV, and Rich led them inside the fence. "So, now what? Like I thought, there were more survivors."

Dave nodded grimly, gesturing a few of the sentries towards the zombie corpses that were laying across the road. "And they were facing increasing attacks, just as we were. Except I'm guessing they had more people, and drew more zombies."

"How the hell are they able to find us out here? I mean, we're a good fifteen miles from the edge of the city!" Taunya cut in angrily, gesturing with the shotgun.

"I don't know," Dave said. "But I think we'd better make this wall a priority. We're only going to have a couple of days before those zombies turn around and head back towards us." He looked at the line of cars, anchored with concrete into the ground on either side of the road. "I think we need to double down on our wall."