The Tower

[silenced]

Nothing yet. Was he beginning to hallucinating? He was quite sure he heard the echo just now, but after a while, his search revealed nothing. Not even one small lump of flesh or a drop of blood. The zombies weren’t here, or at least they weren’t near. He moved very carefully, for he knew that these monsters would sometime just stand there doing nothing, until you approach them… and wham.

You’re zombie lunch.

He pushed open another one of the steel doors. He wasn’t quite sure where he was though. He looked up at the corner and he saw a surveillance camera. It was still alive, and he raised his hand and showed it a thumb up before proceeding further. Just as he turned into a corner, a towering figure turned up and if he was not mistaken, a gun was pointed at his head.

"I'm a human, and I’m coming out, don’t shoot."

Dang. He cursed in his mind as he too pointed the gun at him at the same moment. He wasn’t quite sure if the man was going to shoot, but Xylon was sure he was. Without any hesitation, his finger pulled the trigger.

A sound of a shot echoed down the hallway.

[Prv. Guy/ Sir Guy of Gisborne]

Hot lead, burning magma, anything, any kind of pain would be better then this. 'Why must this happen now', his gun left his hand, went flying behind him. "You shot me.....why" he said as he reached for his pack, in it was a couple shots of morphine, he took out a syring and injected himself. He rested his back against the silver, as he pulled out "Rage" from his holster, Fury and rage, and he was feeling plenty of that right now. He took out a clip, and popped it in. The pain was swelling in his arm, and he could feel the pulse of the blood, and pain running down his arm. "Go get help" he said as he took out a gauze pad, and placed it on the wound.

[silenced]

"You shot me.....why?" The man asked Xylon still continued pointing his gun at the man as he watched him to self-medicate himself in a quick way. Looks like he was at wrong here, but does it matter? The last time he did something similar to this he got shot… And he barely made it out of that place alive. Where was the bullet he kept to remind himself to not to trust someone you first met without much of a word? Oh year, it was still stuck somewhere in his arm.

“Why? Because I got shot during that time I faced a similar situation. Can’t risk it anymore.” He placed his gun back into its holster under the jacket. His brows locked together as he began to hear the zombies moans from the other side of the door. It wasn’t the one where he came in from, but probably leading outside. “We don’t have time, those doors won’t last long, and your blood is going to make them more berserk.”

He reached for one of his pouches on his utility belt, and took out a roll of bandage. He almost always had everything. He was not one to not prepare himself for such instances. He approached him, ignoring the man’s angry glare as he bend down, and unrolled the bandage. “You’re going to do this your self or let me help you? I’ll get you out of here and to the others once we’re done.”

The banging on the door and the moaning was getting louder, but he was sure the doors could still hold until they leave this place… If this man, whoever he was, was willing to cooperate.

[Boston]

After Boston’s display of zomedy combie had come to an end, he waited a moment, then poked his head out of the security office and back into the main room to make sure everyone had stopped paying attention to him. Sure enough, they had; the other survivors were engaged in conversation with one another or focused on the food, or at the very least, keeping their distance from the crazy man. So now Boston could take his time – he hadn’t the chance to patch himself up properly in the tower.

He stood in front of one of the desks overlooking the monitors, and dropped his satchel onto its top. The lid flopped open by its own accord, weighed down by the badge pinned to its inside, as Boston took to disrobing his top half; he placed his sheathed baseball bat next to the satchel then removed his red leather jacket, straightened it out, and placed it atop the bat; he unfastened his holsters, placed them atop his jacket, then took to peeling the t-shirt off of the thin Kevlar vest he wore against his skin.

By this point the once-white t-shirt looked a natural red on the front, while the back half retained its natural white color. He dropped it to the ground with a slightly moist slop, and then unfastened and removed the vest. Beneath the vest was yet another layer – this one a layer of blood-stained gauze, which had been haphazardly taped to his torso. He placed the vest on the pile with the rest of his items, and then took to peeling away the gauze.

Boston’s muscular torso would have been more suited on someone a bit more serious than he, certainly not a grown man whose entire life seemed to revolve around bad puns and video games. But, naturally, like every male character in a role play, he was quite the hunky Adonis.

Also somewhat out of place, given the situation and what we know about zombie bites, were the dozens of bite marks that adorned his torso. Round teeth marks had broken the skin up and down either of his sides, arms and shoulders, but most of them had by now stopped bleeding. A particularly deep bite mark that had once been on the base of his neck was almost completely healed, and would be little more than a round scar by this point if Boston could just stop picking at it…

He began moving a little more quickly now that his torso was revealed; the others wouldn’t understand if they saw him like this, he naturally assumed, they would panic and start shooting at him, thinking he was about to join the ranks of the undead. Then this story would have a sad, ironic ending, and Boston just hated endings like that.

He removed a thick roll of gauze from his satchel and began winding it around his torso, from the waist up, creating a sort of makeshift shirt up to his armpits. He taped it in place with the appropriate medical tape, then, and not a moment after he had finished patching himself up, a zombie in a bloody lab coat and missing one pant leg burst from a nearby locker and began chomping at Boston’s throat.

Boston kept quiet, not wanting to attract attention before he was finished bandaging himself up, so only gritted his teeth and grunted a little when he used his forearm to protect his throat. The scientist latched onto his arm and nearly tore a mouthful of flesh off, but Boston managed to lift his leg and fit the sole of his boot snug against the zombie’s stomach, and gave it a powerful kick.

This sent the zombie in the direction of the main room, much to Boston’s chagrin. He sighed and watched the scientist stumble backwards several steps and into the room with everyone else, only stopping when its back landed against another row of lockers. With a fierce growl it shoved off the lockers and stumbled back towards the security room as quickly as its decomposing legs would carry it, but was stopped short by Boston’s bat cracking square against the top of its skull.

The bone split easily beneath the sheer force of the swing, and a moment later, before Boston removed his bat from the zombie’s brain, it erupted in a flash of fire. The scientist dropped to the ground, instantly re-dead, the fire gradually consuming its entire head.

“This isn’t your scientist, is it? Popped out of a locker. Told ya there’d be one in there.” He had met the scientist half-way, so now stood in the main room over the burning zombie. Small patches of red began showing through the gauze on his torso, bleeding just slightly at being agitated, but looking worse than it actually was due to the small amount of gauze he had used.

The blood from his new bite wound dripped down his wrist and down the bat, into the fire as he continued poking at the burning head for a few moments longer – he turned it so Turk could see whether or not it was the scientist, though, granted, it was a little difficult since the head was on fire…A thick pair of glasses fell off the zombie, the lenses popping out and then shattering as they landed.

Then, just as nonchalantly as ever, Boston rested the bat horizontally over his shoulders, arms up on either side to balance it, and he strolled back into the security room to finish patching himself up.

[silenced]

[OOC: Prv. Guy/ Sir Guy of Gisborne: Don't hate me, I'm just pushing things along... If not we're going to be staying there for like, um, forever!]

Xylon looked at the man’s wounds. It wasn’t as serious as it looked, the bullet missed the more vital part and the bones as it buried itself in his arm. He took out a small bottle of water he kept in his utility belt, washed his hand with it and put it on the floor with roughly half filled. Then, he took out a small knife from a pocket on his pants and a lighter from his utility belt. He flicked on the lighter and a small flame lived on. He used the small flame and burn the blade of the knife, especially the pointy front end.

“Hold still.” He told the man as he felt the heat on his fingers as he heated the blade to sterilize it. Once it was done, he used the same blade to remove the clothing that covered the view. It was standard military issue, but so was the small knife. He got it from a dying soldier before he committed suicide to escape the zombie. A nice man, but he had to kill him the second time around.

He took a deep breath, and he recalled how to do an emergency treating of such a wounds. The usual routine was to apply pressure with a bandage, then call 911. Well, we no longer have a 911 any longer, so we would have to remove the bullet ourselves. Already knelt down in place, after washing the wound with the remaining water he directly plunged the knife into the bullet wound and applied pressure. Thank God the bullet wound was large enough so that the bullet can be seen even without strong lights. Thank God that this man was a true soldier, not a wussy.

“Ting, ting…”

The bullet was now on the floor. He then took out a clean cloth from one of the pockets in his back pack and cleaned the wounds with the last bit of water left. Then as a last resort, he unrolled the bandage and started to bandage the wound. It wasn’t as serious as he thought though, and a few minutes later it was properly bandaged and the bullet removed. Let’s just hope there wouldn’t be any further infections, which it shouldn’t’.

“Let’s go.” He gave the man his shoulder as he helped him up. As he did that, he realized how much taller and bigger that person was than himself. Xylon felt extremely bad about his height, but his strength was more than enough in helping him up. He felt he could carry a few more pounds, but those pounds would more likely to immobilize him though.

He walked the man back to the room where he came from. On the way, he locked a few of the doors with simple everyday items such as tables, electronics, etcetera, and etcetera. As soon as he entered the room, he put the man on the side of the room. “Guys, a new friend. Don’t know what his name is. Play nice.”

He heaved a bit. He wasn’t that tired, but he was quite sure that he could use a rest. “Where’s Boston, there’s something I got to tell him.” One of the boys, someone about his age but lost his will to live on obviously pointed a direction. If he had remembered correctly, he used to be livelier than now since they were from the same highschool. He was his senior though. Xylon nodded and walked towards that direction.

If memory served, that should be where the security consoles were… He regretted on not memorizing the map he saw at the entrance. But then again, he wasn’t much of a geologist… Then, he smelled something… unusual. The odor was that of… burning flesh?

He reached out for his gun in his holster and prepared himself with a few deep breaths. Then he slowly, carefully approached his destination… But only to find a burning corpse with a bloody white lab-coat lying there motionless.

“Boston, you there?! If you are please answer me!” He pointed his gun at the ‘burning dead’, and turned his head around and around, letting his ears opened. He couldn’t see any moving things. He couldn’t hear any moaning, he couldn’t hear any shambling. That was good… but then, Boston didn’t reply him.

“Boston! Please!” Xylon shouted.

[Boston]

Boston had just about finished patching himself up when someone started shouting for him. He heard Xylon the first time and simply ignored him, but then it sounded more urgent…Perhaps someone had found a living scientist…

He opened the security room door and poked his head out, a shower cap fitted around the top of his head, and he scrubbed at his back with a loofah, “What is it, kid? Little busy…” Why Boston kept what he did in his satchel was known only to Boston.

“Nah, I’m kiddin’, what’cha want?” He pushed the door open completely and tugged the shower cap from his head, then shoved it back into the satchel with the loofah, “Find a scientist for me?” He hadn’t put a shirt back on yet, so his lean, muscular, and bite-ridden arms were visibly jutting from either end of his dark Kevlar vest. All the bite marks except for the newest one were well on their way to healing, and the newest had even stopped bleeding already – thanks to the quick patch job, at which Boston had recently become quite adept. Wrapped around that part of his forearm was a thin strip of gauze, just a small spot of blood seeping through.

“Those things are kinda bitey, aren’t they?” Eternally cool, he produced a black T-shirt from his bag, and slipped it over his head. It fit loosely and covered most of the bite marks, all but the newly bandaged wound, and the scar at the base of his neck.

He strapped the two holsters to his torso, and a small light on the holster on his right hip flashed from red to green; it let out a quiet pressurized hiss and then beeped quietly as Boston slipped back into his jacket and flipped up the collar, finally covering the last of the bite marks (and effectively giving himself that “cool guy” appearance).

He faced Xylon and leaned against the desk, simply remaining quiet and letting him speak his piece. He flicked his wrist as he listened, producing a small black comb, presumably from inside his sleeve, and used it to comb his hair back.

[Nubaum Turk]

Turk winced, realizing that he himself had not found his way to the bathroom, and his bladder was becoming insistant. He shook his head ruefully at the young lady and little girl. "I'm sorry, I don't have a clue where the restroom is. If you two will wait here where it's safest, I'll find it." He caulked one eyebrow up and hefted his shotgun, laying the barrel across one broad shoulder. He grinned, and then chaos ensued.

Terrified cries spun Turk on his heels, shotgun held at the ready, as the crowd of survivors filling the lab back-peddled, scrambling to put as much distance between themselves and security room. They rushed straight at Turk and the girls Leila and Engie, a flock of sheep fleeing the wolf, but Turk stood fast, diverting the crush of bodies around him and the civilian females. The crowd parted in time for Turk to witness the policeman Boston crush the skull of a zombie in a lab coat with his baseball bat. The eruption of undead viscera was punctuated by a flaming burst that set the creature's head alight. As Boston dragged the bat free of the twice-slain flesh, the body stood trembling for a tense moment before collapsing to the floor.

As the zombie's body hit the floor, the warning lights began flashing red, and the blast doors hissed open to admit another survivor, this one shouting hysterically for Boston. The cop emerged half-dressed from the security room. He made note of the bite-marks, and the fact that most of them looked like they were mending, rather than worsening. Turk was only mildly suprised, as he knew that somewhere in this lab was the key to a vaccine for the zombie virus, or disease, or whatever it was that would make a perfectly respectable deceased person leap from their grave to devour the unfortunate living.

Turk spun around to face Leila again. "Maybe you'd better come with me instead," he said, "this place doesn't seem real safe anymore, either." He gestured to the back of the lab, where two doors led out either side of the main lab. "If there's a bathroom in here, it's through one of those doors. Let's go take a look, shall we?"

Turk pushed the crowd of refugees aside and led the way to the back of the room. "Where to start?" he muttered. The soldier nudged the nearest door open with his boot and peered throgh
the entrance, shotgun ready. A narrow hall, painted white and lit with flourescent tubes terminated at a southward turn. At the corner where the hall turned, a wooden placard stuck out from the wall, near the ceiling. It was hard to make out the white lettering on the little sign, so Turk stepped into the hallway to get a better look. Sure enough, the sign said "Restroom" with an arrow pointing to the door it hung above. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Leila and Engie. "This way, ladies" he called out.

((of course, Turk is completely unaware of the zombies around the bend, just waiting to pounce on poor innocents with full bladders))
[/size]

[Leila Darkmoon]

*Still glaring at the insensitive cretin who had so blindingly insulted her by calling her “old”, Leila rolled her eyes and sighed as he told her he didn’t know where the restroom was. ~Great!~ she mumbled under her breath. ~Fat lot of good you are! ~ She nodded as he said that they should stay here while he went to look for, glancing over at Engie who was crossing her legs and hopping on the spot. She didn’t know how much longer the girl could hold it and hoped that the soldier wouldn’t take too long.

Just then there was a loud ruckus as Boston appeared, dripping with blood and beating the shit out of a zombie in a lab coat. Covering her eyes as the zombie fell to the ground with his head on fire, Leila yelled out ~EWWW!~ as she covered Engies eyes with her free hand.

The soldier turned to her and suggested that perhaps it would be best if she and Engie went with him to find the bathroom. Taking another look at the zombie on the floor and a quick glance at the bloodied Boston, Leila nodded and started following him, pulling Engie with her as she glanced back over her shoulder to see Boston retreating back into the security room. followed by a new arrival.

~Er.. maybe we should lock him out or something? I mean.. he’s been bitten right? Doesn’t that mean he will turn into .. well.. one of THEM??~

Engie squeezed her hand tightly and began to howl, and Leila smiled down at her, seemingly reassuringly she hoped. Okay, first things first, she had to get this kid to the bathroom otherwise they were going to have another mess on their hands. Falling into step behind the soldier, Leila breathed a sigh of relief as they saw the sign announcing the restroom and the arrow that pointed towards it.

~Finally!~ she exclaimed as she followed the soldier down the corridor. *

[Nubaum Turk]

Turk proceeded down the seemingly-empty hall, leading the young woman and her younger charge toward the bathroom. With every other step, the spring-loaded knife in the toe of his boot rapped against the tile floor, the ringing of the metal blade setting his teeth on edge as the sound rebounded off the hard, white walls and ceiling. Despite the whitewash and high ceiling, Turk's raw nerves and strained mind saw the hallway as too narrow, too easy to be trapped in. He gritted his teeth and paused briefly, motioning for the girls to stop without looking back. He looked through the viewing window of a door set in a small recess. The room beyond was dark; Turk saw no sign of movement beyond, and so led the way to the bathroom.

As the group neared the restrooms, Turk stood aside to let the distressed females past him. He turned his back to the door as it swung shut behind the girls, safely in the bathroom, then reached into the breast pocket on his utility vest. He pulled out a half-crushed pack of Lucky Strikes and a book of matches, tapped out a short, filterless cigarette, and popped the end between his teeth. As he struck a match and held it to the end of his smoke, he heard a scuffing noise coming from behind him. He gave the cigarette a long pull, feeling the smoke and sulfur fill him with a brief sensation of wellness, before saying over his shoulder, "That was quick. For a little girl who needed to go so badly, you sure didn't..." He turned as he spoke, in time to see the gaping, bloody maw of a walking corpse descending on his flesh. One eye rolled aimlessly in the socket; the other hung by its optic nerve against the ashen cheek. Its breath reeked of decaying meat and old blood.

"Oh, fuck me!" Turk shouted, backpedaling. The lumbering zombie staggered after him, jaws wide. The mercenary's back hit the wall, and he launched himself forward, ramming his gloved right fist into the beast's waiting mouth. The mandible separated from its socket with a satisfying crack, and the zombie stumbled backward, Turk's fist wedged tightly between its teeth. Turk stumbled after it, his hand not coming free. The corpse bit down hard, and Turk gritted his teeth as his free hand scrabbled to reach his shotgun. It was slung across his chest from the other side, readied for his right hand, but almost useless for his left. Unfortunately, his right hand was crammed into the mouth of a flesh-eating bastard, and he prayed it had not chewed through the leather glove.

Another zombie rounded the corner, and Turk's heart sank. The monster with his fist in its mouth began to shake its head, jerking him about wildly as it clawed mindlessly for his face. He batted the zombie's filthy sharp-nailed hands away as the new arrival lunged at him. He shouted and threw a powerful front-kick at it, slamming it into the monster's chest and propelling it forcefully into the outward-swinging Women's Room door. The door hit the stop with a loud bang, and Turk silently thanked the universe that the door did not swing inward.

With a snarl, Turk forced his fist deeper into the zombie's mouth, too deep for it to bite him effectively. With his free hand, he grabbed the beast by the shirt and slammed it bodily into the wall. As he did, he extended the fingers of his hand, forcing them through the soft throat flesh, tough muscle, and then clenched his fist around the monster's spine. With a twist and a jerk, he snapped the creature's neck, and the thing went limp and collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

Turk stood staring down at the beast, hand still squeezing the severed spinal column, when the second beast hurled itself at him once more. He barely had time to raise his arm to block the incoming attack, and the zombie's teeth sank into the meat of his forearm. He howled in pain and rage as the creature came away with a mouthful of his flesh, chomping and gobbling quickly before rushing in again. Turk swung the now-dead corpse of the first zombie up and around, fist still stuck in its throat, between himself and the attacking monster. The beast clawed and gasped and tried desperately to reach him. The wily mercenary reached around behind his back, seizing the grip of his shotgun, turned, and pressed the barrel against the belly of the limp corpse dangling from his fist.

The blast from the shotgun sounded muffled as the buckshot practically vaporized the abdomen of both creatures, the attacker falling still, spine destroyed. The legs of the first zombie were separated from the torso by the shot, and with a heave Turk extricated his fist from the half-corpse, sending its upper half sliding wetly down the hall and into the corner. He stood panting, then bent down to retrieve the cigarette that had fallen from his mouth in the scuffle. It was still lit. He took a long drag. As the adrenaline slowly drained away, the pain in his left arm drew his eyes down to examine heavily-gushing, mouth-shaped hole.

Turk heard a sound from back down the hallway, the direction he and the girls had come. It was a door rattling in its housing, as though something were mindlessly throwing itself at it. The sound came from the alcove he had peered into earlier. After a few more moments of banging, the door burst in a spray of wood splinters as the zombies on the other side came tumbling into the hallway, one falling to the floor as another crashed face-first into the wall, and they landed in a heap. Slowly, they began to untangle themselves and push to their feet.

The word and smoke hissed from between his teeth. "Fuck".

[Leila Darkmoon]

*Finally they reached the bathroom, and Leila had to move quickly aside to let Engie rush past her, or risk being slammed into the wall. She offered the soldier a grateful smile before the door swung shut behind them, leaving him outside. Leila turned and found a light switch, flicking it twice only to find the power had either been disconnected or the bulb had blown. Hearing the sound of Engie using the bathroom, Leila figured that if a kid could find her way in the dark, then so could she, and fumbled her way over to the closest stall.

A few minutes later, Leila flushed the toilet and joined Engie by the sink. After washing their hands, the two girls grinned at each other in relief.

~That was too close..~ Engie grinned. ~ I almost peed my pants!~

~You and me both kiddo..~ Leila laughed as she dried her hands on a paper towel, before offering Engie a towel of her own. With their hands now clean and dry, Leila took one of Engies’ hands in hers and prepared to lead her back out to the soldier when the sound of a loud commotion stopped her in her tracks. Engie stared up at Leila with wide terrified eyes.

~Is it… them?~ she whispered.

~I don’t know kiddo..~ she whispered back. ~But that guy? He’s a soldier right? And if he’s still alive.. then.. he must be a good one right? So… I’m sure he’s going to be okay. Lets just .. uh.. stay here for a minute to make sure.. eh?~

Engies’ grip tightened on her hand, and Leila struggled to be brave for the young girl though in truth she felt like shitting her pants. She heard some choice language from the soldier, and some moaning from what she assumed had to be a zombie, and she covered Engies ears with her hands to protect the girl from hearing anything more that might scar her for life. Engie rolled her eyes, then jumped as the door in front of them shuddered as something large hit it from the other side. Both Leila and Engie took several steps backwards, eyes wide as they stared at the door. Leila wanted to lock the door, but of course it was one of those swinging types that didn’t have any lock to engage.

More sounds reached her ears, the sounds of fighting, of things or bodies being slammed against walls. Then a sound that made her blood run cold: the sound of the soldier crying out in pain. For a man of his size to make such a noise, Leila knew that the injury he had just sustained must be serious. She looked around helplessly, her hands still clamped over Engie’s ears. There was nowhere else to go, the only way out of this bathroom was the swinging door in front of them, and unfortunately for them, judging by the sounds coming through those doors, that way wasn’t looking too safe right now.

Suddenly the sound of a shotgun blast filled the room, and Engie cried out in shock, despite Leilas hands over her ears. Realising the hands were probably ineffective, Leila let them drop from Engies ears, only to have the girl turn around and throw her arms around Leilas waist, burying her face in her stomach. Leila smelled the scent of cigarette smoke then, and judging by the sudden silence outside, she guessed that the worst of the fight was now over. With Engie holding on so tight she could barely breathe, Leila edged closer to the door. After taking a few seconds to get up the nerve to open the door, Leila pushed it open slightly, grateful to see the soldier still in one piece. Shuffling Engie beside her, Leila pushed open the door a bit more so that they were both now standing just inside the swinging doors with their heads sticking out.

It was then that she heard the commotion from the end of the hall, and could tell by the look on the soldiers’ face that it wasn’t the sound of the welcome wagon arriving. His choice of language further confirmed her suspicions, and she reached out with one shaking hand to grab his arm to let him know they were here. Seeing his wound, her eyes bugged out in shock.

~What’s happening? Are there MORE??? What happened to you?? How the hell are we going to get out of here??~ all of her resolve to remain calm for Engie’s sake went out of the window as she desperately tugged on the sleeve of the only man in existence she had ever hoped could save her sorry ass. *

[Boston]

Boston had busied himself in the security room looking over the monitors, which is how he first noticed Turk’s trouble in the hallway. For a few moments he simply waited, arms folded over his stomach, watching with mild interest, confident that the soldier could handle a couple of zombies just fine on his own. Though his eyes narrowed and he scrunched his nose in thought when it looked like the zombie had nearly bitten his hand clean off, and he decided it was time to lend his services.

The shotgun blast sounded as Boston made his way through the main room, rousing concern from several of the survivors, so Boston motioned for them to stay put; “Just sit tight, folks,” he waved his hands as he walked by, his tone calm and authoritative, and Scottish, “just keep an eye out, nothin’ tah worry about, nothin’ tah see here”. He pulled the gun from his left holster and cocked the hammer back, readying it in both hands in front of himself as he started down the hallway after the others.

Boston arrived just in time to see Turk’s new wound, and the new arrivals clambering to their feet. He stood to the soldier’s right and patted him on the shoulder to get his attention, sights trained on the zombies as they limped their way towards them both; “Why don’t ya take a moment to patch yourself up, pal, then after these guys calm down, I’ll see if I can’t figure out a way to keep ya human,” he glanced over his shoulder then, at Leila and Engie, and offered an award winning smile brimming with surplus amounts of trustworthiness, “You girls don’t got a thing to worry about.” In true Boston style, there was not a single hint of nerves in anything he did.

After his arrival speech, he only had time to squeeze off a single round – it was well aimed, though, and the bullet found its home just past a zombie’s forehead, and nestled comfortably in its brain. Two more were upon him, though, and he had to drop his gun to change his battle style to close combat.

In a slow attack he most certainly could have dodged, one zombie gripped Boston from the front, and wrapped its arms around his torso to chomp down quite harmlessly on the left shoulder of his leather jacket. It didn’t look like Boston minded too much – using his own body as bait to draw a zombie into a position for an easy kill was a trick he had nearly perfected.

He managed to wiggle his arms free from the zombie’s grasp as it gnawed mindlessly on his jacket, trying with much gusto to chew through the article. Meanwhile, a second zombie grabbed him from the right side, and had a somewhat better idea of where to attack – this one went for his neck, but had trouble biting through the collar and wound up in a similar position as its partner.

Surely he looked a little silly, standing there with zombies hanging off him left and right, but he knew what he was doing.

His hands grasped the hilt of the baseball bat on his back, and in one fluid motion pulled it free from the sheath and brought its end down and on top of the zombie’s skull. It was hardly with enough force to repel the zombie, but a moment later Boston’s hands clenched around the hilt, and the sound of a gunshot rung through the halls. The front-attacking zombie collapsed, bones cracking and snapping as it folded over on itself, a lightly smoking bullet hole adorning the spot of skull where the bat had landed.

Then reversing his hold on the bat so he held it upside-down, he thrust the thick end against the abdomen of the zombie on his right and tilted it upwards, to release a shotgun blast next. The blast tore up and through the zombie’s left side, actually severing its left arm, thereby forcing its grip to ease. Boston grabbed either end of the bat in either hand and shoulder-butted the zombie into the right wall, and then pinned it there with the bat against its throat.

He braced his feet on the ground and gritted his teeth as he pressed the bat tighter and tighter against the zombie’s throat, lifting its dead weight a few inches off the ground as its one remaining arm grasped weakly for his person. Yet another zombie grabbed him from behind and picked up where the recently dispatched left off, gnawing on the already worn shoulder of his leather jacket, but Boston was just a bit indisposed at the moment – unless they were lined up just right, it was exceedingly difficult to kill two zombies at the same time with just a single bat…

Boston nearly snarled in feral fashion as he leaned his face towards the zombie he held pinned to the wall, staring into its dead, bulging eyes as he applied the last bit of pressure. With a quick wrench of the bat the zombie’s neck snapped, and he let up the pressure to allow the zombie a chance to crumple to the floor.

The one still clung to his back and chewed on his jacket as he paused to take a breath – unless there was a zombie chomping for his throat or creating a wound too serious for his simple patch-jobs, Boston was okay with letting them chew on him a little…

[Nubaum Turk]

Turk gratefully allowed Boston to take a whack at the flesh-eating bastards, withdrawing from the fray with his wounded left arm cradled against his torso. He manuvered himself into a position directly between the fray and the girls, Leila and Engie. Despite the immense pain, he managed to keep his voice even as he said, "This way, ladies. We've got this under control. Please, try not to look."

Turk shepherded the two girls back down the hall toward the main lab as the first blast of Boston's bat sounded. Turk looked back over his shoulder in time to watch the second shot, and shook his head. "Gotta get me one of those," he muttered, "if I get out of here alive." His eyes were drawn again to the wound pumping his blood onto the tile floors, and a cold feeling in his gut told him he would not.

A third beast had thrown itself at the Boston, who seemed unperturbed at the cannibal creature chewing at his collar. Turk did his best to herd the girls into the lab, then turned and drew the Desert Eagle from its holster. He took a deep breath to steady himself, carefully sighted down the barrel, and squeezed the trigger.

The .50 bullet entered the creature's head through one side of its face, crushing the cheekbone as it tore its way through and out the other side, taking the entire right side of its face off in exiting.

Turk turned back and entered the lab, only to find a crowd of terrified survivors staring at him, as his arm, at the blood pooling between his boots. He lifted the pistol into clear view, not threateningly, but in just such a way as to convey his lack of patience. When he was certain that no one would approach, he made his way over to the storage lockers, rapping on one with the but of his gun, and it sprung open obligingly. He pulled a medical kit from the locker, but in his one-handed attempts to open the kit and pull free the supplies he needed, it fell to the floor, its contents spilling out across the floor.

Turk holstered his gun and knelt to gather the medical supplies, but his uninjured right hand behaved as though asleep, slow to respond and weak of grip. He carefully flexed his fingers, which felt stiff and cold. He tried the other hand, the injured left one, and found it to be nearly useless. The cold feeling in his gut became a heavy lump of ice.

Turk knew it was only a matter of time.



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[Leila Darkmoon]

*Leila breathed a sigh of relief when Boston arrived toting his gun and his award winning smile. Smiling gratefully as he assured both Leila and Engie that they didn’t have a thing to worry about, Leila squeezed Engies’ hand and grinned down at the kid. Reinforcements had arrived, and yeah, okay… so it was ONE guy up against a freshly arrived horde of Zombies… but still.. TWO guys were better than one right? Especially when the soldier one was in a pretty bad way. Leila cast a worried glance towards the soldier as he turned back to look at them, and shepherded them forward.

Leila nodded as he told them to step this way, and did her best to shield Engie’s eyes from the horror of Boston’s onslaught. She heard the comforting sound of Boston’s bat hitting zombie flesh as she followed the soldier back to the lab with Engie in tow.

Not surprisingly the other survivors eyed the soldiers wound fearfully, and she was sure that it was only his pissed off expression and raised gun that kept them from running at him. She led Engie back over to the corner they had inhabited when first arriving, and told her to stay put as she slowly and quietly followed the soldier. She watched him as he fumbled with the first aid kit, only to knock it to the ground. Stepping around him so that she was now kneeling down before him, Leila began to scoop the gauze, bandages, antiseptic and other supplies back into the first aid kit.

~Here… let me help you. It’s the least I can do after you saved our asses.. and our bladders.. back there..~

She pointed to the end of the room where the row of storage lockers ended and two chairs were positioned on either side of a small square table. Walking over there, she put the kit on the table and began to rummage around for what she thought she might need. Once the soldier arrived, she inspected the wound more closely, only barely able to stop herself from throwing up at the sight of all the blood. Taking a deep breath, she held it as she grabbed a large piece of gauze and applied it directly to the wound, holding the gauze on it tightly with her hand while her cool blue eyes gazed up into his.

~First things first… lets stop the blood flow.. and then I’ll clean you up with some of this nice stingy stuff…~ she deliberately didn’t mention the whole “you’re probably going to get turned into a zombie” thing as she guessed that thought had already crossed his mind more than once, and had probably set up camp for the night.

Keeping pressure on the wound, Leila blew a loose strand of long blonde hair out of her eyes with a quick upward breath before she offered the soldier a soft smile.

~So.. we kinda didn’t get to the introductions back there. What with you thinking I was old enough to be that kids mother and me getting all offended and all….~ she shrugged to show there was no hard feelings. Hell, the guy had been bitten by a zombie so that Leila and Engie could pee. The least she owed him was a smile.

~The name is Leila. The kid is Engie… and no, she aint mine. She was picked up by one of the guys back there..~ she gestured back into the Lab with a tilt of her head. ~I kinda took a shine to her back in the Tower, and now she’s attached to my hip.~ She shrugged.

~And you are….?~ Leila still held the gauze tightly on the wound while she waited for the soldier to speak. She thought of Boston, back in the hallway fighting all of those zombies and she shivered. Maybe once she got the soldier patched up he would go back and help Boston, but for the time being that poor guy was all on his own with a horde of flesh eating un dead. It was like something out of a horror movie, and Leila wondered how the movie would end. *

[Zombie Overlord]

Focus on the apartment building windows and nearby telephone poles as the wood warps and splinters, and the glass shatters, surrounded by what looks like an intense, dense stream of pressurized steam. The cords snapped and the pole burst into flames, twisting and contorting violently and most peculiarly under the intense and focused heat.

Pull back as the telephone pole eventually topples over. It finally snapped at the base and fell diagonally across the street, crushing dozens of zombies beneath, but doing very little to impede the march of the rest of the undead army.

Focus on the zombies as they approach the still-burning pole. Lacking the basic brain functions to know when something burns, the zombies behind the pole continued their march onward, and only began to burn. Eventually enough of the undead piled against it to actually douse the flames and nearly bury the entire pole under their now dead-for-good bodies, and then the rest began simply crawling over top of the pile to cross to the other side.

Pull back; view a wide shot of the city from over head. On the outskirts, we can hardly see the crumbled remains of the tower, just the top of blast door entrance to the lab managing to peek out from beneath the pile of zombies; the streets for several blocks in every direction are teeming with the undead masses, all of them filing for that entrance. The buildings two blocks from the lab’s entrance rattled violently and started to crumble. The very Earth could be felt shaking for what must have been miles around as the brick walls were smashed and strewn miles into the air, the buildings completely toppling shortly thereafter, under the great strength of a force still unseen.

Steam continues to erupt from the unseen force, seen intermittently behind the buildings, as if the source is making its way towards the lab entrance. The steam burns and contorts anything it touches, and the buildings continue to shake and crumble as under what must be its massive weight.

[Boston]

Boston didn’t flinch when Turk took care of the zombie hanging from his back for him, he hardly even reacted – just a cool-guy nod to show his appreciation. After that last one had been dispatched, he breathed a quiet sigh and took a step back from the wall to allow the zombie he had pinned to fall to the ground with a sickening slop – its innards now its outtards from the shotgun blast, its blood seeped out and around Boston’s boots and he almost slipped.

He ran in place for a moment and waved his arms frantically in the air to keep his balance, and eventually regained it by pressing the end of his bat against the wall to hold himself steady. After he had regained his footing he breathed a sigh of relief and took a careful step out of the pool of blood, “That was almost really embarrassing…” he commented to himself as he knelt to pick up the gun he had dropped before the skirmish; he slipped it back into its appropriate holster, then began his walk to the main room to rejoin the group.

While he walked he flipped open his satchel, and dug around until he found a loose shotgun shell. He pressed it against the center of his baseball bat and it slipped into a hidden compartment, vanishing through a seam that was invisible to anyone who didn’t already know it was there. He repeated the action with a 9mm round on the other side, and then returned the bat to the sheath on his back; next he was startled when the Black Eyed Peas’ My Humps began playing from his satchel.

“Who the hell keeps calling me from that number…” Boston retrieved his cell phone from his satchel and flipped it open, his tone uncharacteristically harsh, “Boston here.” He walked right through the main room while talking on his cell phone, drawing shocked looks from the other survivors, who began questioning how he was able to use his cell phone in this mess.

“Hold on, babe.” Boston paused and turned to the crowd, shrugging quite simply, “Not only are there mile-high towers specifically for cellular reception scattered all around the country, but there are satellites in outer space. What, did ya all assume cell phones went out with the landlines? Sheesh…” He shook his head then went back to his conversation, stopping near Leila, Turk and Engie.

“So, you woke up handcuffed in the closet a few hours after I left, and you weren’t craving human flesh?” He nodded a little as he listened to the other end, “Well what about your medicine, you were running low, are you alright?”

…

“That’s great news…It must’ve been expelled with the virus…” He turned his attention to Leila and Turk for a moment, “So hey, um, turns out my gal’s alright. So I’ll see ya fellas later.” He turned and started towards the exit, talking into his phone once more, “Yeah, so I’ll be home soon…Nah, they’ll be fine.”

He sighed and stopped once more, turning to lean his back against the wall as he spoke, “C’mon, there’s gotta be another guy with the antivirus in him somewhere in this group, there are like, a dozen other people here…Hold on, I’ll ask.”

He lowered his phone and shouted into the crowd, “Hey, has anyone else here been bitten but not turned into a zombie yet?” He sighed when nobody responded in the positive, and then went back to his phone, “Yeah, yeah, alright, fine…You always did bring out the worst in me, babe…I’ll see ya after I save the day…Oh, wait! Hey. You aren’t, like, decaying at all, are you…? …Oh, okay. Great. So yeah, I’ll see ya after this. Stay safe in there, gal.”

He slapped his phone shut and dropped it back into his satchel as he walked over to Leila and Turk, swapping his phone for a switchblade. He ejected the blade and waved it casually in Turk’s direction as he spoke rather quickly, “So here’s the deal, see, my gal was in the rain when it first started, and it turned her into a zombie. She bit me, see, here,” he craned his neck to the side to show the round scar of teeth marks on his neck, “but I didn’t turn, see, but now she’s alright, nice and human. So the long and the skinny of it seems to be, take my blood into your system and the zombification is reversed.”

He rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and dragged the end of his knife along the underside of his arm, drawing a thin line of blood, “So how do ya wanna do this, want me to bleed into a cup or what? Or if you’d rather turn and then bite me, you should turn back into a human before you start to decay…”

All the lights flickered at once as the very foundation of the place shook violently for a moment, and Boston stomped his foot in a fit, “Dammit! If it isn’t zombies, it’s earthquakes, say, any luck on locating a scientist yet? We gotta get outta this place before it comes down on our heads…” He kept his lightly bleeding arm extended towards Turk, waiting to see how he wanted to handle this decidedly awkward cure - which he wasn't even really 100% sure about.

"It's okay, I don't got hep C or anything."

Now aware that Melissa was alive and well, this zombie story couldn’t end soon enough; however, he was unaware that what he thought was a simple enough earthquake was actually the mysterious and apparently giant force stomping their way…