OOC- Total number of zombie kills (including this round so far): 15
One zombie has a head wound for 7 damage
IC-
In the motel-
Captain Lereux cut through the motel's front door, followed by
Duran and
Hockey carrying the ammo crate. "Let's lock the door behind us, just in case," he said, locking it. Then he called to
Malone. "We're going up to the balcony,
Lieutenant. You and your people stay in the comm room for now. If we can't reduce the enemy's numbers enough, we'll let you know so you can join us on the balcony. In the meantime, we'll lock the doors." He led his men out the back door.
West of the motel-
Thayer saw the horde coming in the distance from the north and took off at a run towards them as
Lereux emerged from the back door. "Where do you think you're going, Airman?" he called. "Get back here!" But
Thayer did not give any indication that he was listening. The captain pulled
McCain to his feet. "Come on, we need to get upstairs!" He pulled him over to the unblocked stairway in the southwest corner.
Duran and
Hockey arrived there just as
Cole did.
Phillips was close behind them, panting for breath.
"What happened,
Phillips?" asked
Lereux.
"It was...
Alanen, sir," he said, recovering. "He was infected. He got back up and tackled me, but
Thayer blew his brains out before he could bite me. I saw his eyes, sir. They were red as the fires of hell." He shivered involuntarily. "
It's like nothing I've ever seen before."
"You might have been infected. You must not have any physical contact with any of our people. Put
Alanen's equipment in the crate here, then join us on the balcony but keep your distance. We can take what we want from the crate as needed. We'll have
Dr. Blanco or
Zorie Spooner take a look at you after this attack is dealt with."
"Yes, sir." said
Phillips,
taking this in stride and placing his heavy load inside the ammo crate. "I also grabbed his rations while I was at it. There's no telling how long they'll leave us out here with those demons, sir."
On the roof of the motel-
"I'm on it, Sarge," said
Bobby Sheen, lining up his first target. He took careful aim,
hitting with all three shots and
scoring a kill with each one. "Sweet! Three more terminated!"
(
Black can fire five times this round.
Sheen must reload, and can also fire twice.)
In the comm room-
"Hold on there,
Lewis!" said
Malone. "We're not quite ready yet to start moving this stuff. We need to find out what happened in Helsinki and then call back to base one last time first. When we are ready, I want us to dismantle everything first, which should take about ten minutes. Once that's done we'll move everything upstairs in order to minimize the time we spend outside. We'll be using the room closest to the stairs. I know it's risky, but the less time Warren stays blind, the better. You should get back here."
Mikhalin traced back the trajectory of the missile that had taken out Helsinki. "Ma'am, the missile came from a sub in the Arctic Ocean," she reported. "I'm listening in on the Russians again now to see what they know about it, but
I can't make out what they're saying."
"Let me try."
Malone listened to the Russian chatter too, and
was able to understand it. "The Russians did it, all right. Apparently Finland asked them to because the city was overrun and they thought they could contain the infection by nuking it. They've also received similar requests from Estonia and Latvia, and they're trying to decide what to do about them."
"If only we could warn them somehow, ma'am."
"Well, we can't. This is a closed network, and besides, it would be a serious breach of protocol even if we could talk to them."
Malone contacted Warren AFB and filled them in. "NATO command is going to get the word out not to use nuclear weapons. I think we've done all we can for now, sir. This time we have to sign off. A large group of infected people is closing in on our position. If we make it through this, it'll take about 45 minutes for us to set everything up upstairs."
"Excellent work," said
Lt. Colonel Carmichael. "We need you up and running again as soon as possible. Over and out."
At the garage-
"You missed a lot," said
Mitchell. "Those skinheads showed up, and so did a couple hundred of those zombies. They set off a big bomb, and a lot of people died. If you want rifles, I brought up a couple of crates full of guns and ammo that
Hammond and
Earl had hidden away in a secret warehouse under the liquor closet. They're right outside the back door, but I'm not sure what's left by this point.
Samantha had your rifle the last time I saw her. If you're gonna move the truck inside, you'd better do it fast."
"If you don't want to do it," said
David, "I can back her in if you give me the keys."
In front of the diner-
"Damn, girl," said
Baldwin, swapping out his rifle's magazine for a full one, "you're trouble, you know that?" He handed her 7 of the bullets he'd taken from
Rita's corpse. "That's half my ammo I've given you, but it's still not much. Better to use our rifles. I'm sure you can help out, especially since you've got a rifle and you know how to use it. Just about every zombie on Route 30 followed my truck back here.
"I also found some keys on
Charlie's body. There's keys to his pickup truck, but there's another set of vehicle keys on one of those remote control keychains too."
"Come on, you two," said
Erica. "We don't have time to stand around here jawing." She walked into the ruins of the diner, and
Baldwin followed.
In the ruined diner-
Erica led
Baldwin through the debris-strewn hallway leading from the front area of the diner to the back door. As they passed the liquor closet, she
noticed Dave's corpse, the Grease gun still slung over his shoulder. "Hey, here's another gun!" she said, picking it up. "
Still works, too, but it could use some cleaning. I'm not any good with one, but maybe someone else can use it." She also took the extra magazines she found.
East of the diner-
"We can't risk getting caught down here if any of those things reach us," said
Samantha. She
inspected the damage to the east wall. "I think it'll be okay if four people are up there, but I wouldn't want to risk any more.
Willie, your rifle's got a scope, so you go up next. We need you shooting and covering the rest of us."
Willie climbed the ladder to the roof.
"What are we going to do now?" asked
Jenny. "We can't both go up there."
Erica and
Baldwin emerged from the back door.
On the roof of the diner-
Beth watched and waited as the mob slowly closed in, but it was still much too far for her to have a decent chance of hitting. "There's so many of them," she said. "Only about half as many as attacked us last time, but still."
Willie reached the roof and took up a position.
(
Luke can fire five times.
Willie can't fire this round since he climbed the ladder, but next time he will be able to fire five times as well, and with no range penalty.)
In the warehouse-
"Have you seen
Dr. Blanco?" asked
Zorie Spooner.
"Is she the other woman in the orange suit?" asked
Azadeh.
Zorie nodded. "She went down those stairs, with the people from the helicopter."
"Thanks." She and
Kimberly walked past
Bob and down the stairs.
"Oh,
Mr. Foo. Here are the keys you lent me."
Azadeh handed him the keys to the Outback.
"Thank you," he said, returning his attention to
Kerry, but
he still could not bring her out of her current mental state.
In the reception area-
Dr. Hausmann shook her head. "I knew they would not believe me,
Stephanie," she said.
"Don't feel bad," she replied as she typed away. "It's not something most people would easily accept. There's so much more I've found out today that I need to tell you. I was thinking that since these reanimated corpses are powered by electricity, a sudden electrical shock might disrupt it and shut them down. It also occurred to me that an electromagnetic pulse could be effective. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance yet to find out if they'll work. From what I could gather from analyzing data from the nuclear blasts in Asia earlier, the pulses seemed to either have no effect or just a temporary one. It seems like it should have an effect, though.
Perhaps a continuous pulse..."
Kimberly and
Zorie Spooner entered the room as she spoke. "That might work," said
Dr. Hausmann, "but I think it would be more effective after we finish what we're doing. Besides, a pulse would destroy the computer, and we cannot have that."
"I know. That's why I wrapped the computers in aluminum foil, to act as a Faraday cage. An EMP would just wash over them without harming what's inside."
"Clever thinking! It would never have occurred to me to do that."
"Thank you."
Stephanie glanced up and saw the new arrivals. "Oh, hi!"
"
Dr. Blanco," said
Zorie. "This is
Kimberly, the woman I told you about. She got bitten by one of the infected in Brownson.
"Oh, no. I'm so sorry..."
"I think I'm okay," said
Kimberly. "Apparently I'm immune for some reason."
"
Possibly immune," said
Angela Blanco. "There could be other explanations. Maybe the symptoms are delayed, or perhaps on rare occasions the bite doesn't transmit the infection. We just don't know."
"Did you come back with the helicopter?" asked
Bo.
"Yeah," said
Kimberly. "
Erica put it down about a mile north of here, and we rode back in the truck. She didn't want to land here because she was afraid that
Captain Lereux would seize the chopper."
"Would he?" asked
Dr. Hausmann.
"He might," said
Stephanie. "He took the computers."
"I guess we could bring the rest of the fuel out to the chopper," said
Kimberly, "but there's a whole pack of those zombies between us and it. They were chasing the truck. Once they're dealt with, though, we can reach the chopper again."
In the hallway-
Robert and the others joined
Jim Kerr in the hallway and covered him as he went to the far door on the left.
Jim carefully opened the door and looked inside. On the other side, he could see a dusty office with no other exits. In the middle of the room, facing the door, was a desk with a chair behind it. A table with more chairs was near the front of the room, off to one side. A filing cabinet was against one wall, and at the back of the room was a bunk.