On the west side of the motel-
Duran and
Thayer continued blocking up the stairway with furniture. "We're about halfway done the barricade, Sergeant!"
Duran called upstairs.
Ramirez cleared the railing and climbed onto the balcony just after
McCain emerged from the upstairs room. The ladder was now free for
Ortega to climb so he could take up his post outside the comm room as
McCain had ordered him.
In the medic's room-
Lt. Blanco worked on treating
Airman Phillips's leg wound. "Once we're done patching you up you should at least be able to walk on your own," she said. "Of course, it's not going to heal fully before..."
"Before I turn into one of them," said
Phillips, still working on his arm. "It's okay, you can say it."
"I told you I won't let that happen," said
Malanowski. "I've got a bullet with your name on it."
"Looks like you already removed the slug,
Zorie," said
Lt. Blanco. "
I'm not sure if I can really do anything more."
"Let me see," said
Zorie Spooner. She shook her head. "
It's still pretty messed up."
Lt. Blanco nodded and spoke into her radio. "This is
Lt. Blanco.
Airman Phillips is definitely infected,
Sergeant McCain. We're trying to treat his gunshot wound so he can at least walk again, but it's slow going.
Malanowski hasn't shown any symptoms at this time, but we haven't had a chance to examine him closely yet."
On the motel balcony-
Hockey maintained his vigil over the field of tall grass to the west. It limited his range of vision, but there was nothing moving in it as far as he could see.
Ramirez stepped onto the balcony just outside the communications room's door, standing in front of
McCain.
In the comm room-
Captain Lereux continued to assist
Lt. Malone,
Lewis, and
Mikhalin in installing the communications unit. "We should be on the air in about five more minutes," said
Mikhalin.
"Good," said
Captain Lereux. "Once we get back in touch with HQ and they find out about this little mutiny of yours, they'll reinstate my command."
"Don't count on it," said
Malone. She noticed
Ramirez had arrived outside the room. "Ah, there you are,
Mr. Ramirez," she said. "I don't think there's enough room for all five of us to work at once, but we'll be done soon anyway. What did you learn from the time you spent at the diner?"
On the motel's roof-
"You've got that right, Sarge," said
Sheen, watching the coyotes carefully through his scope. "Last time they cost us two of our guys - counting
Phillips, that is - and there may be more of them in this bunch." He got on the radio. "
Sheen here. There's another pack of coyotes out on the highway a few miles to the west. So far they haven't headed this way, but I'm watching them. They're prowling through an overturned Greyhound bus right now. A couple new ones just joined them a minute ago, and I can see about five or ten of them. There may be more inside the bus itself, but I can't tell for sure."
(
Sam Black, roll Spot Hidden. Remember to apply the -5% penalty because you're currently wearing your helmet.)
Outside the garage-
Wallace saw that his Ruger Mini 14 was still in fine condition, and its magazine was fully loaded.
On the roof of the garage-
"
Still nothin' to the north," reported
Baldwin.
In the garage-
"Hmm," said
Mitchell. "Looks like it might be more like 1:30 with just the three of us now that I look at this. I sure hope we can get someone else to help us out. It's going a lot slower without
Bob, and I don't know if we have that kind of time."
"Maybe
Gary could help once he's done hooking up the power to the fridge," suggested
David. "He's good with a wrench."
On the roof of the diner-
Luke,
Samantha, and
Willie kept watching to the east, alert for anything out of the ordinary.
Azadeh kept her eyes on the snipers across the way.
(
Luke, roll Spot Hidden.)
On the east side of the diner-
Kimberly nodded to
Joe Barring. "Any ideas what we should do in the meantime?" she asked. "We could head back downstairs and give everyone an update on the situation, I guess. We can't get up on the roof here since
Samantha said it can only support four, but we could bring the ladder back to the garage roof if you like." She went over to one of the weapons crates and took out the boxes of 12 gauge rifled slugs. "We might as well take these. Can't have too much ammo." She offered half of the slugs to
Joe.
In the helicopter-
The helicopter remained on its eastward course, passing by the second, larger mob of undead and then reaching Sidney, flying past it from the south. Many of the fires had died down, having burned themselves out, though some were still going. Wrecked vehicles littered the streets below, and ghouls were crawling all over them searching for their next meal. More of them streamed out of the ruined city in all directions. Even from high above, the sorry state of Sidney was evident.
A streak of orange shot upwards across the sky to the left of the chopper. "That was a signal flare!"
Erica said.
"That means someone's still alive down there somewhere!" said
Stephanie as she typed away. "They must be trying to get our attention,"
Erica peered out the window. "Well,
I've got no idea where it was fired from."
"
Neither do I," said
Dr. Hausmann, looking through her own window.
Stephanie had been looking over her shoulder. "There!" she cried. "
Right there, on the roof of that building!" She pointed it out. "I can make out a man there, waving his arms!"
Erica's gaze followed her finger. "That's Cabela's," she said. "Their headquarters is in Sidney. Makes sense that somebody would survive there. Plenty of guns and ammo."
"I wish we could do something for him."
"That's real sweet of you, darling, but that's the sort of thing that'll get us killed. Our chopper's full, and we barely have enough supplies for ourselves. Plus, we don't know if we can trust this guy. He and any buddies of his might try to seize the helo by force too if we landed."
"We don't have the time to spare anyway," said
Bo. "The best way we can help him is to get to Omaha fast."
"I know," said
Stephanie. "I just feel bad about it, that's all."
In the warehouse-
Gary hurried up the stairs with the fuel and electrical lines.
"There didn't seem to be anyone free to relieve you upstairs," said
Sally. "Sorry." She headed downstairs with the tarp and gas.
Michael shrugged and stayed at his post.
In the reception area-
Sally came in through the gate. "Hey, ladies," she said. She filled them in on what had transpired above.
"Well, it's a good thing nobody fired," said
Rosie. "Otherwise they'd have killed each other and there'd be nobody left to protect us. And
Bo might have been killed too." Even though she knew she couldn't have him and probably would never see him again, she still could not stop thinking about him and what might have been. She sighed.
Stephanie's a nice kid, she thinks.
She deserves him a hell of a lot more than I do, what with the skeletons in my closet.
Sally crossed the room to where
Lynne was seated. "So, how's my patient doing?"
"Okay, I guess," said
Lynne, "considering I'm a gimp. If we have to run away, I'll be the slowest and get eaten."
"We're going to look after you. When we leave this place, it'll be in vehicles and your leg won't slow you down one bit."
In the cell block-
"Well,
Victor Chenko is dead and we're not," said
Randall as
Duke rejoined him outside cell 4.
At least not yet, he thinks. "That's something, anyway. Once we burn the body we can take a look downstairs if you like.
Sally should be back any minute now. I'm surprised she hasn't returned already."
(
Duke, roll Listen.)
In the upper hatch chamber-
"Thanks," said
Jenny, pocketing the clips and cradling the rifle in her arms. "I'll take good care of her, don't you worry." She boarded the lift with
Mr. Foo, followed by
Jim Kerr and
Alice.
Max climbed aboard with them, rubbing against
Jenny's leg. "Aw, you want to stay with us, don't you, boy?"
"He might as well," said
Ellen. "He might be helpful down there, and it's not like he could close the hatch if he stayed above anyway." She remained outside the lift. "Well, good luck, everyone. Come back in one piece."
"Thank you," said
Mr. Foo. "If you don't hear anything from us in an hour, or if you hear trouble below, seal that hatch. If there's anything dangerous down there we don't want it getting out."
Ellen frowned as she looked at the underside of the hatch. Upon it was a label that read: "Quarantine Hatch- to be Closed in the Event of Contamination by Biological, Chemical or Radioactive agents."
The lift itself was little more than a platform with no ceiling.
Jenny pushed a button, and the lift began to descend, carrying its passengers downwards into the unknown.
In the lower hatch chamber-
As the lift moved down, those on it could see a ladder on one of the walls of the vertical shaft that had previously been concealed beneath it. It led from the chamber below back up to the hatch. "That's good," said
Mr. Foo. "If anything goes wrong with the lift, we can still get out of here."
Before long, the lift reached the bottom of the shaft, which was a hole in the ceiling of the chamber below. The ladder reached all the way down to the tiled floor of that room, and the lift touched the floor with a loud bump.
The room was sterile, the thick dust on the floor disturbed only by two sets of footprints leading from a hallway to the ladder. That hallway is the only exit from the room, and a sign is on the wall next to it. "
Those must have been Kerry's and Debbie's footprints," said
Mr. Foo. "Other than the two of them, I doubt anybody's been down here in decades." He looked down at the tiles. On the ones near the lift are the words: "Welcome- DEEP MOLE ONE."
Other writing is on the tiles. Most of it appears strange and indecipherable.
