The World of The Gunny

The Wasted World of Gunnery Sergeant DeShane
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 Post subject: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 25 May 2011 22:39 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Location: Wandering the Wastes
Prologue


Half Moon Bay, California 24 November, 2077


San Francisco police officer Kevin DeShane was in the middle of a dream about winning the Mr. California contest when the dream was, rudely and noisily, interrupted by the harsh ringing of his cordless house phone. “Unless you are dying, you will be when I get ahold of you.” Kevin grunted into the phone, only half awake.

“Very funny officer Deshane, but this is watch commander Major Riley and I have absolutely no time for levity. Mayor Finsternis has delcared Martial Law for San Francisco as of twenty minutes ago, which means you have exactly thirty minutes to report for duty in the squad room at Central on the corner of Market and South Van Ness streets.”

“But sir, that's not my usua--”

“All off duty officers are being mustered at Central for deployment on riot patrol. You have thirty minutes officer Deshane." The phone clicked off.

Kevin was stunned, Martial Law? What the hell was going on? When he went to sleep everything was just fine. So what in the name of the almighty is happening?

Living in Half Moon Bay Kevin knew that the only way he could get to Central in thirty minutes was to go lights and sirens all the way. His feet had already hit the floor by the time this thought had crossed his mind.

Doing a good impression of a sprinter he arrived at his front door in record time, only five minutes had been required to shit, shower, and shave.

He left rubber smoking in his driveway as he pulled out and turned onto Cabrillo Highway, heading north towards San Francisco.

Twenty-five minutes later he was entering the station when he was met by his commanding officer, from his regular duty station on Geary Blvd in the Richmond District. “Jesus Captain, what the hell is going on? Notcing all of the riot gear being passed out.

“The shit has really hit the fan Sergeant," was all he said.

***

Stephen Barrett was violently torn from the first good sleep he had had in days by the shrill, incessant ringing of his cell phone. Groping blindly in the dark for his phone he only succeeded in knocking it off of his nightstand. More than meeting his quota for cursing that day he got out of bed to chase after it.

The light from the led screen burned his eyes. Squinting, he saw it was his brother living in St. Louis. He answered the call in a rather foul mood. “God damnit, James, you have any idea what time it is?”

“Turn on the TV!”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it.” Feeling around under his blankets for the remote Steve turned on the television, still on Trax News from last night. The images on the screen were a fast montage of burning buildings, police in riot gear, and military vehicles.

Whoever the announcer was, they sounded shocked by what they were reporting on. “...unexplained riots. The participants are incredibly violent, almost frenzied in their attacks on bystanders and destroying private property.

“The National Guard in twenty-three states, while the Governors of the other twenty-seven are keeping a close watch on events, are being mobilized to help restore order. We have unconfirmed reports of similar unexplained outbreaks of violence overseas, but have no official word on that at this time.

“Initial attempts to disperse the crowds was met with deadly force. Although details are sketchy, we do know that hospitals in the affected cities are struggling to deal with the sheer volume of the injured, and dying.

“The riots began, in the United States, at Los Angeles late last night around 4am, while here in New York we first received word of similar events just before dawn. The riots here started in Northern Queens and have now spread into parts of Eastern Manhattan, Harlem, and Brooklyn.

“This just in, we have just learned that riots are starting to flare up in Chicago as well as well as Miami, Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, Birmingham, and Seattle. We’ll keep you up to date on anything that...”

“Jesus... James what the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know, bro. It just started at like two in the morning over in London. It’s everywhere now though. Listen, I’m headed up to my cabin in Colorado. I left when they said this crap was going on in Moscow and LA too. Get Jenna and get up here as soon as you can. Traffic’s getting bad, so take some more out of the way roads, if you can. I gotta go bro, call me when you’re on your way.”

“I will.”

“Later bro, take care of yourself.”

“You too.” As soon as James hung up, Steve pressed two on his speed dial, his fiancé’s cell. “Come on, pick up, pick it up damnit!”

“Hello?”

“Jenna, it’s me. Get over here as fast as you can.”

“Why should I do that?” She said as she stifled a yawn.

“Turn on the news. Shit’s going crazy all over the world. I’ve got some stuff I need to do, but we need to get away from here as fast as we can.”

There was a pause and Steve could faintly hear the TV in the background. “Okay, I’m on my way.”

“Jenna... bring your pistol. I don’t know if you’ll need it, but promise me you won’t leave without it.”

“Okay, I promise. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.” Steve hung up and scrambled to get dressed. He did not have the slightest doubt the entire Bay area would be panicking by now, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Mentally he took stock of the items he had on hand. He had a lot of basic survival gear from the times he and his brother went hunting and fishing, as well as two pistols, a pair of rifles, and a twelve gauge, with plenty of ammo for each. Thanking God his profession required him to be armed to the teeth more often than not, he sprinted downstairs to gather up his supplies.

His phone rang while he was opening his gun locker. It was Jenna. “I just heard on the radio, the military has closed the California border. Apparently this is happening in San Francisco now too.”

“Jesus. Okay, we’ll figure something out when you get here. I’m going to call Kevin, see if he can meet us here so we can figure out what to do.”

“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hung up, and Steve dialed Kevin Deshane, an officer in the SFPD, and a good friend of his.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 25 May 2011 22:42 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
Chapter One



Kevin had not seen anything like this before. To him it seemed as if the citizens of San Francisco had gone insane. Downtown around the Embarcadero was like a warzone and everything was in chaos when he recieved a call from Steve on his cell phone.

“Dude, this is not the best of times for a convo. Meet me at my normal duty station in one hour, later bud.” Kevin quickly hung up and jumped back into the melee.

The off duty officers that had been called and told to report in had been formed into scratch patrol units, and were ordered to the waterfront by Mayor Greg Finsternis as riot after riot swept the Embarcadero. The rioting had been swirling back and forth around the Ferry Building and still gripped the downtown industrial area, along with Rincon Hill.

So far the casualties involved with the riots had topped out at over two hundred people killed, along with another three hundred and ten others having been shot. An untold number, including police, had been clubbed, gassed, beaten, and most unusual of all, bitten by other people. In a few cases enough flesh was missing that the victim had bled to death.

San Francisco City Hall

Mayor Finsternis was worried that the situation was escalating out of control and had called his advisors into his office to discuss calling the Governor and requesting National Guard assistance.

Unknown to the Mayor his leaning towards having the Governor mobilize the National Guard had aroused the ire of police chief Terry O’Quinn, whose men have been battling the rioters all night.

“It’s unnecessary,” Chief O’Quinn stated flatly. “It will put rifles in the hands of inexperienced men, they are, afterall, only weekend warriors and would not know how to handle riots of this magnitude.

“And despite the terrific rioting, Mr. Mayor, the trains are still operating on the Belt Line Railroad and the Industrial Association is still sending trucks in between Pier 38 and the King St. warehouses, to resume their efforts to open the port again.

“The trucks are traveling without interference and are arriving at the pier at the rate of close to thirty-four per hour. So the National Guard isn’t needed.” O’Quinn just sat back and smiled smugly, he knew he had the Mayor by the balls, due to the 'item' he had in his pocket.

“Even so, I think I will put in a call to the Governor to be ready just in case they are needed.”

Mayor Finsternis’ call to the Governor preceded a mobilization order that sent guardsmen scurrying to their armories and led one Col. R.E. Leamon of San Francisco to announce to his unit to be ready in case they were ordered onto the Embarcadero.

Fremont, California

Jenna pulled into the driveway right after Steve had finished his one sentence conversation with Kevin. Stepping out onto his front porch, weapon at the ready, he kept a wary eye on the street as she stepped past him into the house.

Once she was in, Steve stepped back inside and closed the door, locking it and engaging the deadbolt. “Kevin told me to meet him at the precinct in an hour. What’s it like out there?”

“Bad, really bad,” Jenna said, suppressing a shiver. “Traffic’s horrible coming out of the city. The police have closed off a lot of downtown Oakland, where the riots are the worst. It’s going to be next to impossible to get out of here. The San Mateo, Dunbarton, and Bay Bridges are closed and guarded by police. Only thing running is the new monorail between San Fran and Oakland.”

“Well, at least for now, that’s not our priority. With the California border closed we may have to stay put. I’m thinking we’re gonna want to figure out the best place to ride this out.”

“Where?”

“Not sure yet. Before we can go anywhere though, I need to finish getting the stuff together. Most of it’s with my camping gear, but I wanna make sure I don’t forget anything that could come in handy.”

They spent forty minutes scraping together gear that would be useful in what was coming, but ended up no closer to thinking of a safe place in the city or suburbs than where they were when they had started.

Glancing at his watch Steve tucked a pistol into his belt. “I’ve gotta go meet Kevin. You stay here, keep everything locked until I get back, keep the windows closed, don’t open the door for anyone, even people we know. Everything’s gone crazy and to hell in a handbasket, I don’t wanna take any risks. I’ll call you when I’m on my way back. Okay?”

Jenna patted her own pistol, lying on the end table by the door, “I think I can manage.”

He kissed her goodbye. “Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can. Watch the news, see if you can find anything out.” He stepped outside, but didn’t leave the porch until he heard her lock the door behind him. Pulling out of the driveway, he hoped Kevin could shed some light on what was happening.

The Embarcadero, San Francisco

Bitter and repeated rioting had been raging in front of the Ferry Building from morning until late afternoon. Kevin could not believe how bitterly these civilians were resisting their attempts to quell the riots.

It was like they saw the end of the world coming and lost any reason to live beyond looting and pillaging. Eventually the police opened fire with gas grenades, using tear gas in an attempt to disperse the rioters. However, it seemed to be doing little good.

Chief O’Quinn had taken personal charge late in the afternoon. When his cruiser appeared on the scene the rioters met it with a shower of rocks and other detrius from the battle. Unfortunately, for all concerned, he escaped injury.

The Embarcadero rioters, after about thirty minutes, had begun picking up the tear gas grenades and hurling them back at the police. While they were doing that the police opened fire once again and six were shot and killed when the battle shifted back to Steuart and Mission Streets. Nobody had noticed it yet, but the police were slowly getting penned in by the rioters.

After figuring out they were being outflanked, and to break the siege, the police began using military grade CS gas for the first time in the ongoing battle. Using the CS gas and a frontal attack of shielded, baton-wielding line of officers they eventually cleared the area directly in front of the Ferry Building, despite a barrage of rocks from gangs of men in two service stations across the Embarcadero.

The squads of police began to get the upper hand and started to drive every citizen, whether they were rioting or not, from the streets on the Embarcadero.

Unfortunately for the police as soon as they began to clear the Embarcadero new riots broke out that caused a virtual panic near Rincon Hill.

It seemed as if during the noon hour there was an informal truce while both sides caught their second winds. Then... a Belt Line locomotive hauled a boxcar into Pier 18, came out, coupled to a long line of cars on the Embarcadero, and started hauling its cargo. For some reason this set off the rioters once again. A large crowd of rioters had gathered at Steuart and Folsom, and from this crowd they began shooting at the train.

The weary police once again attacked with CS gas. Even though most of the rioters were coughing their lungs up they had broken through the police lines on a vacant lot adjacent to pier 14. The retreating rioters, on their way out, had set fire to buildings while they ran towards Steuart and Howard.

When the pursuing police arrived at Spear and Main Streets, the reinforced rioters began to once again began to attack the police. The officers retaliated with CS gas grenades while the air was full of missiles from the rioters.

The new barrage of CS gas broke up this fight and the rioters started streaming back to the Embarcadero. In front of the Seaboard Hotel they made a stand, hurling rocks, bottles, and anything they could find. The exhausted police opened fire. Many of the of the rioters went down, the police no longer trying to keep citizen casualties to the minimum.

The rioters were driven up Steuart and Mission Streets. There they made a more determined stand in front of the I.L.A. headquarters. Rioters were on the roofs, hurling bricks and taking shots at the policemen on the street below. Others threw stones at the officers from the sidewalks.

The fighting was still going on around the I.L.A headquarters as other riots began to break out. The first at Steuart and Mission, and another at Steuart and Folsom.

A squad of armored police, under Kevin's command, carrying their tonfas and gas grenades, began mopping up the leakers on the Embarcadero, literally ejecting the rioters back onto Steuart street. The rioters were using the alley as a passage between the Embarcadero and Steuart.

Hardly had these rioters been dispersed when another fight broke out directly in front of the Ferry Building.

***

Kevin was exhausted and was wondering why he had been pulled out of the line, given a patrol cruiser, and told to head for the armory at 14th and Mission, where he was to coordinate the building of barricades of sandbags around the armory.

He suddenly understood why when he arrived... outside of the Armory was a crowd of several thousand citizens. The National Guard was barely keeping them back.

***

By late afternoon the orders for the National Guard mobilization had come in from Governor Adam Reese in Sacramento, overiding chief O’Quinn’s protest. A few moments later Col. Leamon announced that the 250th infantry, which he commands, had been ordered onto the Embarcadero and that law and order would be restored and maintained.

Also mobilized for duty were the fifteen units of the 159th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Wayne Allenby of Oakland. Four if his companies were located in San Francisco, seven in Oakland, three in Berkeley and one in Alameda.

Included in this force was a machine gun company from Oakland, a medical company from Berkley and a howitzer company from Oakland. Maj. Gen. David P. Barrows, former president of the University of California at Berkley, was in overall command of the San Francisco Mobilization.

The 184th Infantry, including companies of 160 men each in Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Napa, and Gilroy were included in the mobilization, and were commanded by Col. Charles R. Blut, from Sacramento.

***

Kevin watched as the Guardsmen, with bayonets fixed, began patrolling the streets near the Embarcadero. He looked forward to getting out of his stinking uniform and into a steaming, hot shower. It had been one hell of a day so far. He only wondered what the night would bring.

When he finally pulled up in front of the police station on the corner of Geary and Arguelo and walked in he noticed Steve waiting for him. He had completely forgotten about his friend with all of the crap that had gone down today.

He wearily walked over to Steve and said with a bone-tired voice, “Dude, I feel like shit.”

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 26 May 2011 09:05 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
Steve had been waiting at the police station for several hours, in constant contact with Jenna at home as he waited for Kevin to show. Luckily he had brought his laptop, enabling him to stay abreast of the situation.

Major cities all over the world were in chaos. Information coming out of the first few cities indicated there was some sort of mass hysteria gripping the rioters, or maybe some sort of disease. Air travel all over the world had been shut down. Posse Comitatus in the US had been suspended with marshal law declared. The US military had been mobilized, along with the various state National Guards federalized, to stamp the riots out.

Overseas, the situation was just as bad. As incoherent as the news was, it seemed that the Russian Army had taken massive casualties trying to stamp the riots out in Moscow and St. Petersburg, along with having all but ceded the cities to the rioters. The PLA was fighting a losing battle in Beijing and Shenyang. Still no word on the location of several heads of state from either country.

In the police precinct where Steve was sitting he could, occasionally, hear bursts of gunfire, punctuated by screams and yelling. The staccato beat of a civilization on the brink of collapse. Finally, when he was just about to leave for home, Kevin walked in the door, looking haggard and drawn, blood staining his uniform in more than a few spots.

“Jesus, man, you look like shit.” Steve said with a grimace.

Kevin grinned tiredly, “I worked hard for this look, so be nice.” He gave Steve the Cliff’s Notes version of his day, eliciting a rather surprised reaction from him.

“Well, I was going to let you have it for being so late, but I’ll let it slide... this time. The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and I think with the military here now, it’s only going to get worse. We need to meet and figure out what our next move should be. In the next couple days, things could get really rough here.”

“Give me a little bit to shower and grab some stuff, I’ll be over to your place right after, ok?”

“Sounds good. I’ll see if I can find anything else out while I wait. Oh, and Kevin?”

“Yeah?”

“Come heavily armed.”

“Naturally,” Kevin said with a grin.

***

Steve had just walked in the door to his house when someone rang the doorbell. Pulling out his pistol as he turned, he looked out the peephole in the front door. It was his friend John Riverson, a former lieutenant with the Oakland Police Department.

John had been fired for finding out more than he should about some criminal activity in the city, namely, that the mayor and police chief was taking a healthy cut from more than a few extralegal sources.

As part of his ‘Keep your mouth shut’ incentive, John had been given a healthy severance package and a rather large pension, leaving him free to do whatever he wanted. ‘Whatever he wanted,’ was generally to become more cynical and jaded every day, which was one of the things that endeared him to Steve.

Pistol at the ready Steve opened the door. John smiled, “Hi Steve. Hi Steve’s pistol.”

Steve smirked at John's mirth. “What brings you to my neck of the cracker woods?”

“Oh, well, I was taking a walk, getting a breath of fresh tear gas when I decided I would stop by and vist with you and Jen. You going to invite me in or bust a cap in my black ass?”

“Can’t I do both?” Steve said with a huge grin, opening the door.

“I decided to take you up on your offer,” John said as he stepped into the house. Back when he had been released from the OPD, Steve had offered him a job at his firm, working as his assistant.

“What makes you think we’re accepting applications?”

“Because the market for your security services is booming.” An explosion, made all the more quiet by distance, met their ears. “See? Actually, I was wondering if you had made any plans regarding the next couple days. Seeing as how everything’s gone to hell and all. I figured I’d see if you had room onboard for a pissed off ex-cop.”

“Does that pissed off ex-cop come heavily armed?”

“To the teeth.”

“Welcome aboard!” They laughed and Steve said, “I’m actually expecting Kevin here any minute and while we wait, I’ll fill you in on what I know.”

***

Back at the precinct, Kevin was on his way out the door when Captain Ryerson called him over. “What is it, sir?” Kevin asked, eager to be on his way.

“We’ve got a... situation at St. Francis Memorial hospital. I’m not sure what exactly is going on, but it doesn’t look to be the same kind of rioting. I need you to take some men and head over there.”

“Sir, isn't there anybody else you can send? I have been on my feet since I was called last night. I am dead tired.” He looked it to.

“There is no one else to send. We need to find out what's happening. St. Francis was the first hospital to recieve cases of this insane rioter bug, or whatever the hell it is. So get over there ASAP, and take your SWAT team.”

Kevin just sighed, “yes sir,” and turned to get his men.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 27 May 2011 10:43 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
Chapter Two


USS Iowa, Coast of California


While the rest of the world was reeling from news of mass rioting and civil disorder, a former Virginia class ballistic missile submarine, a ‘boomer’, was gliding silently beneath the Pacific ocean’s surface, blissfully unaware of the extent of the chaos that was happening in the US.

The USS Iowa was returning from an exercise to test a new SOCOM delivery method. They had been operating under strict communications guidelines, simulating a wartime condition where contact with COMSUBPAC would be detrimental to the safety and security of the boat. Therefore they could not contact, or be contacted by, the outside world.

In reality, the fault was due to a small thirty-nine cent fuse that had burned out without notice. This little item controlled the red light that signaled a priority message from CINCPAC/COMSUBPAC. If the red light did not flash, the printer would not send the message and would just hold it in the buffer.

Some civilian engineer had thought that was a good idea, and for the money his company was charging to build that particular system he really did not care. The issue of a problem was never brought up since the red light warning system was built by a different company and it was not part of the original design.

Due to the mass confusion resulting from the surface rioting, the low tasking priority of the Iowa, and the fact that it was no longer an active missile boat, no one at COMSUBPAC noticed that the Iowa had failed to respond to the coded emergency message.

A new petty officer, fresh out his ‘A’ School, scared, nervous, and not knowing exactly who to tell about the failure to respond, finally assumed that the submarine fell into the ‘out of service’ category. Much like the vessels being used to track whale migration patterns for the environmentalists.


***


Captain Damon Richardson, Commander of the Iowa, was a naval veteran who had come up through the submarine fleet and now had command of this vessel. This was his last cruise. He was finally looking forward to retiring after twenty-eight years of service with numerous boat and shore-based commands.

Richardson leaned over the chart table and mentally calculated the distance left to Bangor Naval Base. His short-cropped hair showing faint streaks of gray and had a set of half-spectacles perched on top of his head.

“Diving officer, bring us up to periscope depth.”

“Periscope depth, aye sir.”

Richardson moved easily towards the center section of the command bridge, his movements smooth like an athlete, not those of someone who had two decades in the subsurface fleet, where he smoothly grabbed the controls to raise the periscope.

Richardson tried to keep in shape, but these days it was almost a losing battle. Somewhat of a fitness nut he used every chance to workout when not on deployment. He chuckled to himself about the chin-up bar he still kept in the small shower of his private head.

“Sonar, any surface contacts?” Richardson asked, while waiting for the periscope to rise to its pre-assigned height, before he put his eyes to the rubber cups.

“Conn, Sonar, negative surface contact.” Richardson swiveled the periscope around slowly, looking at the calm surface above. He was glad the polarization filters were in place, or the bright sunlight might have made him wince as it reflected off the water and into the expensive optics.

“COB, surface the boat.” Richardson said as he swiveled the handles upright on the scope and sent it back down. “Mr. Ridley, contact COMSUBPAC and let them know we’ve completed our testing and are returning to port.”

Chief Wilkinson, a burly man who was close to retirement, and one that some of the younger sailors thought of as a father figure, leaned forward, relayed the order to the seaman manning the dive controls of the large vessel.

“XO, you have the Conn, I’ll be in my quarters.” Richardson stated as he went aft of the command area, down a small ladder, and through a passageway to his quarters.


***


Further aft, just outside the wet locker/storage area, Lieutenant JG Norman Richlen, SEAL team commander, team Bayonet, was reviewing the reports of the completed exercise.

He was seated at a small bench, which were attached to the new bulkhead that had been installed outside of the dive out area or ‘the Barn’ as his team called it. ‘The Barn’ was aptly named because of the large hydraulically operated hinged doors, which were reminiscent of a set of barn doors when they swung open.

He was wearing his standard shipboard uniform, an OD green Nomex flight suit, partially unzipped to reveal a black tee-shirt, trouser legs tucked into a pair of lightweight Hi-Tec boots.

This bench was his little ‘fortress of solitude’ amidst the hustle and bustle of equipment being cleaned and stowed for the return trip. He was young by SEAL standards, having gone to BUD/S straight from Basic, with no ‘A school option.

He had been in the Navy ROTC in college and had enrolled in the SEAL Challenge. From there to BUD/S then SQT. He tried to grow a mustache to look older, but only succeeded in looking like he had a thin line of chocolate milk on his lip.

Norman was reviewing the results of the new delivery method, which looked promising. Occasionally he would glance up at his team as they cleaned and stored their equipment, sharing jokes or ribbing each other good-naturedly.

His team was wearing a mix of uniforms, the SEALS wore black BDU trousers with the SEAL/UDT blue and gold tee-shirt, others were in UDT swim shorts with the same shirt, and the few Marines had cutoff the legs on some woodland digital pattern BDU trousers and had turned them into shorts.

What stood out the most to Norman was the casualness that they had towards each other. Even though they were from different branches of the US armed forces they acted as a team. His team chatted, joked, and smoked as they worked.

Norman looked back up and caught the eye of his team's Master Chief, motioning him over. “Rama, what’s this about a snag?” Lt. Richlen asked Rama Toulon.

Master Chief Rama Toulon, a tall wiry black man with more than twenty-six years with the teams sported a shaved head under his baseball style cap with the SOCOM emblem, a small red aquatic seal tattooed on his large forearm, walked over to where Norman sat.

“Ell-tee, it’s not that bad, one of the zodiacs hung up on the initial deployment. One of those tie-down straps popped and slowed up our ascent rate. The boat crew had to bail some water out of it. Damn thing almost inflated on the way up.”

“Thanks Chief. I’ll talk to Snyder about that, it was his boat.” Rama grinned and walked back over to check on the dive equipment. Paperwork is never done.

With some more training, a little fine-tuning, the method would be a boon to the SPECWAR community. Norman returned to his review, making notes in the margins for his official report.


***


Further forward, in the communications compartment, the radioman did a standard check of his equipment and found the faulty fuse. He requested, through his CPO, to get one from stores and fix the problem.

Along the way to stores he made a stop at the head, then chatted with a shipmate in engineering. Finally, reaching stores, he fumbled through the supply closet before finding the correct replacement.

When he got back to the radio shack it was a good hour later. He then took another forty-five minutes to carefully unscrew the faceplate, remove the burned out fuse, check the connections then inserted the new fuse.

He put the old fuse in his pocket then ran a systems check to make sure the new fuse worked properly. He sent the coded message to COMSUBPAC, notifying them that the Iowa was enroute to its homeport.

He had just sent the message when the red light flashed, informing him of emergency flash traffic. At first he thought it might be another faulty fuse but then the SATCOM fax began spitting out several sheets of paper. He glanced at the first page as it printed, after reading the first two lines he notified the COB and then called Captain Richardson.


***


“Captain, flash traffic from CINCPAC.” The speaker barked in Richardson’s quarters.

“Pipe it down here, sparks,” Richardson ordered.

“To all commanders. Naval units currently deployed have been ordered to assist civilian authorities where ever possible. National civil unrest and rioting has occurred in most major cities. Naval forces are now at DEFCON 2.”

That announcement made Richardson reach for a legal size notepad, pushing aside his previous paperwork, preparing to take down the pertinent information.

“Vessels returning to port are to remain offshore as long as possible. Under no circumstances are you to dock unless the facilities have been secured and no rioters are present.

Rioters have taken control of several civilian port facilities and are to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Use extreme caution if any are present. They appear to be infection carriers. A list of symptoms is being sent to you via secure SATCOM fax.

If for any reason you need to go ashore, go well-armed. Any infected encountered should be avoided. If contact is inevitable, engage with extreme prejudice at your discretion. Further information will follow.”

Richardson sat there, listening, intent to hear what might come next.

“Until control of the situation can be attained on a national level, all units still operating will be under regional command to be determined by the onsite commanders. That is all.”

Captain Richardson had been taking notes at a furious pace, not wanting to miss out on any of the details. He underlined the word communication, since his first priority was to establish contact with other ships and land bases so some sort of chain of command could be determined.

He reached over and snapped on the intercom to the bridge. “Mr. Ridley, notify all department heads and the embarked SOCOM commander to be in the ready room in ten minutes. Have Doc Johnson there and bring a copy of the flash traffic with you.”

He released the button and took a deep breath. Holy shit. What was happening? Why now? He got up and went to his private head, splashed water on his face before drying his face and hands, grabbing his notes he headed for the ready room.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 28 May 2011 19:19 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
***

In St. Francis Memorial Hospital, what had already been a confusing and chaotic situation had just descended into the ninth level of hell. Doctor Thad Hooper had been in the emergency room treating as many people as he could when the impossible happened.

The wounded and dying had been streaming in all day, injuries and deaths from the riots, injuries during the looting, whatever. Several dead and severely injured people were brought in with what appeared to be bite marks from other humans, while some were missing chunks of flesh.

The attending doctor had been asking one man about his injuries when his condition started deteriorating. At first he started complaining that he was cold. He began to shiver, his lips and fingertips turning blue at the same time. The patient eventually lost consciousness and died soon there after. All attempts by the doctor in his attempts to resuscitate the man did nothing.

The patient was in the throes of a grand mal seizure when his heart abruptly stopped. All attempts by the emergency room staff with CPR and the paddles were unsuccessful. The attending physician, after ten minutes of effort, declared the man dead. During the ten minutes it took the orderlies to arrive, four more of the people that had been bitten earlier had expired, with two more experiencing the strange symptoms.

As the orderlies lifted the man off the bed, however, his hand reached out, grasping one of their arms. The orderly that had been grabbed cried out in shock and jumped back just as the assumed dead man lunged forward, biting her in the forearm.

Together, two of the other orderlies pulled the man off of her, but he got back up and started attacking them. When the hospital security officer arrived he warned the man to stop. But the man ignored them and continued shuffling down the corridor towards him. The security officer fired three times into the man’s chest, to no apparent effect. The next shot the security guard fired went wild as he screamed when another one of the other, suddenly re-animated, patients bit down on his leg.

The next fifteen minutes was utter chaos. Dr. Hooper and a nurse managed to escape, but there were more than a dozen of the abominations in the hospital now, killing and maiming everyone they came across. To make matters worse the power to the hospital suddenly failed, while the emergency generators, old and poorly maintained, chugged to life for less than five minutes before breaking down.

The surviving hospital staff was now trapped on their floors, in a pitch black hospital, with at least twelve re-animated horrors shambling around. Dr. Hooper and his nurse were not totally helpless though. Thad had taken a flashlight and pistol from a dead security officer during the mad dash to get out.

The doors to the outside had been hopelessly clogged with people trying to escape, while the underground garage would have been sealed when power was lost, making escaping that way impossible. Having nowhere else to go, they went up.

Thad’s narrow beam of light revealed little of the corridor they were traveling down. He had not spent much time on the upper floors, but the basic design of every floor was made as similar as possible, which helped a little. Still, in the dark, it was very disorienting.

Creeping slowly along the hallway Thad shushed the nurse when he heard a scraping noise up ahead. Cautiously bringing his light up, he saw a man, bloody and ragged, crawling towards them.

“Doctor!”

Reacting more from surprise than design, Thad fired the pistol, which bucked wildly in his hand, sending the round into the floor beside the man.

“Three of them... downstairs... help me!” The man feebly croaked out. Moving over to the injured man, he saw what he already suspected. The man had lost far too much blood from far too many bite wounds. The nurse bent over to help him as he started entering the seizure. He pulled her down to him and started tearing at her with tooth and claw.

Thad knew she was gone as soon as she hit the floor next to the bloody man. He fired three shots, two of them hitting the nurse, the third wasting itself in the torso of the abomination. Still dragging the nurse, it crawled towards Thad. Thad backed up, desperately trying to figure out what to do.

His back was against a pair of elevator doors, which were partially open. He quickly turned and tried to work his fingers into the groove, trying to force them open. As the ‘ghoul’ worked its way closer, he managed to get the door to open about a foot. Straining, he opened them all the way, nearly falling when they finally gave. Groping blindly in the dark he found the emergency ladder just as the monster grabbed his ankle.

Instinctively he kicked back to get it to loosen its grip, throwing him off balance. He fell forward into the shaft, barely holding onto the ladder with his left hand. The reanimated... thing, did not have the same type of luck, and fell down the shaft still clutching the bloody remains of the nurse. Thad heard a wet smack as they struck the bottom of the shaft.

Slowly descending the ladder he found that the elevator was at the basement, allowing him to use its roof to access the first floor. The man who had fallen, or what was left of him, was splattered all over the elevator roof and walls of the shaft. The nurse had landed on him, leaving her mostly intact.

Forcing the elevator doors open Thad found himself in the main lobby of the hospital. Dark and deserted, the place had an almost alien feel to it. Through its large glass doors he could see the city of San Francisco burning out of control due to the riots.

Climbing out of the elevator shaft and onto the marble floor of the lobby he slowly shuffled toward the doors. He thought he saw a couple of dark figures moving beyond the maon doors when a noise behind him drew his attention.

Whirling around he saw his nurse, one arm hanging by a thread, the two bullet holes in her chest still wet, lunging towards him. He dodged, and jumped over the main desk counter, looking for safety. She nearly ran headlong into the doors before correcting her course, turning around to face him.

He thought for sure he was dead when the doors opened and a group of armed policemen ran in. The nurse turned around towards them as Thad ducked behind the counter, thanking a God he had doubted for forty-three years for his rescue as gunfire erupted in the lobby.

***

The clouds overhead were just starting to break, allowing shafts of moonlight to touch the earth. As the sound of fighting dwindled into the distance, the moon danced across the chrome handles on the Hospital’s main entryway.

Kevin and his team had just arrived in the lobby when what appeared to be a doctor, leapt over the counter pursued by a nurse with her arm hanging on by only a few strands of muscle and skin.

Kevin never hesitated, he opened fire and the rounds impacted the upper torso, along with her head. He ran over to where the doctor had jumped over the main counter, “We need to know who you are. Who was that chasing you?”

The doctor just stared at him for a moment before answering, “Mm-my name is Dr Thad Hooper. I'm a cardiologist.”

“If thats the case, what are you doing here at this time of night doc?” Kevin asked, while directing his team to take up positions around the main entryway.

“I was working the ER due to all of the rioting and casualties so I got...” at that moment three nurses ran around the corner and one of them ran into one of Kevin's team, tripping over the crouching man.

Shuffling and dragging feet could be heard coming from around the corner as Kevin helped his man up. “What the fuck is that!?” He he suddenly shouted out, bewildered by the grotesque sight. A strange smell, more powerful than the smell of the anti-septic air of the hospital which enveloped them as the swat team helped the nurses to their feet. The smell was death.

Kevin was watching the scene unfold as the civilians stood back up. The shuffling got louder and he saw the mass of re-animated corpses for the first time and realized what his team was up against. “Gents, we have a hostile extraction. Get the civilians out.”

Kevin began to speak, “This is the Sergeant Kevin DeShane with the San Francisco police department, I order you to disperse or we will be forced to use a lethal response,” He bellowed out. “I repeat, I order you to disperse or we will open fire!”

“AHHH!!” Screams came from the back of the hospital and a few doctors and nurses came running out into the main lobby, they were being attacked by their former patients.

“I knew this was going to be a bad day...” Kevin mumbled to himself.

“You have twenty seconds...

OPEN FIRE! I REPEAT, OPEN FIRE!” He yelled through the bullhorn then threw it down, brought his M-4 up to his shoulder and fired at the patients attacking the doctors.

The police began firing their weapons, people screaming and yelling, explosions, launchers firing more CS grenades, chatter on the radio, it was anything but silence. It was the sound of war and they were shit out of luck...

SIR! We've got incoming!” Dan yelled to Kevin over the chaos.

“I know that Danny, damnit! We have about four minutes until they get to us!” Kevin yelled back.

The officers were still firing at the crowd of advancing people, but they were not making much of a dent. The ones who were shot and fell down were trampled by the mob, the ones who did not fall, kept coming.

“Our weapons aren’t doin’ anything!” A twelve year veteran of the force named Jerry yelled out. Panic evident in his voice.

“Fall back to the main entryway of the hospital!” Kevin yelled at the top of his lungs.

“GO GO!” One of the officers yelled.

The group of twelve men made it into the hospital entryway. Only four of them made it out of the war zone that had engulfed the halls of the hospital.

BLAM! Kevin shot a woman in scrubs that was charging one of his men from behind with her mouth wide open. “Check her!” He called out.

“She’s gone. Bite marks on her back and neck, shit I’m telling you we need the army in here!” Jerry yelled.

“There is no army, we need to get clear of this hospital. We are truly fucked...” Kevin said, mumbling the last part to himself.

“AHHH” Bang! Bang! Somewhere across the hall screeched out, gunshots, and glass shattering were heard over the noise of the rioters banging on the doors.

“Kevin!” Dan yelled from that direction. Kevin sprinted to the calling voice and found Dan holding Jerry. Two rioters had found a way in and bit him up good.

“What the hell happened!?” Kevin asked.

“Two of ‘em got in, they were on Jerry so I shot ‘em.” Dan said, emotion choking his voice.

Before they could move him, Jerry was up and tackling Dan. Before Kevin could react Jerry had already bitten Dan four times and had taken a good four ounce chunk of flesh out of his arm. BLAM! Kevin put one round through his head and picked up the screaming Dan.

Rogers was the first one back and directed Doc Hooper to start laying down fire with his loaned M-4. As the rest of the team got to the entryway they added their weapons to the firing, effectively pushing back the infected horde. Some of the undead that Doc Hooper had shot were getting back up.

Webb started using his M-41A3 Winchester rifle, dropping the closest re-animated corpses with well-placed headshots. Kevin had Hanson hold open the entryway to allow the doctors and nurses to pass through quickly.

Rogers switched weapons with Doc Hooper so the Doc could check out the survivors as they went by. Kevin realized where that strange new smell was coming from, the hostiles they were engaging.

“Aim for the head!” Rogers yelled out over the eriely quiet of the encroaching mass. He raadjusted his aim after he noticed several infected get back up after taking bursts to their torsos.

More and more of the infected seemed to be coming out of the hospitals darkened hallways, pouring out of the dark rooms, moving in on their tenacious position, shuffling, not making a sound while shambling forward.

Webb sighted in on a shuffling corpse moving down the hallway to his right, the shot went through the forehead then continued into the side of the head of another, dropping both and blocking the way for the others, which were bottled up behind the two. Mildly surprised, Webb swiveled to find more targets.

“Stand by to peel!” Kevin yelled out, firing a single shot into the head of the nearest walking corpse.

“Last man!” Doc Hooper yelled out as he pushed a nurse through the entryway.

“Peel!” Kevin yelled, switching to full auto fire, mowing down several dozen undead.

Rogers started to lay down covering fire as everyone else went to full auto fire, cutting huge swaths of the undead down. One by one they fired off a thirty round magazine on full auto, tapped the man next to them, then dove through the entryway.

“Last man!” Hanson yelled out and dove through the entryway.

GO! GO! GO!” Kevin yelled as he left the horrific scene of the hospital behind him.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 29 May 2011 16:54 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
Chapter Three


Captain Richardson conducted the briefing and answered any questions he he could, which were not too many. Most of the men assembled sat there with shocked expressions, except for Lieutenant Richlen. Internally he was shocked at what Captain Richardson described, but he was adept in keeping his emotions in check, partly due to training, but mostly because he had always had a good poker face.

“Sir, let me get this straight,” Lieutenant Spencer Peters, engineering section, said as he read over his copy of the SATCOM fax. “Civilians are rioting and biting each other. Then, somehow, the bite victim gets infected and goes violent?” He shook his head, “I’m sorry sir, it just sounds like a bad George Romero movie.”

“Lieutenant Peters, thank you for your insight. No matter how outrageous it sounds, this is what is happening. If this was an exercise there should have been an OP order referring it. If such an order was issued then this entire scenario is a drill. However, that is an assumption I’m not willing to make at this time. It’s been suggested that we treat this as a viral/biological event.”

"What we know is in the documents handed out to you. People are, apparently, attacking each other, biting each other, and the victims become violent shortly thereafter, apparently from some sort of infection. What I’ve read of the symptoms it seems to work incredibly fast. Civilian authorities are having a difficult time restoring order and have requested military assistance. We will do whatever we can to support their operations.

Richardson continued. “As you can see, section four, third paragraph, it mentions that shooting the infected has no visible effect.” Richardson paused to let that sink in. “Officially we don’t shoot non-combatants. But in this case we will view the infected as combatants, if they do not respond to verbal commands or warning shots. Failing acceptable responses, we will have no alternative but to engage them with appropriate force. Look at the bottom of section four, it recommends shooting the infected in the head. That should be a last resort.”

Captain Richardson looked at assembled department heads before he continued. “I think we will have to view each incident and then determine what level of force is necessary. Any questions or comments?”

“Captain, before coming here I had radio try to contact Hunter’s Point in San Francisco Bay. Nothing yet sir.” Ridley added.

Richardson nodded solemnly. The assembled men began talking amongst themselves. “Very well then, gentlemen. You have your orders. I want to see a complete list of our shipboard resources by 1400 hrs. Dismissed.”

All the department heads filed out, except for Lieutenant Richlen. “Captain.”

“Yes lieutenant?”

“I would like to get a copy of the medical information for my corpsman, along with volunteering my men for recon of any onshore sites.”

“See Ridley before you head aft.”

Norman turned to go but stopped at the door. “Dave? Is this shit for real?” He asked.

“Yeah Norm, it would appear so.” Richardson confirmed.

***

“Ell-tee you bullshitting us?” Rama Toulon, team sniper asked from behind his tinted Zeiss shooting glasses.

“No Master Chief, I’m not. This is the real deal.”

“Gawd damn Ell-tee. What the fuck?” Petty Officer 2nd Class Chad Snyder, the team commo expert said, adding his southern twang to the conversation.

“Stow that shit Chad.” Norman snapped out, chiding him, pointing a meaty finger at the man.

“You know what I know. This is some serious shit. No doubt we will soon be going into harms way. Doc Johnson has all of the details that command knows at this time. I want everyone to read it, make notes, review it, and discuss it amongst yourselves. When I get something new, I’ll pass it on.”

Lt. Richlen turned to Rama. “Chief, with me.” He turned and walked to his onboard cabin, Rama trailing behind. Norman wanted to talk to the senior enlisted man, pick his brains on the current tactical situation.

***

Several hours later, all of the department heads had returned their plans and Captain Richardson was reviewing them in his quarters with Lt. Cdr. Ridley.

“The only good news we have is from stores and engineering. Apparently we have enough food for eight months, maybe a year if we half ration.” Captain Richardson thought about how fortunate it was that the Iowa was not an operational boomer, with only half the normal crew, since it increased the length their food stores would last. “This old tub is still listed as a missile boat and supply loads us according to that. Engineering tells me the reactor was overhauled two months ago so we have prime fuel rods and the desalinization plant is operating at peak efficiency.”

Ridley nodded in affirmation to all of what the Captain had just read off before commenting. “Sir, the crew has heard some of it and you know how scuttlebutt is. They’re planning on watching some old zombie movie in the galley tonight.”

“Whatever works for them,” Richardson said, looking up at Ridley. “I want you to keep an eye on the crew for me and tell all of the officers and senior enlisted to do the same. We can’t afford for someone to lose it now.”

“Aye sir,” Ridley said as he sceibbled down a note on the clipboard he held. “One more thing, the radio did have some sporadic contact about the Presidio on the civilian band. What we could make out was that it was a displaced person center and then something happened at the St. Francis hospital. We’ve had no further contact. The civilian net is pretty chaotic.”

“I see,” Richardson murmured to himself as he put his hand on his chin while he began to think about how something could have affected an entire military installation and the secure comm net. “Have them keep scanning the civilian net, any information we can get will be beneficial. Any luck with any of the other naval vessels?”

“We did contact a sub tender leaving Guam and a Coast Guard cutter on patrol off of Los Angeles.”

“The tender we could use. Out of Guam? Damn. That’s a long trip for them. Any word on their crew or supplies on board?”

“Full complement. They estimate twenty-two days until they can rendezvous with us.”

“Twenty-two days? We can hold out that long with no problems.”

“What about that cutter?”

“They were on a regular drug patrol and were heading back to port when they got a distress call from a civilian sailboat. They report that two civilians were on board and something about the dead coming back to life and attacking the living.”

Richardson looked at Ridley with a raised eyebrow. “Obviously in some form of shock. Let’s not spread that around.” If they only knew the truth, Richardson thought dejectedly, sure wish I did. “See if you can get some verification on that report. The civilians might have been under the influence of some sort of controlled substance.” He looked up at Ridley, “Keep that report under your hat.”

“Aye sir.” Ridley nodded and made more notes.

“Contact that cutter and let them know that we are attempting to reach Hunter’s Point in San Francisco. Give them a sitrep, captain’s eyes only. Don’t tell them what type of vessel we are yet. We’ll keep that on a need to know.”

“I’ll see to it.”

“Anything else Mr. Ridley?”

“No sir.” Ridley paused before turning. “Oh, there is one more item. We’ll pass the lighthouse at Treasure Island just after dusk. It’s been tradition to contact the lighthouse keeper. We might be able to use that for independent confirmation of the situation.”

“Very well Mr. Ridley. Ring me in my cabin when we get in range.”

“Yes sir.”

“That will be all Mr. Ridley.”

“Very well sir.” Ridley turned and left the captain’s quarters.

Just after 1730hrs

“Sir, contact with the lighthouse keeper has been established.” The speaker squawked in Richardson's cabin.

“Very well, I’m on my way.”

“Hello Navy. This is the lighthouse keeper, Treasure Island. How goes it?” The voice crackled over the speaker.

“Treasure Island, this is Naval vessel Eagle Hunter One One. Request station verification.”

“Naval Vessel this is the operator at Treasure Island Lighthouse, station ID is KLXW9857. How copy Navy?”

“Station ID confirmed Treasure Island.”

“You boys a little jumpy this evening?” the old voice asked.

“Negative on that Treasure. Just checking out the signal strength, got a newbie working the comm gear.”

“Glad to be of help Navy,” The voice chuckled.

Richardson entered the Conn and walked over to where Ridley and Chief Wilkinson stood listening to the radio exchange. Richardson grabbed his deck coat from the locker, slipped it on, zipped it up, and then picked up a set of image intensifiers from the shelf above the coats.

“Mr. Ridley, slow to one half. I’m going topside to look around.”

“Aye sir, slowing to one half.”

Richardson climbed the ladder inside the conning tower to the upper deck. Fresh sea air and a strong breeze greeted him as he popped out the hatch, nodded to the deck watch then put the image intensifiers to his eyes. He scanned the horizon before focusing on the lighthouse off to the starboard side. He reached down and flipped the switch, which would allow him to listen in on the radio chatter.

“Say Navy, can you spare a cup of sugar for an old sailor?” The lighthouse keeper was asking.

“You short of supplies there Treasure?”

“Ayup. My supply ship is running late and I’m down to my hard stores. Thought my radio was broke but then you called me.”

“Wait one Treasure.” Richardson heard the click as the inter-ship intercom kicked in.

“Captain, I request permission to send a shore party out and verify the conditions.” Ridley called up to the observation deck.

Richardson thought it over for a few seconds, his eyes still pressed to the rubber eyecups of his II's as he stared at the lighthouse. “Very well Mr. Ridley. Inform Lieutenant Richlen he has a mission.”

“Aye sir.”

In the aft area

“Get those zodiacs prepped. Four man team per boat. Wilson, you and Jensen will hang tight at the zodiacs and cover our asses when we hit the rocks. You all remember rock portage drill? So now we get to do it for real, ladies.” Norman directed the team as they readied themselves, checking weapons and equipment.

Once ashore MC-1 Toulon would take control of one boat crew and Lt. Richlen would command the other. The two men had discussed at great length in Norman’s cabin how the deployments would go. In the event that they had to split into groups Rama would take command of the second group. The SEALs wrestled the collapsed zodiacs or IBS, inflatable boat, small, out of the hatch and onto the deck. The boats were inflated and tied off on the leeward side of the sub.

Each man had an M-4 with nightscope; the short barrel M-4 was slowly replacing the full size battle rifle in the teams. Two had the M-25, a 25mm grenade launcher, which used HEAB ammunition. Doc Johnson had a MK-48, a highly modified M-249 S.A.W, the replacement for the older, heavier M-60.

They all had sidearms. Lt. Richlen’s team being one of the few who chose to go with the large frame Springfield Armory in .45 instead of what the other teams preference was. A lighter, smaller version of the S&W or even the M-9 Springfield. They all wore the black BDU’s supplemented with black tactical vests configured to what position they had within the team.

“OK ladies, saddle up. We go in, check out the place, extract the lighthouse keeper and if needed, exfil. I want it to go smooth and by the numbers, no mistakes. Rama, you take Gold team and cordon off the lighthouse, Blue team you’re with me.”

As Lt. Richlen spoke each man checked his weapons, equipment, and ammunition one final time before making sure his face was blackened. As Lt. Richlen directed them to man their boats Captain Richardson watched from the tower as the SEALs efficiently boarded their small craft in the now choppy sea.

The Iowa had moved closer to the lighthouse and the waves became stronger. Norman paused before boarding to throw Richardson a jaunty salute. The Captain returned it and Norman was off.

The SEALs lay along the gunwales of their rubber boats, one heading for the rocks at the base of the lighthouse. The other for the small concrete dock used by the supply ship. The only sign of their passing was a faint wake from the heavily muffled, yet powerful, engines.

The first boat made the rocks and the point man jumped out to secure the boat while the rest of the crew dug their paddles in to hold the boat in place against the current. The second boat went around to the supply dock and glided silently up to the shore. Through the use of silent hand signals Norman directed his boat crew. Now he just waited for Rama and his team to get into position.

***

The rocky shore smelt ‘gamey’ from the retreat of the tide. With a quick nod of Rama’s head PO-2 Snyder sprinted ahead, Wilson three yards behind. The team reached their objective and were ready for trouble, blending in with the dark granite boulders that littered the shore of Treasure Island.

Each man began to section off the corners of the lighthouse, above them the sun was illuminating everything in the distance. Rama took point, Wilson to the left and PO-2 Snyder to the right. Rama reached the lighthouse and crouched down in front of the step, Chad giving him covering support.

“How do you want us to go in Ell-Tee? With a knock or a bang?" Rama asked his superior over the comm net, since neither was sure about the disposition of the Lighthouse Warden.

***

Over the inter-team comm net Rama checked in, “How do you want us to go in Lieutenant? With a knock or a bang?”

“Hold your position and keep your eyes peeled for any possible hostiles. Myself and Blue Team will do the extract and exfil, if needed.”

“Copy that Lt.”

The Lt. and his men crept silently up the dock, weapons at the ready, checking every shadow and darkened area of the little island. Norman moved up to the door of the keeper’s house and motioned for his men to take up ready positions to assault the lighthouse.

Two squelches over the team comm net notified him that Rama and his team were ready. He took one last look around, motioned to Willits, stepped onto the small porch and knocked.

Norman was about to knock again when the door swung open and a grizzled old man stood there, dressed in a well-worn white turtleneck, jeans, thick-soled solid boots, and a pipe clamped between his tobacco-stained teeth.

They looked at each other. The older man did not seem startled, or even slightly fazed, to see a blackened-face man holding an assault weapon on his front porch. He just puffed a few times on his pipe before speaking.

“Navy?” The old man asked around the pipe stem.

“Yes sir.”

“Well damn son, come on in, I’m not heating the outside.” The old man swung the door open wider and Norman stepped inside.

The lightkeeper’s house was small, not much bigger than a cottage. The kitchen was made for one person, with an adjoining dining room filled with a folding table and some mismatched chairs that connected to the small living room. It had a patched loveseat and an old la-z-boy recliner. A short hall led to what Norman assumed to be the bedroom and single bath. The door in the kitchen led outside to the short pathway and the lighthouse itself. The small house smelled of aromatic pipe tobacco, brewing coffee, and faintly, sea air.

“Coffee?”

“No sir. My name is Lt. JG Norman Richlen. We’re here to get you out sir.”

The old man paused from pouring his coffee. He half turned. Norman could almost detect a slight mirth in the man’s voice.

“Get me out? Where we going Lieutenant?”

“Sir, there had been a major civil unrest situation. Our job is to evacuate all civilians to a safe area.”

The old man handed Norman a steaming cup of coffee.

“Safe area? What you think this is? I heard what’s been going on. Even seen some of it on the TV before the signal went. Seems to me this here is a safe area.” The old man said as he sipped his coffee.

“Give me a minute.” Norman handed the coffee back and reached up to his throat mike.

“Bayonet Two Seven to Eagle Hunter One One.”

“Eagle Hunter One One, go ahead Bayonet Two Seven.”

“Bayonet Actual requests a secure commo with Eagle Hunter Actual.”

“This is Eagle Hunter Actual, go ahead Bayonet Two Seven.”

“Actual, civilian realizes situation. Request permission to designate this a safe zone. Also request additional supplies and medical stores be distributed until such time as we can locate a more suitable area.”

Captain Richardson paused while he considered what Lt. Richlen suggested. He put the binoculars back up to his eyes and scanned the lighthouse island from point to dock. A barren rock, small, easily secured, no place to hide, and surrounded by water on all sides.

“Bayonet Two Seven, Eagle Hunter Actual. Permission granted.”

Richardson called down to the Conn. “Mr. Ridley, put us into the sheltered leeway behind the rocks then all stop. COB, assemble a shore party and get a corpsman ready.”

“Aye sir.”

Norman walked over to Rama. "Chief, change of plans, the Captain has designated this wee spit of land as a safe zone. So we can stand down, for now. Head on in to the lighthouse and see if the keeper will give you and your team some coffee, if you want it."

The Iowa moved into the sheltered area using the rocks and lighthouse as a buffer from the wind and choppy seas. The little cove was a slight anomaly that created a natural breakwater, shallow waves, and calmer seas.

Over the next few hours, a relay of zodiacs raced back and forth to the lighthouse island, illuminated by the powerful searchlights from the submarine.

The little storage building was supplied with fuel for the generator and spare parts. The storage areas in the house and lighthouse itself were filled with canned food and MRE rations. A small group of sailors, one of them a lower ranking corpsman, volunteered to stay there and make temporary housing for any survivors that the Iowa might find.

The old lighthouse keeper, Amos Karrey was very happy to have company and Richardson promised him to locate a supply ship or return with the supplies himself. As Richardson was turning to leave, the old man handed him a picture.

“This is my granddaughter. If you find her, can you keep her safe until you can bring her to me? She’s all I got left in this world.”

Richardson took the picture, looked at the young girl in it, so much like Richardson’s own daughter, and then looked back at the old man. “I’ll do what I can Mr. Karrey.”

“Ayup. I wouldn’t ask any more.”

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 31 May 2011 09:04 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
***

Standing outside, at the back of the hospital, nobody said a word, seemingly shocked by what they had seen. No one wanted to believe that their loved ones could already be amongst the walking dead, ready to grab them if they tried to go home.

Kevin feared what they had seen had only startled them, and that most of the team, along with the doctors and nurses, would soon be trying to flee home to check on their families. Indeed, two of the nurses broke immediately, running for the parking lot, to what they thought was the safety of their automobiles.

Kevin could only grimace in frustration from the screams as the nurses were torn limb from bloody limb by the ravenous undead.

Kevin led the way once again, his M-4 aimed firmly in front of him. He looked around the alleyway they had found themselves in. Aside from the dumpster and some old boxes the alleyway behind the hospital appeared to be empty.

He motioned for the rest of the team to head down the alley first, giving one last look back before stepping out into the moonlight. He could swear he saw shadows converging on the mouth of the alley behind them, and he was sure that if they had been able to avoid the things before the current group he was leading would definitely alert them to fresh meat. Hurriedly, Kevin searched for a ladder and found one on the corner of a building.

Kevin was the last to begin the climb up the ladder, a low shuffling reverberated throughout the alley as he climbed up, post haste. They must be coming on fast... they know we’re here. DeShane thought with a growing sense of frustration.

Kevin was at the top of the ladder before they burst out of the darkness and shambled into the ghostly light of the moon. Now that the four officers and three civilians were up on the roof the trail had gone cold for the mindless corpses and a long, weary shuffling sound began as they tried to locate their ‘dinner’.

Kevin slumped down on the roof, his back against the wall, M-4 propped up beside him. It had only been a half hour since the first of the dead had re-animated, but he was spent, spending all day in a war zone and now this.

“What the hell are they, anyway?” Kurt Rogers asked as he studied them from their perch atop the building.

Kevin said nothing. He couldn’t bring himself to say the only obvious thing and admit that what they were facing was a full-fledged zombie outbreak. It just seemed so... childish, to sit up here thinking about zombies. He wracked his brain to find something else to say, some other possibility, but there wasn’t one. It had to be zombies. Normal folks do not get up and walk around when they die, normal folks stay dead.

“Zombies,” Doc Hooper said, seeming to read Kevin’s mind.

“What? Zombies?” Kurt said, wheeling around to face them.

Kevin looked into Doc Hooper’s eyes and felt a small connection. He knew he was having the same reservations about calling them zombies, but he had, evidently, reached the same conclusion Kevin had. There was nothing else these things could be... they might as well call them by name.

“Yeah, zombies,” Kevin said with a sigh.

Kurt looked from Doc hooper to Kevin and back again, trying to figure out if this was all just a horrible joke at his expense. Hoping to see the slightest hint of a smile forming on their faces, but they remained completely serious.

“No, come on. You’re trying to pull my leg here. They can’t be zombies.”

“Kurt, they're zombies. Think of all of the horror movies you’ve seen, think of everything you know about zombies.” Doc Hooper said before pausing, giving Kurt time to think. “The only thing they can be are zombies. You know as well as I do that dead bodies do not, normally, get up and try to make a meal out of you after they die.”

For a moment Kevin could see the gears turning in Kurt’s head as he thought about all he had seen today. There seemed to be one small detail preventing Kurt from simply accepting the idea that the was being overrun by the undead.

“Zombies aren’t real.”

Kevin sighed, “Take a look around you Kurt. Take into consideration the destruction you see, the people you saw die when these things got ahold of them, then get up and come after you. Zombies are real.”

“It has to be something else. It has to be. Some kind of disease that’s making people go cannibal or something.” Kevin couldn’t help but snicker at this. Kurt ignored him and continued on. “If it’s a disease, there’s probably a cure somewhere that can help these people.”

There was an awkward silence when Kurt finished talking. Both Doc Hooper and Kevin were trying to think of an appropriate response. It was taking all of Kevin’s willpower not to laugh at such an outrageous statement. There was just onething he could not hold in.

“I’ve never heard of that cannibal disease before, Kurt, please tell me how it works.” Kevin said with a grin, taking a perverse glee in making the man feel stupid. Kurt only glared at him.

“Well, I’m not a God-damned biologist, I don’t know how it works! But there’s no way those things down there are zombies!”

Doc Hooper put his hand on Kurt’s shoulder with a gentle touch, lest he offend the man. “Kurt, they’re zombies. As a doctor I know the signs of death, so trust me when I tell you they’re zombies. Kevin knows they’re zombies, and deep down, I know you know they’re zombies.” Kurt opened his mouth to say something but Doc Hooper raised his hand to quiet his protest.

“I know it’s hard to believe, even I’m having a hard time believing it. But, as far as I know, when dead people start walking around trying to eat the living, then you’ve got a zombie outbreak on your hands.”

Kurt turned to, once again, look down on the zombies in the alley. He stared down at them for a good long time before he turned around, nodding. “All right, they’re zombies. I can’t think of a better explanation right now, but I’m sure we’ll find someone who can.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “What makes you think anyone else is even still alive out there?” Kevin asked heatedly.

Kurt looked up at him as if that was the stupidest question he had ever heard. “Well... there has to be other people alive out there. Someone from this city must have escaped or holed up on a roof or something.”

“What about the rest of the world?”

“The rest of the world? What about them?”

“You don’t think this is just a localized outbreak do you?”

“Why not? How do you know it isn’t?”

“We don’t know anything for sure yet,” Doc Hooper interjected, looking up at Kevin. “We won’t know unless we get off of this roof.”

Kevin shrugged his shoulders and peered over the wall again. He was assuming the outbreak was worldwide and there would be no one coming to help them. Of course, he did not know for sure, but he was almost positive that the entire world had been overrun by zombies. Some of the bigger cities were probably still fighting, still stubbornly holding on, but everyone who fell to the horde joined its ranks, while the ranks of the defenders only got smaller.

“A bunch of shambling idiots wouldn’t be able to take on the Army,” Kurt maintained.

“Maybe, maybe not. The Army would have been taken by surprise by a zombie outbreak. None of the bases here in Frisco are geared up for war, so they would have been unprepared. And if some of the soldiers had gotten bit and taken to the infirmary... well, then they’d have a problem. Personally I think if nothing else, the Army is fighting for its life right now and probably losing,” Kevin replied, coldly.

Kevin could tell Doc Hooper and the rest of his team were not happy about what they had just heard. He knew they were trying to hold on to the hope that all was not lost. He was not trying to steal that hope from them but he knew they still had a chance to survive this. He just did not want them to put their faith in something that was never going to happen.

“Look folks, we’re not totally fucked here. We have weapons and right now the zombies can’t get at us. That puts us in a better position than a lot of people out there, I’m sure. Once we get some food and water we can last for weeks until we need more supplies. There is still hope,” Kevin said, more gently, trying to assuage their fears for the future.

“Sure, the zombies can’t get at us now, but you just said we need food and water. Well... as far as I can tell, there certainly isn’t any food or water up here,” Hanson replied, joining the conversation.

“I know. But if you give up hope now, then we will be fucked. We have to keep hoping, stay optimistic, or we’ll never get out of this shitstorm.” Kevin said as he looked over his shoulder, evaluating the mass of zombies. “We need a distraction.”

“Why?” Doc Hooper asked. “We have guns like you said and plenty of ammo.”

“Yeah, but we can’t shoot fast enough to hold them off. We need to get them out of the way somehow.”

“Why don’t we just shoot them from up here?” Rogers asked.

Kevin considered it for a moment. “It’s probably best not to waste the ammo. You never know when we might need it.”

Kevin turned around, looking grim. “I’ll go down, taking Dan with me, first, distract them, and lead them away from you. Then you guys climb down the ladder and run your asses for the parking lot and then get the hell to Steve’s place.”

“I’ll go with you, you’re going to need someone to look after your injured man.”

“Ok, you’re with me then doc,” Kevin replied. Happy the doctor had volunteered to go with him.

“What about you?” Hanson asked.

“I’ll be meeting you all at Steve's once I take care of the zombies.”

“How do you plan on doing that?” Kurt asked.

Kevin just shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno, I’ll make it up as I go.”

The team and nurses looked hesitant, a little nervous about a plan that really wasn’t much of a plan. Kevin admitted as much to himself, but he didn’t have a lot to go on. He really didn’t have any idea how he would get away once he had lured the zombies away from the team, but that was of no concern to them.

“Guys... you’ll be fine. No zombies will be coming your way, they’ll all be after me and the Doc. If I don’t meet up with you by tomorrow at Steve’s, just continue on without me.”

They still looked a bit nervous about the plan, but they nodded their heads in assent.

“Good. Now, get ready to run. As soon as the zoms get out of sight, get down that ladder. Don’t linger long in the alley or there’s a chance they’ll come back for you. Remember, as soon as you hit the ground, make for Steve’s as fast as you can.”

Kurt looked like he was about to argue with Kevin about the plan. If anything went wrong, they could all end up dead, or worse. None of them were relishing the thought of going back down there into the thick of things, but they had no choice.

Kevin stood on the edge with Dan draped over his shoulder in a Fireman’s carry, calming his nerves as he looked down into the alley. Then, without a word, he and doc Hooper disappeared over the ledge and began his descent into the heart of the madness.

***

Kurt led his small group of police and nurses as far away from the hospital as he could. Behind him, he heard the irregular beat of Kevin’s weapon chattering away at the undead horde. One of the nurses suddenly screamed out. Kurt turned, bringing up his weapon. A ghoul had her by the arm, and bit down hard on her shoulder. Gurgling, the nurse fell to the ground. Kurt fired, the slug taking the undead thing between the eyes, blowing its head apart.

For every one they put down, a dozen more joined the fray. There was no way they would be able to handle them all. Kevin had promised none of the deadheads would be following them. Well, either they had already ripped that poor bastard apart or there were A LOT more than he had anticipated. Or both. The way Kurt’s night had been going, it was probably both. And hell was about to strike.

After sprinting down two surprisingly un-hell-like blocks, he saw a National Guard HMMWV at the end of the street. Turning back he realized that there were no nurses left, although the crowd behind him had gotten substantially larger. The other officers were keeping pace. As he watched, one of the officers stumbled, and was pulled kicking and screaming into the mob, which didn’t even halt in its slow, ponderous march.

Kurt started screaming, waving to a soldier on the corner. The soldier was screaming something, but over his own labored breathing and shouting, he couldn’t hear what was being said.

***

“GET DOWN!” PFC Victor Foreman yelled out, gesturing at the police heading his way. Behind the unfortunate cops several dozen deadies shambled in pursuit. The police either did not hear Foreman or did not understand what was about to happen, because they were not listening. The dead were close, it was now or never.

The .50 caliber Browning M-2 on the Hummvee opened up, coughing its heavy duty rounds at the mob. Limbs were torn off, heads split like overripe melons, body parts disappeared, and a fine red mist pervaded the air as the undead were shredded. The cops hugged the pavement and prayed to Jesus as they felt things they would rather not think about splattering down on the pavement next to them, or, in some unfortunate cases, right on top of them.

As the firing stopped the soldiers moved into the now severely reduced crowd. None of the things were standing, but a few were crawling earnestly forward on broken legs, hauling themselves forward with arms that ended just below the shoulder.

The soldiers moved quickly, purposefully, shooting each one in the head. As they returned to the Humvee, however, they realized their mistake. The noise of the M-2 had drawn a massive crowd of undead. From all four streets the ghouls swarmed over the soldiers and police.

***

Kurt saw what was coming and put his pistol in his mouth. CLICK!

He opened his eyes, fumbling for another magazine when the first of the hellspawn fell on him, tearing into his flesh with nails and teeth.

Kurt started screaming, falling silent only when one of the undead tore his throat out. One by one, the weapons around him fell silent, as the stillness of the graveyard was returned to the street corner.

***

Back at Steve’s the mood had settled from controlled chaos to a more somber, apocalyptic tone. For the tenth time Steve checked the ammunition for the weapons they had, pacing around the house, checking the windows.

“Should we go to the basement?” Jenna suggested.

“You guys probably should. I want to be here when Kevin arrives, we won’t be able to hear him down there.”

John sighed. “I’m not going down there without you. I mean, if they break in here and eat you, I might not hear the warning screams down there.” Steve and Jenna shot him dirty looks. “Well, some people around here are in a pissy mood. I thought it was funny.”

“Are we even sure he’s coming? It’s the middle of the night!” Jenna asked, worry marking her features.

“It would take more than those things to kill that side of beef. He’ll be here. Although I will have to give him a detention for tardiness.”

“Do we have everything we might need?” John asked.

“Guns, ammo, bottled water, all the crap I take with me when I go hunting, fishing, or camping. Some food, and a couple of first aid kits.”

“Seems comprehensive enough to me.”

Steve looked again at their meager arsenal. They had four pistols, a pair of Glock 17s, an M1911, and a Beretta M9. As far as shoulder-fired weapons went Steve owned a Remington 870 shotgun, a civilian-legal AR-15, and an M-1 battle rifle. John brought his own shotgun, a 12 gauge Mossberg 500, and a Remington 700 hunting rifle.

While the disparity in weapon types meant they would not be able to share the ammunition, it also gave them a greater tactical flexibility. A tradeoff that was well worth it, in Steve’s opinion.

Steve looked out the window for the fifth time in ten seconds. God Kevin, where the hell are you?

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 01 Jun 2011 12:46 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
Chapter Four


It was just after 2100hrs when the Iowa made the channel buoy in San Francisco Bay.

“Mr. Ridley, any contact with Hunter's Point?”

“Negative sir.”

“Anything on the civilian comm nets?”

“No sir.”

Richardson had been on the conning tower for hours since leaving Treasure Island, constantly scanning the surrounding waters of the bay. There had been no ship traffic, which was a little disconcerting, considering the current situation.

As the Iowa turned to line itself up with the deep section of the channel Richardson turned to look at the Embarcadero as it passed by. He scanned the freighters and cargo ships of all sizes moored there and the docks, all of them were lit up like a Christmas tree. Something was wrong, but he could not put his finger on it. Maybe the sea air had lulled him into a sense of calm or apathy.

As he scanned each of the vessels in turn it dawned on him what it was. No activity what-so-ever on the docks or the ships. He watched the docks intently as they passed by. The screech of tires, glass breaking, and gunfire echoed across the water. The deck watch swiveled as one to focus on the civilian docks. They all watched as several people ran from a disabled van along the waterfront, firing at another group that appeared to be chasing them.

Richardson focused on the pursuing group, shocked to see people with large chunks of flesh missing, some trying to run on legs that had no feet, arms hung slack like they had been dislocated, all of them looked like rejects from a bad car accident.

He watched as several were shot but did not drop, just staggered as chunks of meat were blown off of them. He panned back to the running group and saw some of the men turn and fire, a couple of them stopped and took careful aim, dropping a few of the roamers with headshots.

He was finally galvanized into action when he panned beyond the running group to see that that particular dock ended in a high fence topped with razor wire.

“Mr. Ridley, all Stop!”

“All Stop, Aye sir.”

“Get Lt. Richlen up here.”

“Aye sir.”

Mere seconds later Lt. Richlen joined Captain Richardson on the tower.

“That group of civvies is fighting off a horde of infected. I want you to get them out of there and extract them to safety.”

Norman was watching the scene unfold as Richardson spoke. He saw the infected for the first time and realized what his team was up against.

“Hostile extraction, sir. My men are ready for this,” Norman said as he voiced his views aloud while a phrase from Sun Tzu came to mind, know yourself and know your enemy.

“I’ll hold position as long as possible, the current may move us some. Its pretty strong tonight.”

“Aye sir. My team is on it.” Norman handed the binoculars back and popped back down the hatch like a prairie dog. He joined his team on the aft deck as they boarded their boats.

The zodiacs flew across the choppy water as the team raced to the end of the dock. The gunfire had slackened off as they drew closer. They could see that the civilians were almost to the fence and that several of them had run out of ammunition for their rifles and were now using handguns. A few even had tire irons or baseball bats.

The SEALs made it to the end of the dock, tied up their zodiacs and started climbing up the pier pilings. A strange smell, more powerful then the salt air enveloped them as they got to the top of the wharf. A wet and dragging sort of shuffling could be heard from above as they climbed up.

MC-1 Rama Toulon was the first one to the top and directed Doc Johnson to start laying down suppressive fire with his MK-48. The civilians froze when the machine gun started yammering. As the rest of the team got to the top to of the dock they added their weapons to the firing, effectively pushing back the horde of undead.

Some of the ghouls that Doc Johnson had shot were getting back up. Willits started using his M-41A3 sniper rifle, dropping the closest zombies with well-placed headshots.

Norman had PO-2 Snyder enlarge the hole in the chainlink fence to allow the civilians to quickly pass through. Rama switched weapons with Doc Johnson so that he could check out the survivors as they went by. Norman realized what the strange new smell was, decay and rot. And it was coming from the hostiles they were engaging.

“Aim for the head!” Rama yelled out over the shuffling coming from the encroaching mass. He adjusted his aim after seeing several zombies get back up after taking bursts to center mass.

More and more zombies seemed to be coming out of the warehouses, pouring off the tethered ships, moving in on their tenous position, shuffling and shambling forward. The thing that spooked Norman the most was the lack of any sound, at all, from the infected. They were, literally, silent as the grave.

Willits sighted in on a zombie moving down the gangplank of a nearby ship, his shot went through the forehead then continued into the side of the head of another, dropping both and blocking the way for others bottled up behind the two. Mildly surprised, he turned to find more targets.

“Stand by to exfil!” Norman yelled out, firing a single shot into the head of the nearest dead thing.

“Grenade!” Rama shouted out, throwing his.

“Last man!” Doc Johnson screeched out as he pushed a civilian through the now widened hole in the fence.

“Withdraw by the numbers!” Norman shouted out, switching to full auto fire, mowing down several dozen undead.

Rama started to lay down covering fire from the MK-48 as everyone else went to full auto fire, cutting huge numbers of the undead down.

One by one the team fired off a full magazine on full auto, tapped the man next to them, then dove through the hole into the water below.

The two grenadiers, with the M-25's, popped white phosphorous grenades into the ever-growing horde, throwing an eerie light over the battle before turning and diving into the water.

Richardson watched from the sub as the white phosphorous grenades popped, colorful white streamers showering down to melt through the concrete and wooden pier, setting fire to several of the undead, who continued moving forward, unaware of the flames licking across their ragged clothes and bodies.

“Last man!” Hannaberry yelled out and dove through the hole.

Scroggins, the team demo expert, scrambled through the hole, stopping momentarily to hang precariously off the side of the wharf. He quickly set up some claymore mines at the fence breech, connecting a radio trigger to the arming mechanisms.

“Scroggins! We are leaving!” Norman yelled up to him, the zodiac bouncing and bobbing among the pilings.

Scroggins dropped into the water, surfaced and ran his arm through one of the rope handles that ran along the side of the first boat he was next to. “GO! GO! GO!” He shouted out.

The zodiacs swung around and sped back to the waiting submarine. The team held their fire and watched behind them as the zombie horde reached the fence and pushed against it, the fence bowing out as more and more of them pressed against the ones at the front.

Scroggins reached into his tactical vest, removed a small radio transmitter and pushed the button.

A white flash and a series of dull explosions blew the zombies to pieces as the M-18-A1 claymores detonated. Small chunks of zombie meat were flung in all directions. Several tried to get back up only they had no legs to stand on.

Several more were ‘killed’ outright as the seven hundred ball bearings per anti-personnel mine penetrated their skulls and perforated their re-animated brains.

The medical staff checked out the civilians rescued only to find that their injuries were mostly cuts and scrapes, no bites.

Captain Richardson went down to the sick bay to talk to the survivors. He ordered the Master at Arms to assign armed guards to the sick bay area, thereby minimizing contact between the crew and the new passengers until such time that a proper debrief could be done.

Richardson stepped through the hatchway, as Doctor Brown was just finishing up with some stitches on a nasty looking wound on a young man’s forehead. Sitting or standing were the rest of the survivors, eight in all.

“I’m Captain Richardson, Commanding Officer of this vessel.”

“I’m Chuck” a tall kid with a local high school letterman jacket on replied. “And that’s my brother Bobby that your doctor is sewing up.” Pointing to the other boy, dressed in a lightweight jacket, jeans, and dirty tennis shoes.

“I’m Tom.” A tall lanky, blonde haired guy said, he had the knees of his jeans cut out and a faded heavy metal band’s name on his torn tee-shirt.

“That’s Julie over there. We were at a party when all this shit went down.” Tom said, pointing to a dark-haired girl sitting in a chair with an ice pack on her head. She raised a hand and gave a weak smile and wave. Richardson noted the hot pink fingernail polish and the nose ring.

“Stan, I used to work security at the Embarcadero.” An older guy, full head of gray hair, large belly, and the remnants of a security uniform on, stepped forward to shake Richardson’s hand.

“Pedro, I ran the roach coach for the night shift.” A short squat Hispanic man said as he stepped forward, wearing a grease smeared apron, thin mustache, and the remains of a hairnet.

“Norbert,” A black man in work jeans, heavy construction boots, orange safety vest, and wide tool belt said, holding out his hand. ”I was doing some work down the road from the docks when those two,” he gestured at Tom and Julie, “came roaring up with this wild tale and then the ‘others’ showed up.” Others meaning the undead, “So I jumped in their van with the rest,” he gestured at Chuck and Stan, “but then we crashed at the docks.”

“Aaron, I was kind of like dumpster diving,” A young kid said, hew had long hair that almost covered his eyes, dressed in dark jeans, a dirty white tee-shirt, and long overcoat, hung his head when he finished speaking.

“Yeah I thought so, I’ve been trying to catch your ass for months,” Stan said as he walked over to him. “But after you saved my ass I think I can let bygones be bygones.” Stan said as he stuck his hand out. “What you say kid? We let it go?”

Aaron raised his head up, shook his head to move his hair out of the way and flashed a smile at Stan. “Sure dude, no problem.” He said as he shook the older man’s hand, his face reddening with a blush.

Richardson watched the exchange and realized that this was a group of survivors that had been through a serious trauma.

Over the next half hour he got some background on them as they each related their story of how they came to be where they were when Lt. Richlen and his team had intervened and saved them. Richardson was being briefed on the injuries the group had and the projected time for recovery when the intercom beeped.

“Captain, radio contact with Hunter's Point established.”

“On my way Mr. Ridley.” Richardson excused himself from sickbay and headed for the bridge. He entered the Conn, Lt. Cdr. Ridley saw him and flipped the switch to broadcast the transmission through the bridge speakers.

“Attention all vessels, this is Hunter’s Point Naval Facility. Do not attempt to pass by the restricted markers without being inspected first. The base is conducting a security lockdown. A one hundred percent identification check is in force. This is not an exercise. Deadly force has been authorized and any vessel will be fired upon without warning that fails to heave to. Attention all vessels. This is the Hunter’s Point Naval base. Do not attempt to pass by the restricted markers without being inspected first. The base is conducting a security lockdown.” The message kept repeating.

“Captain, someone had to be there to start the recording.”

“How far are we from Hunter’s Point?”

“About forty-five minutes, sir.”

“Slow to one third.”

“Aye sir.”

Richardson went over to the chart table and looked at the computations written there in grease pencil.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 02 Jun 2011 13:19 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
***

Kevin heard the screams a few minutes after he and Doc Hooper had begun to lead the zoms away from the building. He was not sure if that had been Kurt or not. Although, somewhere in his heart he knew his friend was dead.

Doc Hooper was on the edge of hysteria from fear and Kevin knew if they did not find a vehicle soon the infected, or zoms, or whatever the hell they really were, would catch them.

So he made a command decision and decided to steal a vehicle. Dan was getting heavier and even a bodybuilder of his stature would soon wear out. “Doc, I need you to take my M-4 and shoot any of those bastards that get near. I need my hands free to hotwire us a ride outta here.”

“You... you... want me to shoot them?”

“Doc, I need you to remain calm if we are ever gonna get outta this mess we’re in. So suck it up and shoot the fuckers.” With that Kevin shoved the M-4 into Doc Hooper’s hands and laid Dan gently down on the pavement.

He pulled out his tonfa and proceeded to smash the driver’s side window on a suv and open the door. The alarm began to wail and he knew the sound would draw the infected like an outhouse draws flies. Sure enough, within a few minutes he heard the doc begin to fire. “Kev... Kevin we need to get out of here. They are coming out of the woodwork and I think I am running out of bullets.”

“I know doc, I know. Workin’ as fast as I can. Gimme a few moments.” With that the vehicles engine roared into life. “Hop in doc, we’re outta here!” As soon as Doc Hooper was in the vehicle Kevin picked up Dan and placed him in the back end of the suv. With no time to spare he set off to his friend Steve’s house. Hoping he would still be one of the uninfected.

***

Twenty frantic minutes later Kevin pulled up into his friend's driveway and unloaded Dan then began to pound on his door, “Yo, Steve! Open up it’s me, Kevin!”

Steve’s heart leapt into his mouth when he heard Kevin banging on his door. He quickly jumped up and walked to open the door. Being Steve he readied a wisecrack before opening it up.

“Well well, look what the cat dragged in. I had almost given up hope, thinking you had decided to join the new and growing social experiment.”

Kevin was in no mood for Steve’s wisecracks, “Ha, ha, funny guy. Now get out of my way before I beat you like the red-headed stepchild I never wanted.” He then quickly brushed past Steve.

Doc Hooper waited until Kevin and Steve had exchanged pleasantires and began to speak, “I want to use your basement Steve, I am going to try and do some tests on Dan there. On the drive over here I had the idea that we had a perfect opportunity to see what’s going on in the bodies of the infected. So with your permission I am going to set up a haz mat bio lab down there. Maybe we can find out what is happening.” with that Steve led Doc Hooper and Kevin into his basement.

***

“Kevin, Steve, I think you should take a look at this.”

Kevin, along with Steve walked over to the bed where Doc Hooper was taking a sample of Dan’s blood. The man had yet to regain consciousness, and the only reaction Dr. Hooper could elicit was a contraction of Dan’s pupils when they were exposed to light. Dr. Hooper had Dan’s sleeve rolled up to the elbow and a syringe inserted into a prominent vein. Kevin looked closer at the fluid filling the vial. It was yellow.

“Is that blood?” Kevin asked, swallowing hard.

“I’m not sure,” Dr. Hooper said, holding a cotton ball over the needle as he removed it from Dan’s arm. “It’s viscous, like pus from an infected wound. I don’t understand how he can be alive with this traveling around in his system.” The doctor placed a small bandage over the needle prick in Dan’s arm. He pulled the blanket back up to his chest and ushered Kevin and Steve out of the room and into the lab across the hall.

He’s becoming a zombie, Kevin thought with a shiver. Could this have anything to do with what’s been happening in Frisco? According to the latest news reports zombie-like conditions were spreading from town to town in the United States. Unconfirmed reports of state troopers being bitten and suffering unusual fatal injuries and reanimating were starting to filter up the police chain of command.

“Doc, be careful with that stuff,” Kevin cautioned as Dr. Hooper headed over to the makeshift lab’s microscope. “It’s possible it could be caustic or contagious.”

“Don’t worry, Kevin,” Thad said, prepping a slide with latex-gloved hands. “I’ll take every precaution.”

Kevin watched as Dr. Hooper worked the sample for a couple of minutes, then left the lab for Steve’s kitchen up the stairs. He picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory. A voice answered, asking how she could direct the officer’s call.

“I need to speak to State Police Chief Robert Stewart, This is Sergeant Kevin DeShane, SFPD,” Kevin replied to the voice on the other end of the line.

***

“Unbelievable,” Dr. Hooper shouted out, hunched over his microscope, examining the sample of yellow fluid taken from Dan. He had been like that for almost an hour now, studying the liquid that circulated where blood should have flown.

“What is it?” Kevin said, having walked back down the stairs and into the basement in time to hear the doctor’s comment.

“Take a look at this, Kevin. It’s unlike any blood I’ve ever encountered, in humans, animals, or otherwise.” He flipped a switch on the base of the instrument and a magnified image of the sample filled the flat-panel display on the workbench. To Kevin the image looked alive. Hundreds of spherical cells zipped around each other across the screen.

“Was this the specimen you took from Dan?”

“Yes. And I know what you’re thinking,” Dr. Hooper said as he took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “The blood, or whatever it is, should be inert after I removed it from his body. But as you can see, the cells are still in motion, and it’s been at least an hour since I drew that sample. It’s producing heat when it should be reverting to room temperature. Those cells are perfect spheres, an impossibility in and of itself, even if you ignore the fact that they have no nuclei or genetic material.”

“So it’s not blood.”

“Not as we know it, no. They act more like nanites than anything else. But as far as I know, no one has the ability to manufacture machines this small. Watch this.” Dr. Hooper pricked his finger with a small surgical blade and allowed a drop of blood to fall onto the slide.

The reaction was immediate. As Kevin watched the screen, the spherical cells swarmed around the blood cells in Dr. Hooper’s sample. It was like watching piranha at work on a piece of meat. They tore into each cell, shredding them into protoplasmic confetti. The pinkish tint from the drop of blood vanished from the display, leaving the microscopic orbs to resume their dance across the monitor.

“Oh my god.” Kevin said as he felt the blood drain from his face.

“I see you understand the implications,” Thad said. “This substance acts like a virus, destroying the host’s blood cells. Why it does that, or why that man across the hallway is still alive, but also not alive is beyond me.”

“Doc,” Kevin began, wondering just how much he should tell Thad. The doctor was doing his best at maintaining and studying the problem through Dan. “Doc, there’s a situation developing all around the United States. It’s much too similar to be a coincidence. People are becoming infected with what the military has classified as a plague, spread by bites and with a yellow fluid found in the victim’s blood stream.”

“How bad is the contamination?”

“The President has delcared martial law and is trying to isolate the outbreak cities.”

Thad sat back, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Martial law? You can’t be serious.”

“I am deadly serious doc, and it seems that most civilian communications nets are down and nobody can contact the President. I think It’s fallen on your shoulders to get some answers.”

Doctor Thad Hooper sat back in his chair and looked at the monitor’s display. “Is it really that bad?”

“It’s bad, Doc,” Kevin stated. “You should know this, according to the reports the state police relayed to me, the virus is terminal within a few hours. The victims die and then are, somehow, re-animated where they proceed to bite others. It’s how the infection is spreading.”

“So why hasn’t it happened to him?” Dr. Hooper asked, nodding towards Dan’s makeshift bed.

“You’re the doctor,” Kevin replied. “Find out.” He turned and walked out of the room, hoping for all the world that his son was safe with his ex-wife.

Dr. Hooper sighed, watching the basement door close behind Kevin. He turned back to his microscope and started scribbling notes on a pad of paper as he made observations.

Back upstairs Kevin approached Steve and John with an idea. “Guys, I think we should get the hell out of dodge and find someplace safe. It has been relayed to me that the Navy had managed to keep Hunter’s Point under control. So I think we should head there.”

“But what about the deadheads between us and the base?” John said, immediately after Kevin finished his statement.

“It’s a chance we will have to take. Doc Hooper is onto something and we need more lab space than we can find here.” Steve added.

“Not to mention the fact we could be overrun by enough of them, things.” Kevin added as an afterthought, remembering the screams of Kurt and his group.

“Hunter’s Point it is then,” Jenna said, ending the conversation. As the three men looked at her, surprised by her pronouncement. She simply stated, “It would have taken you three Bozo’s an hour to just debate leaving the house, much less go somewhere. So I made the call for us.”

The three men just looked at each other and burst out laughing. Kevin snorted and said to Steve, “That’s one tough lady you have there bud.”

“You have no idea just how tough,” Steve said with a smile on his face.

The four of them piled in to the SUV Kevin had, conveniently, provided. Kevin leaned on the steering wheel before starting it, rubbing his eyes. “Are you okay?” Steve asked from the passenger seat.

“Yeah, I guess. I just have a serious case of draggin’ ass is all. Kevin said with a grimace. The fatigue was clearly evident from the bags and dark spots forming underneath his eyes.

“So, how are we going to do this? The fastest way would be to take 880 to the Bay Bridge and cross over into Frisco, but that’ll take us right into downtown Oakland, and I don’t think we can count on the roads being clear. Taking the city streets would probably be even worse.”

“So where does that leave us?” Steve asked.

“Screwed?” John suggested, a weak smile on his face.

“Pretty much what I was thinking,” Kevin said with a grimace. “I guess we can try the Dunbarton Bridge and take the Bayshore Freeway right to Hunter’s Point, but if that’s not clear, we’ve got to find another way, I’ll be damned if I’m going to walk. We will also need to get gas, too, this fuel hungry beast is almost empty.”

Kevin started the suv and drove a few blocks until they reached an undamaged Shell station. It had not been looted in the madness sweeping the streets and for that the group was grateful.

Kevin filled the suv while Steve and John kept an eye open for any roamers that may be around. Kevin, thinking ahead, filled the gas can Steve had grabbed on the way out of his house. The one he had kept in the trunk of his, now useless, beemer for emergencies.

Sticking his head over the passenger side door, Steve brought Kevin’s attention to the building proper. “There’s no one in there, so John and I are going to see if there’s anything we can use.” With that Steve and John headed for the building.

Inside the cash register stood unmanned and the aisles were pristine, untouched by the chaos around them. Nothing here to stop them from declaring open season on anything that tasted good and would, no doubt, shave ten years off of their lives. “Okay, I’m torn,” Steve announced. “Do I just loot, or should we only take the useful things?”

Carrying an armful of energy drinks John looked at Steve, bewildered, “Huh?”

“I was leaning towards that too,” Steve said with a chuckle.

Steve looked for, and found, the shopping bags behind the counter and they conveniently packaged their stolen, or as Steve preferred to think of it, ‘acquired’ goods. None of them smoked, and they only had one drinker, Steve of course, in attendance, so most of the loot was just junk food.

John took any kind of flammable liquid he could find, and a few bottles of rubbing alcohol should they need it. Steve snagged some candy at the front counter since nothing was better for fast energy and carbohydrates. After they had taken everything Steve and John deemed valuable, of strategic importance, or delicious, they moved on once the suv was gassed up.

The group had not gone more than a few blocks past the gas station when John spoke up, “Kinda hard to believe this shit’s been going on for less than a day. I wonder where it started?”

“I’ve got a better question,” Steve said, “what the hell are those things?”

“They’re not alive, I don’t think,” Kevin answered. “I saw one of them with its stomach torn open, guts hanging out, and it kept walking like it was fine. I had to shoot the thing in the head to get it to go down.” He shook with an unbidden shiver, remembering the scene.

“Oh shit,” Kevin said, louder than he had wanted to. Looking down the street a large group of the things stood in their way, covering the street from side to side. “Hold on,” Kevin advised the others and floored it.

Driving the suv into the masses of undead on the street the crowd of ghouls parted at the bumper’s insistence, and more than a few bounced off the hood. One of their heads struck the windshield, causing a small crack to appear in the glass.

After they passed through the group of deadheads the road was clear, but Kevin was worried about the possibility of more in the road, or worse, that they would start to block the roads. Kevin did not think they could have figured out how to halt road traffic, but he would not have been willing to bet any money to back that assumption.

They had gone far enough west that they could make out the the Dunbarton Bridge, but fate has a way of hosing you over. As they watched a plane, apparently destined for San Francisco International Airport in the central part of the city, shed altitude as smoke and fire roared from its right wing.

It descended towards them and managed to stay somewhat even until just before its wing blew off. It shot down like a stone, spinning. It hit something and it spun into a burning wheel that augured straight into the bridge, destroying their way over the bay.

They just sat there, numb with shock, for a moment, trying to make sense out of what had just happened.

“Anyone got a plan B?” Kevin grumped out.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 05 Jun 2011 10:12 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
USS Iowa


“Sir, sonar contact bearing 195.” Richardson reached up, pressed the push to talk button enabling him to communicate with the sonar department.

“Sonar, Conn, what do you have?”

“Sir, single screws bearing 195, holding stationary.” Richardson pushed another button on the overhead comm panel.

“Deck watch, any contact bearing 195?”

“Conn, Deck watch, I have lights at bearing 195, looks like two small vessels, stationary at inlet to Hunter's Point.”

Richardson looked at Ridley, “Attempt to establish contact with the vessels.”

“Aye sir.”

“Mr. Ridley, I’ll be topside. Have Lt. Richlen meet me there.”

“Aye sir.”

Captain Richardson donned his deck coat, climbed topside and took the offered binoculars, focusing them on the smaller watercraft as his boat moved towards them. Lt. Richlen, still in his tactical gear, climbed up and joined him.

“What’s the story, Sir?”

“Sonar contact at the opening to the inlet,” Norman picked up another set of binoculars.

“Sir, looks like the Point's patrol boats. Any response from the radio?”

“Not yet.”

“What about the signal lights?”

Richardson let his binos hang and called down for a signalman. The young sailor popped up onto the tower and was briefed on what he needed to do. “Flash them an authentication code,” Richardson ordered.

Almost immediately a flashed response came back. “Hold position. Do not attempt to enter the inlet without being inspected.” Richardson read through the binoculars.

“Hold position?” Norman asked.

“Mr. Ridley, all stop.” Richardson called down then turned to Norman. “Send your men aft and over the side. Get me some hard intel on what’s going on here.”

“Aye sir,” Lt. Richlen popped down the hatch and made his way aft to brief his men. Five minutes later a deck hatch opened and shadowed men scampered over the side of the sub with sea sleds. The hatch was sealed before the men disappeared into the dark waters.

“Captain, sonar. Single screw vessel approaching, second vessel still holding previous position.”

Richardson watched as one of the small craft slowly approached the sub, stopping about twenty feet off the starboard side. He could make out several armed personnel onboard.

“Ahoy submarine!” A voice called out.

“Ahoy vessel!” Richardson responded.

“Permission to come alongside!”

Richardson glanced down the hatch at Lt. Richlen who gave him thumbs up.

“Granted!”

“Do you have any infected onboard?”

“Negative!”

Richardson motioned for some of his deck crew to throw out bumpers as the smaller boat came alongside and was tied up. Four armed men in Marine Corps duty uniforms, battle rifles, heavy body armor, and helmets climbed on board and watched the deck crew. Finally a thin looking, pale younger man, in wrinkled navy khakis, stepped onto the sub deck and looked up at Captain Richardson and saluted.

“Sir, Lieutenant Commander Grierson requests permission to come aboard.”

Richardson just waved at him and the young man started inside the sail and up to the tower. The four Marines kept their positions on the deck. The two men looked at each other before shaking hands.

“Captain, am I sure glad to see you sir,” The young man said as he finished the handshake.

“Same here Commander. What the hell happened?”

“Well sir, it all started pretty simple. We had some protesters at the outer fence, the usual. Idiots thought we had nukes here like they always do. The Marine security team was on alert and some were at the gates assisting the civil police.”

The young man’s eyes seemed to be slightly out of focus as his mind’s eye replayed the gruesome events. “What we thought was another group of protestors came out of the woods behind the first group. This second group then started attacking the first group.”

Richardson looked at the deck watch, they all appeared to be studiously involved in staring at the darkness with their image intensifiers, but he could tell they had been listening to the young Commander relate his tale.

Taking Grierson’s arm he ushered the other man a little further out of hearing range before motioning him to continue. “We sealed the perimeter and the Marines locked down everything. We had enough time to get the civilian workers to help us move a few jersey barriers to block the main gate and then the Marines set razor wire on that.

"The perimeter is sealed up really tight, nothing gets in and if anything does, the Marines have orders to shoot on sight. Thankfully this isn’t a large installation and most of the gates had already been sealed due to budget cuts,” Commander Grierson paused a little to catch his breath.

“Where’s Rear Admiral Donner?” Richardson asked.

“The Admiral’s dead sir, so is the executive officer and most of the staff. They were off base when ‘IT’ happened. I tried to call them on their cell phones and was on the phone with the Admiral when it just went dead. Sir, I think that the Admiral was attacked and killed. He said something about a car accident in front of him then nothing.” Grierson paused again as if remembering the event.

“What about the civilian authorities? Didn’t any of the local police try to stop it?” Richardson asked.

“Yes sir, they tried. There were a few state troopers watching the protestors. They called for backup and then tried to break up the attackers. Those people just tore them to ribbons. One trooper made it back to his car and they just pulled him out of it. It looked like they ate him sir,” Grierson paused to swallow, his face ashen with fear.

“Then the local sheriff sent some cars but the same thing happened. We tried contacting command after that but all the lines were overloaded. We switched to the civilian net, tried implementing SCATANA, but that was just as bad.

"Then we got a coded message from CINCPAC about the rioting and infection so I ordered the Marine officer to secure and reinforce the perimeter.” Grierson stopped and took a deep breath.

“Sir, most of the civilian workers have families on the outside. I have them quartered in the old Base Exchange building with shore patrol covering the entrances and the Marines assisting. I didn’t know what else to do sir, I’m just an admin guy.”

“You did fine Commander. Who’s in charge of the base now?”

“That would be you sir.”


Suburbs of Oakland


“That hit pretty quickly,” Steve said, his voice distant, “We might be able to get around the debris.” Kevin shook his head. Usually Kevin did not mind Steve’s endless optimism, but banking on it now would get them killed.

“Even if it did, the bridge is going to be clogged with people trying to get out, and now that they can’t, they’ll be deadlocked for far enough back that we won’t be able to move. I sure as hell don’t want to go through Oakland, but I think that’s the only thing we can do.” No one said anything. “I want something a little more secure than this SUV though. Irvington Jr. High School, on Woodcrest Drive has a bus garage, doesn’t it? That thing won’t move fast, but it’ll be able to take a lot more hits than this tin can.”

“That part of the town’s crawling with these things,” John announced. “If we could make it to the bus and get out of the garage, we’d be fine, but if we can’t...” He let the sentence trail off.

“Damnit. Is there anywhere else where we can get a bus, or a truck, or something?” Kevin said, frustration rising in his voice.

“There’s a Ryder truck depot on Cedar Blvd out by the Newpark Mall, isn’t there? It’s a little out of the way, but when I came through on the way to Steve's it was pretty safe.” John said, hope rising in the tone of his voice.

“You sure about that?” Kevin asked.

“Positive,” John said, nodding sharply to emphasize his point.

“Ryder Trucks it is.”

Kevin yanked the wheel hard to the right and they began began southeast towards Murietta and the Newpark Mall. Living in Half Moon Bay Kevin did not come to the Newpark Mall with any regularity, but he was familiar enough with the layout of Oakland and it's surburbs.

Turning onto Cedar Blvd in Civic Terrace, still a good mile and a half from the mall, They saw a Civic Terrace police cruiser parked farther down the street, its desperate officer swinging his nightstick at the group that had gathered around it. “Mav!” John suddenly called out, pointing at the struggling officer.

“I see him,” Kevin said, his voice sounding hollow even in his own ears. He floored it, smashing into as many of the things as he could without risking hitting the police car. The officer did not need any encouraging, and jumped on the hood. Kevin paused a second, allowing the officer time to get a grip on something, and then accelerated away.

Kevin did not risk going too fast, for fear of dislodging their passenger. When they finally got to a point where Kevin figured they were safe from the mini-mob behind them he stopped the SUV and got out. Still clinging fiercely to the hood of the vehicle, the officer had lost his hat, but had kept his grip. He finally let go, and slid rather gracelessly onto the pavement. John could not entirely stifle his laughter as he got out. “Please tell me you’re not going to write Kevin a ticket for speeding.”

Mav smiled rather wanly and replied, “Nope, since it’s you john, and I know the shady types you hang with, I am gonna charge him with vehicular homicide. He killed four or five of them back there.”

Kevin laughed and opened the back door for him. “Climb in officer...”

“Felna. Marvin Felna. My friends, including the bozo in the back seat, call me Mav.”

“Officer Felna,” Kevin finished. John scooted over and Mav slid in the back seat as Kevin climbed back in to the suv.

“Where you folks headed?” Mav sounded more like he was inquiring about an office party than interrogating a suspect.

“We’re going to the Ryder truck depot to steal a truck.” Steve told him, and then busted up laughing. “How often do you get to say that to a cop?”

Rather than answer the question, Mav asked one of his own. “Why do you need a truck?”

“We need to move through the ‘burbs of Oakland so we can cross over the San Mateo bridge,” Kevin answered, “And in case the streets are blocked, we’ll have to punch through.”

“Why do you need to cross the San Mat — Hunter's Point.”

“Yup.”

“Last I heard, Oakland and ‘Frisco actually hadn’t gone as far into hell as I thought they would have by now.” Mav pointed out.

Now this was surprising to the group. “What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“Well, maybe I should say the streets are not as bad as you think. Most people were still at home, and the ones on the street ran into the nearest building, at least the ones with any sense. Now, the buildings have got to be pretty torn up, but the roads shouldn’t be too terrible, yet.”

“That may be, but I’d feel better with the tr...” Stopped in front of the National Bank of Murietta was an armored car, its cabin doors wide open.

“Do you guys see that?” Kevin asked. When they all confirmed that they had, Kevin blurted out, “I don’t know about you guys, but I think an armored car beats the hell out of a Ryder truck any day.” Holstering his M-1911, Kevin picked up the Mossberg. With that Kevin and Steve cautiously left the suv, leaving Mav to protect the rest of the group.

On closer inspection it was revealed that the cabin was empty, as was the cargo area. Kevin moved back to the cabin, muttering to himself. Please, please, please, please, please... DAMNIT! No keys were in the ignition.

Kevin returned to the suv. “I don’t suppose any of you know how to hotwire an armored car, do you?” Before anyone could answer the crash of breaking glass announced the heretofore unscheduled demolition of the bank’s plate glass doors.

The crew of the armored car, less than living but still mobile, did not like them tampering with their toy, it seemed. They lunged at Steve, but in a competition between buckshot and determination, buckshot wins. Always.

The ghoul was flung back, not fully dead, but missing enough of his torso that the group did not have to worry about him. The other one connected solidly with Steve’s foot. It's jaw and cheek broken, it crumpled to the ground, where the crew member, he who had already met Steve’s boot, had the pleasure of meeting steve’s weapon. Another blast of buckshot stopped the twitching the first one was doing.

“Never mind, boys and girls, we’ve got the keys here... somewhere.” Kevin looked at Steve. “One of us needs to search the bodies. Not it!”

“Not it!” Steve practically shouted, just an instant too late. “Fuck.”

Kevin grinned at him, “Better you than me, bub.” The rest of them set to the task of moving the goods they had so eagerly stockpiled into the cargo area of the armored car.

“Got ‘em,” Steve shouted, rising from the dead body, dangling a pair of bloody keys. He tossed them to Kevin, where he let them drop to the ground. Using the other corpse’s shirt, DeShane wiped down the keys.

“We don’t know if that shit can be transmitted through the blood, you probably shouldn’t have touched that.” Kevin said nervously to Steve. He looked down at his fingers, then wiped them on the same corpse Kevin had used.

Going back to the rest of the group Kevin said, “We can fit three people up front, so two of us are going to have to ride in the back. I’m driving and we’ll need a competent marksman up front, but whoever’s in the back will need to be pretty decent at it too, since I’m going to give them my shotgun.

"I’d wager us two and Officer Felna are the most experienced with weapons, so Mav, you’ll be in back with the shotgun. Now, you two,” Kevin said, gesturing at the siblings, Jenna and John, “can stay together in the back if you want, but John, we might need someone else who can handle a weapon up front. It’s your call.”

They talked quietly for a moment, and decided Jenna would sit up front. John gave her his pistol and Steve gave the promise that she could use it if she had to. When the rear riders were all tucked in the first class passengers took their seats.

Kevin turned the key and chuckled. “Those poor bastards must have just started the day, this baby’s all nice and gassed up. Next stop, Hunter's Point.”

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 08 Jun 2011 11:25 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
Chapter Five


Lt. Richlen had recalled his team from their recon mission and now all of the remaining base officers, the head civilian workers from Hunter’s Point, and the officers from the Iowa were in the headquarters building briefing room.

“OK you all know the current sitrep. Any of you have anything to add?” Captain Richardson asked after the introductions were made.

“Sir, I would like permission to form recon teams and begin combing the local area for survivors, supplies, and equipment that we could use,” Captain Meredith requested.

A tall, large built man with a high and tight haircut, he was dressed in the MARPAT camouflage pattern utilities and was the Commander, Marine Security Forces, Hunter’s Point.

“I’m sure you would captain. I want you to work with Lt. Richlen on that and present a plan of action to me later today.”

“The base medical station is well supplied and we can handle most anything.” Doc Brown, now the acting base resident doctor added. He seated next to the chief hospital corpsman from Hunter’s Point.

“Me and my workers want a chance to help out, look for survivors, our families, whatever. We don’t like being under house arrest, if that’s what you want to call it.” Warren Noel added.

Noel was a swarthy-faced fat man, with large calloused hands, dressed in jeans and a LL Bean shirt, a Carhart jacket hung on the back of his chair. A faded, dented and well-used yellow safety helmet on the table in front of him, he was the civilian worker’s supervisor.

“Mr. Noel, we’ll get to your part in all of this very shortly,” Richardson quickly added.

“Captain Richardson, Steve Hurgeson, civilian security.” Hurgeson was an older man, thick, dark hair, in a white uniform shirt, epaulets, dark pants and Sam Browne cartridge belt with handgun, cuffs, keys, radio and ASP baton, completed with high shine paratrooper boots.

“Yes, Mr. Hurgeson?”

“Captain, I have twelve men, roughly trained in security, we were augmenting the Marine security detachment, handling passes at the main gate.”

“Captain Meredith, I want you to include Mr. Hurgeson on the inner security planning and see that his men know which end of the weapon the bullets comes out.”

”Aye sir.” Meredith made some notes on his paper.

“Now, gentlemen, the way I see it is pretty simple. According to the last transmission from CINCPAC, we’re pretty much on our own. I want verification of a secure perimeter at all times. No one goes anywhere alone.

"Get every vehicle we have and check them out, get them mechanically sound. I don’t want any vehicle not starting or breaking down at the wrong time. No soft-skinned vehicles. Any hummer we have that doesn’t have door armoring or a roof, replace it with something that is. Fabricate it if you have to, I don’t care how you do it, just get it done.

"Mr. Noel, I hear some of your people are welders?” Richardson received a nod from Noel before continuing. “OK, then have them assigned to make armor for any vehicles that don’t have it.”

Richardson paused and looked around the room. “Secondly, once that has been done, I want a complete inventory of what we have, how long it will last, and where we can get it. After that, we will begin to send out recon patrols to the surrounding towns and cities to look for survivors and supplies.

"Primary on the list is foodstuffs, medical supplies, ammunition, and fuel. In that order. We now have more personnel to feed and house. I want the base housing looked at. We need places to put potential survivors.” Richardson looked around the room.

“Anyone know how to run heavy equipment?” A small show of hands from Mr. Noel and some of the civilian security personnel.

“Very well. Mr. Noel, your job is to interview people and find out what they can do then send someone over to the Sea Bees compound and see what’s left and what you can use.

"When you finish there I want an estimate of how much material you’ll need to construct a concrete wall around this base, twelve feet high, eight feet thick at the base, tapering to six feet thick at the top.” Several people looked up at that with questioning eyes.

“I want this facility totally secure. No one knows how long this will last, we have nowhere else to go, our back is to the water. We make a stand here.” Richardson drove his point home by pointing down.

“And lastly, I want to see a working long distance radio system that we can get contact with someone in the civilian sector. There’s a water tower on base, see if you can use that to rig up an antenna.

“By the end of today I want to see estimates and readiness reports. Get it done people, dismissed.”

***

Behind the wheel of the armored car Kevin felt the need to showboat a little. He revved the engine and luxuriated in the powerful roar it emitted. “Whenever you’re done playing Speed Racer, we kind of want to get moving.” Kevin wasn’t paying attention to know who the complainer was. So he reached past Jenna and slapped Steve upside the head.

“What the hell was that for, ya big lummox?” Steve grumped out, rubbing the back of his head.

“I’ll go when I’m ready. And now... I’m ready.” Kevin said with a grin, Steve giving him the dagger-eyed look.

They started off down the street at little more than a crawl. These civilian tanks took some time to get moving. Driving in the suburbs was dull work, but Kevin preferred it over rough city-driving and would take it in a heartbeat.

The group thought the radio was not working, until Jenna stumbled across a station that made them all wish it had been broken.

“...throughout the area. We’ll keep broadcasting until those things make it inside the building. I know there’s no way out of this station for me now. If you just tuned in, this is what we know so far: The outbreak occurred simultaneously in Paris, London, Chicago, Moscow, Beijing, Sydney, Cairo, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Reykjavik, Mexico City, Havana, and New Delhi.

“From what we can tell it’s spread through bites and blood. Being wounded or infected will kill you in a few hours. In between the time of infection and death the person bitten will go progressively insane and become extremely violent. Although, if you’re killed soon after the infection is caused, one may become re-animated. As for whatever these things are, they’ve shown basic reasoning skills, at about the level of a young child. It’s been confirmed that it takes severe brain damage to permanently disable them. In laymen’s terms, shoot them in the head, or bash it in.

“Bay Area residents are urged to stay indoors and board up their doors and windows until the crisis has passed. For those of you unable to do that, Hunter’s Point Naval Base is...”

SHIT! They’re in the building!” Someone else’s voice screamed out.

“Sherri, if you’re listening, I love you. Please, stay safe.” The station suddenly cut out, the newscaster’s pledge of love the last thing before static took over. On this side of the looking glass, chaos reigned the airwaves.

“Shit,” Steve groaned, his head in his hands. Although, normally, Kevin would have chastized him for using that kind of language with a lady in attendance, he just nodded, dumbfounded.

Kevin had to catch himself quickly, due to what was happening outside the armored truck. A hastily-erected roadblock barred their way, three police cars parked lengthwise across the street.

A single uniformed officer stood on their side of the barricade, while three more, all toting Remington shotguns, stood on the other side. None of the group in the front of the truck could not fail to notice that all of the weapons were trained squarely on them.

For a moment Kevin was struck by indecision. If he just drove through there really was nothing they could do to stop them. However, nothing about the situation seemed right to him. He could not put my finger on it, but his instincts told him there was just a quality of wrongness to the entire scene. Kevin shot a quick glance to his side, and Steve shrugged, he did not know what they should do either.

Begrudgingly, Kevin stopped. Despite his gut instinct, they were brother officers, and he was a fellow officer. When the vehicle ground to a halt, the cop in front of the barricade mimed for Kevin to open the door. Steve saw it too. Kevin noticed that Steve’s hand dipped to the butt of his pistol. Kevin had elected to leave his SIG in the cab, but he kept his m1911 tucked into his waistband in the small of his back.

Kevin then stepped out of the cab, nervous as hell, but more than willing to blow the officer away if it was necessary to get to Hunter’s Point intact.

“You trying to get to the city, buddy?” The cop asked, sounding less like an officer of the law and more like a bad impression of a gangster from a less than stellar movie.

“Well, sort of,” Kevin answered. “We need to get to Hunter’s Point, and the only way left is through Oakland.”

“Uh-huh, yeah, problem is buddy, this here’s a toll road.” Suddenly Kevin realized what seemed unusual on approach. None of these ‘cops’ were wearing a uniform or even a badge. They had tactical vests on, over their shirts, but he had not realized that none of their shirts matched, let alone resembled police uniforms. And now, with three shotguns trained on him, Kevin was in a sea of crap, and he had forgotten his snorkel.

“Hey, if you ain’t got any cash or anything, we can take the girl,” the front raider said, gesturing at Jenna, sitting in the cab.

“Okay, that’s it you miserable sum-bitch,” Kevin was sure he had a thousand cool ways to end that sentence, but Steve did the talking for him, and shot the man.

Steve was in an awkward position to be shooting, which would explain why he ended up hitting the middle of the vest, where, Kevin could swear, he saw the 9 mil bounce off. He drew his pistol at the same time the faux cop brought his to bear, and Kevin’s aim was better.

The raider grazed Kevin’s shoulder, but Deshane made the top half of the raider’s head disappear.

Had Kevin been in any other position, the sound of three shotguns being cocked in unison might have been a soothing thing to hear. As it was he just dove into the cab of the armored truck, banging his ankle on the door, but he knew that was preferable to taking a load of buckshot to the chest.

Kevin slammed the door and floored it, which would have been a lot more dramatic if they had been in one of those sleek sexy Bond cars. As it was, they just kind of wedged between two of the parked police cars and trundled off down the road.

“SHIT!” Kevin hissed through gritted teeth. “That could have been a lot cooler.” Of the other members in the cab, only Steve managed a laugh. Jenna halfheartedly tried a lopsided grin.

“Uh, Jenna, you know anything about first aid? Because my shoulder is hurting like a bitch.”

Now, she laughed. “I’m a... was, a resident at Mercy General.”

Kevin was not going to let her have all of the fun. “How far along were you?”

“Second year.”

“Nevermind then, Steve, can you help me out here?” Kevin laughed outright and Jenna shot him an indignant look. “We’ll have to stop, the first aid kit is in the back.”

“Are we far enough away from those guys?” Jenna asked, a nervous edge in her voice, but something else too. Almost excitement.

“By now, I’m thinking, yeah.” Steve said.

“Then the sooner Kevin stops the sooner I can fix his shoulder.”

Kevin stopped and got out of the cab, offering his hand to help Jenna dismount. They circled around to the back, where he opened the door to find a very anxious looking pair of stowaways. John immediately rushed forward to embrace Jenna, and Mav just asked, “What happened? We heard some shots fired.”

“Someone hijacked a police roadblock and tried to trade us passage into the city for Jenna. Long story short, that felon will never be able to wear a hat again, but he nicked me, and Jenna was kind enough to offer to patch me up. Oh, and also, everything worldwide has gone to hell in a handbasket, but that’s for later.”

Kevin closed the door on the befuddled officer and confused brother, and they went back into the cab, just in time to see Steve climbing in the other door.

He looked at them and shrugged, grinning. “When you gotta go...”

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 15 Jun 2011 23:15 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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***

The madness sweeping the globe had arrived on the streets of Oakland and its ‘burbs. The crowds were now loose in the suburbs of the great cities. Maybe it was due to the fact that they were so close to the edge of Oakland that it had gotten this bad, but they hoped that was not the reason. If it was, the city itself would only be worse.

Their momentum was more than enough to carry them through the areas where groups of the undead had congregated, but Jenna was turning a little more green around the gills every time she watched someone get dragged under the hood. She worked diligently on cleaning and bandaging Kevin’s arm to keep her mind occupied, and by the time they had finished moving through the worst of it she had finished.

“Now might not be the best time to mention it, but I don’t have any insurance.” Kevin laughed, throwing her a sideways glance.

“It’s okay,” she giggled, “Steve can pay me back in another way.” She leaned over, towards Steve.

“Must I remind you, my lady, that your brother sits nary two feet behind us?” Any thoughts Steve had that this was going in a romantic direction were crushed when she grabbed the looted bag of convenience store candy that sat on Steve’s other side.

“Huh?” Jenna asked.

They could see Steve’s face go red as a hot blush crept up his neck. Kevin started laughing so hard Steve would not have been surprised if he started choking and turned blue. So he settled for smacking Kevin upside the back of the head and flashing Jenna a chagrined smile.

The main route to the San Mateo bridge was Interstate 880, which ran straight from the ‘burbs to the middle of Oakland’s industrial district. With any luck they could get on that expressway through most of the Oakland side of the Bay. If that was clear enough, they could cross the San Mateo bridge and be at Hunter’s Point within an hour, or two.

If it was not clear, their goal was to be there by nightfall. Kevin certainly did not want to be caught in the open when the sun gave up its dominion over the sky. His breath caught in his throat as they approached Glen Eden. It was a sprawling maze of streets and factories, but Kevin knew something far worse than any minotaur lurked in this man-made labyrinth.

The first sight that greeted them as they entered Glen Eden was the burning husk of an overturned ambulance. “Well, that’s a lovely mood-setter.” Kevin grumbled, steering around the hulk, praying that its fuel tanks would not pick that moment to cook off. Once they had gotten about halfway down the block the overcooked ambulance did decide to explode, sending a rain of burning debris cascading down around them.

“Oh shit. Shit. SHIT!” Kevin and Steve exclaimed at the same moment, both realizing what that meant. They knew that explosion could very well act as a clarion call to any of the shambling corpses close enough to hear it. Which, may or may not, be a mob big enough to tip over the armored truck. They did not want to find out, but Kevin was not familiar enough with this part of Oakland’s ‘burbs to get on the Nimitz expressway.

A quick glance at Kevin's other two cab occupants showed they did not know where to go any better than he did. Great. If one of those things came shuffling around the corner while I am trying to decide what to do... well, screw it, decision made. Kevin took off straight down Hesperian Blvd, deciding that if he knew their location relative to the expressway, then he would be able to find a way on.

Overhead a civilian helo raced towards the naval base, at least three undead hanging on the runners. The helo slewed and stuttered, where it landed on the flat roof of a warehouse. Kevin’s group continued to trundle forward, and their path, as it so happened, went right by the warehouse.

While they were passing by the building, a loud bang on the roof announced the arrival of a new rider. Kevin let out an explosive sigh and turned to his two fellow cabmates. “Why do people always have to jump onto my vehicle? That’s twice now.”

Steve looked at Kevin, “You gonna let him in?”

Kevin sighed and pretended to think about it. “I probably should,” He answered, but kept on driving. He wanted to get clear of the warehouse, in case one of the pilot’s hangers-on wanted to follow him onto the armored car, or, just as bad, it was one of the undead on top, not the pilot.

Kevin stopped, just in time to avoid sideswiping a limo that had shot out into the middle of the intersection. The driver of the limousine slammed on his brakes too, scoring skidmarks into the street as it ground to a halt, and all four doors opened as Steve and Kevin stepped out of the cab.

The poor bastard riding the cargo compartment was momentarily forgotten. The two of them stepped in front of the armored truck to meet the limo riders. The driver, a bald, gangly fellow who had to be at least sixty-five, but probably did not weigh any more than one hundred and sixty pounds, approached them.

“Where you boys think yer goin’?” Kevin was ready to burst out, swearing to God almighty. Everyone referring to him as a kid or a boy was really getting on his nerves. DeShane had his hand on his pistol before he even started speaking. Because, as a general rule, he no longer trusted anyone but his small group.

Kevin really did not want to have to talk to this guy, because he knew he would just have to start shooting. So he was glad when Steve responded. “We’re going to Hunter’s Point. And before you ask, we’re not going to pay you or give you anything to get there.”

The skinny man turned to his compatriots, his smile showing all of five teeth. “Lookee here boys, we got us a couple a real hardasses.” It may have just been nine in the morning, but Kevin had tolerated his quota of bullshit for the day already. They could have been advertising for a church breakfast the next week for all he knew, but he was done.

The skinny old man took a .45 ACP round right smack in the middle of his bald head, blood and brain mushroomed out, seriously damaging the aesthetic appeal of the otherwise spotless limo.

His three friends were armed, it seemed, and while one of Kevin’s rounds put one of them on his ass, Steve’s Glock only put one to sleep before the last one managed to score a hit. In the return fire Kevin saw Steve go down, and sent the last round in his magazine to meet the face of the last limo rider before kneeling down to check the extent of the damage.

Steve seemed to be out, which wasn’t a good sign. Kevin frantically looked for the wound, but then he saw a pockmark in the tactical vest that had not been there before.

Sure enough, on the asphalt beside Steve lay a 9mm slug, its head smashed flat by the force of the impact. Kevin gave Steve a, somewhat, gentle slap to bring him back around. When his eyes fluttered he yanked him up to his feet, pressing the bullet into his palm. “A little souvenir,” Kevin muttered.

Kevin clambered up onto the hood, which was hot enough that he could feel it through the soles of his boots. From there he climbed onto the roof of the cab to see to the helo pilot. “Shit,” Kevin gasped when he saw him. “Steve, grab the first-aid kit from the cab and get Jenna up here, pronto!” Kevin did not bother looking to see that Steve was doing what he told him to do, Kevin knew he would.

Kevin lunged up onto the roof, where the pilot was grasping a ragged gash on his leg and was struggling to breathe. A veritable torrent of blood was gushing from the wound, between his bloodstained fingers.

Steve climbed up onto the roof with Jenna in tow, where they hurried over to the pilot. Jenna knelt by the wounded man, telling him to let go of his damaged leg so she could assess the situation. “He’s going into hypovolemic shock,” she said to no one in particular. She broke open the first-aid kit and began digging through it. “I need alcohol,” she told Kevin.

“Doesn’t getting drunk come after saving the patient?” Steve asked as Kevin hopped off the edge. Steve knew as well as Kevin did that it was to sterilize the instruments, but he felt he needed to make a joke. Kevin told himself that he would have to remember to slap him when he got back up there. Kevin opened the door to the back of the truck, finding the pair in there no less confused than the last time.

“Long story short, guy on the roof might die if I don’t take this,” Kevin said, grabbing a bottle of rubbing alcohol before shutting the doors again. He climbed back up on the roof, slapped Steve, and handed Jenna the bottle.

“This will probably taste as good as some of the whiskey I have had before,” Jenna told the pilot, “but I figure in this case it might be worth it.” Amazingly, the pilot managed a choking laugh. Maybe he wasn’t as bad off as they thought.

Jenna tied a tourniquet around his leg, above the wound, and pulled out the needle she intended to use to put him back together. Steve and Kevin both looked away. They shared a lot of traits, not the least of which was squeamishness about needles. Jenna chuckled, “Grow up you two.”

Kevin did not respond, but Steve managed a “Make me,” he said with a wink.

It seemed like forever, but it could not have been more than a couple of minutes before Jenna told them they could turn around. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked,” she said, “But he’s probably going to be out most of the way there. If we could get him a transfusion...”

Kevin stopped her there. “We can’t. Not until we get to the Point. Will he be able to hold on that long?”

She frowned, her mouth a thin line. “Maybe.”

“Toss him in the back then, and you should probably stay with him. Send John up front with us if room’s short, otherwise, it doesn’t make a difference to me.”

Steve and Kevin, ever so carefully, hauled the unconscious pilot down onto the hood, where they looked at the street, a good five feet below them. “There’s no way we can do this without dumping him on the asphalt,” Kevin muttered. Still, he handed him down to Jenna while Steve climbed down. Together they were able to maneuver the piolot into a position to pass his feet to Steve. They both jumped down together, Kevin holding the top end. Kevin winced, there was no way this would end well.

They hopped down, and Jenna teetered dangerously, coming very close to dropping him, but they managed to right him before they spilled him out of the makeshift litter. She opened the doors to the back where Steve and Kevin laid him on the steel floor.

Jenna decided to remain in the back after a quick, and heated, discussion with her brother. Apparently there’s a limit of two shootouts a brother will let his sister get in before he feels he should not allow her to come to harm.

“Well,” Kevin said, re-entering the cab. “The good news is, I’ve got more room. The bad news is, we lost the hottie. Any idea where we are?”

“Near the Roadway Break Bulk Facility, I think. It’s up ahead, just over the Alameda Creek, across the street from the Oliver Sports Park. I knew one of the guys who worked there a while back.” Steve replied, his brow furrowed in deep thought.

“So that would put us still a good ways away from the bridge?” Kevin asked, still trying to get the lay of the land. The Alameda Creek may have marked the middle of Oakland’s ‘burbs well enough, but if they crossed the bridge they would be closer to the naval base.

“Yeah, it’s about a fifteen minute drive, uh,” Steve paused, thinking, “That way.” He pointed north, up Hesperian Blvd.

“Hey, that’ll take us near St. Rose’s, right?”

“The church or the hospital?” Steve asked.

“Hospital.”

“Yeah, just take a right on west Tennyson and then a left on Calaroga avenue. Why?”

“Ve need blood!” Kevin announced, although his intended impression of Dracula came out much more like Count Chocula than he had hoped.

“You think it’s a good idea?” Steve asked.

“Nah, not really. We don’t know that guy’s blood type, not to mention the hospital’s probably even worse off than the rest of the city.”

They kept going through a city of the damned that Dante Aligheri himself could not have imagined, trying to find a way out of their very own Inferno.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 16 Jun 2011 22:04 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
Chapter Six


They had not gone more than a couple of blocks before the distinctive, albeit muffled, rattle of gunfire reached them. They had been hearing it throughout the city, but these shots were a lot closer. Turning onto Hesperian blvd, they discovered why.

A pair of police officers were crouched down behind their patrol cruiser, firing at a group of about a half-dozen men across the street. Those men were not shy about returning that fire, and at least one of them had an automatic weapon. The police are hopelessly outgunned, Kevin thought with disgust. If we don't do something they both will be pushing up daisies real fast.

Not wanting to risk getting shot, Kevin rolled around the cruiser, stopping when he was sure he would be blocked from any shot the group across the street might want to take.
“Open your door!” Kevin shouted, but Steve did not need his urging. The duo on the street looked like they had been matched up for the sake of comedic appearance alone. There they were, a short and stocky white cop standing next to a tall and thin African-American officer. Steve instantly thought of a million jokes, but decided to just go with, “Get in your car and go.”

When they did not move, Kevin screamed out, “MOVE IT NOW OR DIE HERE!

The duo blinked dumbly before moving with surprising speed. They may have set the world speed record for driving in reverse, before whipping sharply around the corner and speeding away. The clowns across the street started to move towards them, but they had an ambush of their own to deal with.

From inside the building, two, ten, fifteen deadheads shambled into the street. Most of them shuffled towards the men who had attacked the police, with the rest moving towards the armored car. Steve glanced at Kevin worriedly, “Should we help them?”

Kevin thought about it for a second before answering. “On the one hand, they tried to kill those officers,” they could hear the screams and actually see the attacks as one of the outlaw’s stomach was torn open and his internal organs came spilling out.

“But, on the other hand, no one should die like that, even scumbags.” The other monstrosities lost interest in the grotesque piñata and moved on to his friends. The outlaws tried to get to the armored car, but a screen of undead barred their path. Kevin slammed on the rear wall of the cab twice before opening his door, hoping like hell someone inside would open up and help them.

Steve and Kevin leaped out of the cab, their weapons roaring with every step they took. Mav and John joined them up front, wielding a pistol and shotgun, respectively. Kevin yelled for John to put his weapon down just as he fired. The buckshot did a splendid job of decapitating one of the revenants, but the spread was enough to take down one of the very men they were trying to save. One of his comrades saw this, and before Kevin could act, fired three shots with his own weapon.

One went wide, but the second one caught him in the throat, and the third struck him right above his left eye. With a sickening pop, the back of his head blew out, blood and brain matter splattering against the façade of a building. The ghouls in the middle were forgotten as the two groups of humans faced off against each other. By now there were only three others left, and the undead in the street still seemed dead set on taking them out first.

Mav took a round in the chest, where it bounced off the Kevlar he was wearing under his uniform, but a second round bit into his left bicep, where he did not have any protection. He dropped his Glock, even as the bullet he just fired ventilated the skull of the man who had shot him.

Steve and Kevin though, were either under the protection of some divine being, or we were just finally being repaid for everything that had gone wrong in their lives to date. Kevin heard bullets zip by, but none decided to stick around, and they dropped the remaining two humans who were unscathed.

Then the ghouls turned their attention to Kevin’s group, so there was no time to stop. Kevin grabbed the shotgun John had dropped and had a shell visit the chamber on its trip to the corpse in front of him. The gunplay lasted less than forty seconds before it was just them standing.

Steve knelt down to see if John was still alive, a futile gesture, but Steve was a ‘half-full’ type of guy if there ever was one, which made it all the more disheartening for Kevin to see the look that darkened his face when Steve shook his head.

Mavik joined them, his right hand still clamped firmly over his wound. Kevin knew one of them would need to tell Jenna. What made Steve perfect for the job was also the reason Kevin would never let him do it. As dissimilar as these situations were, it would no doubt remind him of that cold October morning…

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 23 Jun 2011 18:46 
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
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Location: Wandering the Wastes
“One of us needs to tell Jenna,” Kevin said when the group was gathered around him.

There was only the briefest of pauses before Steve said, “I’ll do it.”

“No, you won’t,” Kevin told him. He turned to face Mav. “I’ll tell her.”

Officer Felna looked back at Kevin, understanding the subtle body language. “No, I should,” Mav said with a sigh, “I was John’s best friend, and I spent the most time with them in back. Plus, you need to keep driving. I’ll handle this.”

“You sure?” Steve asked, a little taken aback.

“Yeah.”

“Okay then, thanks.” Kevin quickly added.

Mav trotted off to perform the unwanted duty. Kevin turned to Steve, “We may as well police up these weapons. Don’t take anything that we don’t have the ammo for, or can’t get easily.”

They went about their grisly work, and, while Steve was searching his second body, he let out a low whistle, “Jesus Kev, this guy had a M-8s. If that thing hadn’t gotten him, he could have done some serious damage.”

“Take it,” Was all Kevin said.

On the bodies the only useful items they had found was the M-8s and some .30-06 rounds for Steve’s rifle. No stripper clips though, which meant he would have to manually reload. Which still beats the hell out of not having any ammunition at all.

Returning to the armored car both Kevin and Steve heard Jenna sobbing in the back. Kevin told Steve to head on to the cab while he peeked in the back. He stuck his head around the corner and saw Jenna openly weeping with her head in her hands. “Can I see him?” she asked.

“It’s best that you don’t.” Kevin said, stepping around into full view, and in the process he sounded so much like the cop in the hospital he unnerved himself. “We’ll need to get moving though, so are you still willing to come with us? I know I sound like an insensitive asshole saying this, but we don’t have long before a lot of those things find us.” A loud groan behind the armored truck drew all of their attention. Whirling around Kevin saw at least two dozen of the deadheads shuffling towards them. “Shit, no choice now.” He said as he slammed the rear doors and ran up to the cab, climbing in.

“Company?” Steve asked.

“Nah, not even half of one,” Kevin said, unsure if he was joking or just slipping back into a military mindset. In either case he floored the gas and they began to trundle down the street at a blazing fast speed five miles an hour. God, these things are slow, Kevin grunted to himself. They picked up speed soon though, and were moving at a good clip, leaving the walking corpses behind.

It was quiet for a while before Steve spoke up, “Thanks for not letting me do that back there.”

Kevin just grunted, not exactly wanting to cover that territory again. “Don’t mention it,” He finally said. Steve nodded, knowing it was an order, and not an option.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 23 Jun 2011 18:52 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
Chapter 6


“Motherfucker!” Kevin cursed, slamming on the brakes. In front of them, a pedestrian was crossing the street, using the crosswalk. If that was not remarkable enough, he was strolling slowly, looking up at the sky, as if he did not have a care in the world.

Behind him, a group of about ten of the walking dead shambled after him. He paused long enough to wave and flash them a cheerful smile, before drawing his pistol faster than anyone Kevin ever seen before, and laid them all low. It was not until Kevin saw the empty magazine at his feet that he realized the man had to have reloaded while cutting them down. He turned back and continued on his way.

“Ho...ly... shit...!” Steve muttered. “Did you see that?”

“I saw it.” Kevin said in amazement.

“Shit.” Steve muttered again.

“Agreed. I think I should go talk to him.”

“You sure?”

“I sure as hell wouldn’t mind him on our team, not the way he shoots.”

“Okay. I’ll cover you.” Steve drew his Glock as he spoke this last part.

Kevin stepped out of the cab and hailed the stranger dressed in black. He turned around and strolled towards him at the same leisurely pace. Kevin jogged up to him, not wanting to be exposed any longer than need be.

For his part, the man did not look like someone who should be able to shoot like that. At first glance, he looked totally unremarkable, in his mid-twenties, close cropped black hair, dark blue eyes, and a slight tan. His clothing was distinctly civilian, a black t-shirt and jeans.

Up close though, Kevin realized something was off about his eyes. The iris was almost black, and had it not been for the veins of lighter blue running through it, he would have thought it was. They seemed, empty, somehow, as well. When the man smiled, showing perfect white teeth, the eyes stayed the same, empty. Soulless.

“Yes?” he asked, sounding politely bored.

“That was some incredible shooting back there.” Kevin said, opening the conversation.

“Not really, they’ve been following me for a while. I wanted to wait until they were close to make it a challenge.”

Kevin was shocked, because if this was true, this guy definitely had a screw loose. “Where are you headed?”

The man shrugged as if the idea of going somewhere was totally foreign to him. “Wherever I end up. Just walking.”

“But what about... all of this?” Kevin said, vaguely gesturing at the dead city around them.

“What about it?” He asked, and Kevin realized he genuinely did not understand what he had meant.

“The people turning into... those things.”

“Oh, that. I’ll make do. I always have.”

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Jors Skaarsgaard.” He said, his tone was flat, without inflection.

“Kevin DeShane,” and put his hand out. The man did not shake it, just gave him a quizzical look. Kevin awkwardly withdrew his hand. Something is seriously off about this guy, Kevin thought with rising alarm, but he could not put a finger on it. He just stood still, that unsettling smile on his face, waiting for Kevin to say something.

“We’re going to Hunter’s Point.” Kevin began, but the man suddenly cut Kevin off.

“Won’t be there much longer.” He said, with that eerie grin unshaken by what he said.

“What do you mean?” Kevin asked.

“Oh, nothing. It will be there if, and when, you reach it, but don’t expect it to last very long.” Now Kevin could feel a few things, anger and fear chief among them, building. He continued before Kevin could speak. “Get out of Oakland before dark, or you won’t get out at all. Things are very peaceful now compared to what they’ll be in a few hours.”

“Why?”

“Because most of them are dead right now. The nanos take time to work. You’ve almost exclusively been seeing the Secondary Infected, there would only be a few thousand or so of them, five to ten thousand on the outside. When the Tertiary Infected rise around, oh, say one or two in the morning, then the bay area will be a lot worse than it is now.”

The depth of his knowledge seemed spooky, so Kevin asked, “How do you know all of this?”

“Hmm? Oh. I caused it. Well, part of it anyway.”

To Kevin he was no longer just a bystander, he was the enemy, if what he had said was true.

Kevin moved to draw his M1911, but before his hand even reached the butt he stepped close to him and had the muzzle of his own pistol under his chin, his other hand grasping Kevin’s shirt. “Did you really think you could outdraw me? you ‘people’ are so arrogant,” he said with a sneer.

The way he had said people had given Kevin pause. It was like he was referring to humans in the third person. The man was so close Kevin could smell his breath, but something in the back of his mind told him that someone who can talk casually about being the one of the key causes of a worldwide disaster should not smell of Scrape mouthwash.

“I don’t plan on killing you unless I have to, Lieutenant. But tell your buddy in the cab, Steve, is it? To put his pistol away, or I will kill him.”

“How do you—” Kevin began, but was cut off when the man pressed the muzzle of the pistol harder against his chin. This close Kevin could see he had two of them, and he thanked God he was using a different one than the one he had dispatched the group of what he called ‘Infected’ with. That would have burned.

“Tell him now, or I ventilate your skull, then kill your buddy. Then the three in the back, just for fun.” However he knew how many there were in the truck, Kevin knew he was definitely not in a position to make demands.

“Steve!” Kevin called out, “For the love of God, don’t shoot. He walks.”

Kevin’s captor’s unnatural smile resurfaced once again, “Now see, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, I’m going to keep walking, and we won’t see each other again unless I want to. Got it?” Kevin nodded and he flung him back. He stumbled and tripped, striking his head on the sidewalk. He saw stars just before the world went dark.

Reality hit Kevin like a slap in the face. So did the slap in the face. Steve had given him a whack to wake him up, and he did not bother being gentle about it. “Get up, we gotta get goin’!”

”What the hell happened?” Kevin asked, his speech thick. He felt the back of his head, and immediately recoiled. His hand came back sticky with blood. He looked at the sidewalk. He had not lost a lot, but he was bleeding. It would stop soon though, he hoped.

“He threw you about thirty feet in the air, he ran, you got knocked out. Then the corpses started coming down the street, now get up!” Steve commanded, hauling Kevin to his feet and shoving him into the cab. Then he got behind the steering wheel and started the armored car.

“Who the hell was that guy?” Kevin asked. Steve just shrugged his shoulders. “I bet we’ll see him again,” Kevin predicted.

“Know it or think it?”

“Know it.” There was a short silence, and Kevin said, “He called me Lieutenant.”

“So? You were a Marine Lieutenant.”

“But how would he know that?”

“Anyone who even only knows of you would probably know.”

“He also knew you were in the cab. He knew your name.”

“Now that’s a bit odd. Still, it wouldn’t take a ton of effort on his part to link us. Hell, he could have just guessed.”

“Maybe,” Kevin said lamely, grimacing. “He knew about the three in the back though. How could he know that?”

“Maybe he has been following us?”

“On foot? Through all of those things?” Kevin asked incredously. Mike shrugged again, as if to say ‘how in the hell should I know’?

“He said he was responsible for all of this.” Kevin added.

“Really?” Mike’s otherwise placid demeanor was belied by the tremor in his voice.

“Yeah. And I don’t know how, but something about that guy makes me think he was telling the truth.”

“Either way, he’s one creepy son of a bitch.” Steve declared.

“That’s definitely true.”

They had just turned the next corner when Kevin's cellphone rang. “Hello?”

“You may want to continue your journey on foot.”

“Who is this?”

“This is Jors.” There was laughter behind the voice, and Kevin could almost see the smug bastard with the creepy smile on his face.

“And why would I want to do that?”

“Because in five, oh, four minutes now, it's going to explode.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“It doesn’t matter to me whether you do or not.” The phone clicked as he hung up.

“Shit, stop!” Kevin hollered out.

Steve slammed on the brakes. “What is it?”

“We need to get out!”

“What? Why?” Steve asked, even as he gathered his things.

“No time.” Kevin answered curtly.

They left the cab and raced around to the back, pulling the others out, along with their equipment and looted convenience store booty. Kevin and Steve hoisted the pilot between them and scrambled for a nearby building, a store whose plate glass windows had been broken at one point or another sometime that morning.

They had just ducked behind the counter when the armored car exploded. The light was blinding, and the only discernable sound above the din was the whine of shrapnel as it flew by them.

“Okay... um, shit... okay...” Steve babbled.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 25 Jun 2011 00:05 
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Kevin knew they needed to get out of there before any less-than-living company arrived. Although, they would need a vehicle, since they could not very well lug the pilot and Dan the remaining few miles to the San Mateo bridge, let alone the Point.

“Officer Fekna, can you look to see if there are any usable vehicles in the street? Steve, help me and the Doc get Dan and this helo pilot on the counter, then I’ll head out and help Mav. Jenna, just stay here and help Doc Hooper keep the pilot alive.” They lifted the unconscious SFPD officer and pilot on to the counter, and then Kevin clambered through the shattered window, leaving Steve the shotgun.

Outside, the burning hulk that had been their ride was sending a thick stream of oily smoke up into the sky. Luck seemed to be with them, sort of, because a relatively undamaged pickup truck was not far down the street from their current location. Kevin ran over to it, and confirmed that none of the tires had been punctured by debris from the explosion.
Kevin was about to yell to Mav to get the others when the first of their unwanted guests arrived. They shambled around the far side of the block, about a dozen of them. At the sight of them, though, their lurching gait became a quick shuffle, and they moved down the street towards them.

Mav was quick on the draw, and took one down even as he backpedaled towards Kevin. Kevin was more interested in slowing them down than aiming for a headshot, so he was aiming for their knees. He brought down a pair, but the third shot struck one in the foot, taking the appendage off, but its owner paid no mind to the injury, shuffling on the stump in quite the nauseating fashion.

Mav took his cue from Kevin, and within seconds they had knocked the mobile corpses down, if not out. “Mav, go tell them to get out here, now. I’ll kill those things. You can hotwire a car, right?”

“Uh... not really trained for that.” Mav said with a smile.

“Then have Steve do it, he knows how.”

“Got it.” Mav said as he raced to get the rest of the group.

As Mav ran to the store Kevin jogged over to the crawling mass of corpses, what the Man in Black had called Infected. He did not waste any time, shooting each in the head and moving on, reloading when his magazine was empty and again when he was done. All of my clips were empty or most of the way there by now, I’d have to refill them when we got moving again.

They came out of the store and Kevin sprinted over to let Steve get a head start on the pickup. They loaded the wounded into the trucks bed, which probably was not best for the pilot’s injuries, but there was no way in hell he would have fit inside the cab. Inside the truck, Steve cursed as the engine started.

“Problem?” Kevin asked.

“Not now, but soon. Gas tank’s almost empty. If we’re lucky, it’ll get us across the San Mateo bridge.”

“Shit... beggars can’t be choosers though, let’s roll.” Kevin said with a grimace. He tried to get Jenna to sit in the cab with Steve, but she insisted on staying with doc Hooper in taking care of Dan and the pilot.

If she needed work to help her cope, Kevin was not going to force the point too strongly. He thought it more likely that she just wanted someone to save, to help her get over John’s death. Either way, Kevin knew arguing with her would only have slowed them down, so the seating assignments ended up the same in the truck as they were in the armored car.

Kevin was reloading his magazines when Steve finally asked the question that he needed to ask, “How did you know it was gonna blow?”

“The guy on the phone was The Man in Black.”

“The guy who...”

“Yeah.”

“Something’s seriously messed up about that guy. What he knows, it’s...”

“Spooky?” Kevin added.

“I was gonna say fucked up, but yeah, spooky too.” Steve said with an unconscious shiver.

“We’ve gotta do something about that pilot.” Kevin said, switching the subject. “Dan is stable, but that helo jockey is still bleeding.”

“I know, I was thinking about that too. We can’t take him and Dan with us if we need to walk, but we can’t just dump him anywhere.”

“Do you think we could risk a hospital?”

“I don’t know... depends on how bad things have gotten. From the look of things,” Steve said, coasting past a burning storefront, “I’d say we shouldn’t.”

“We need to find out his blood type, if nothing else.” Kevin pointed out. “Doc Hooper has no way to get it out here.”

“Would we be able to rob a blood bank?”

“Hey, there’s an idea! Any idea where one is around here though?” Kevin asked.

“Naw, you know needles freak me out.”

“Damn, wonder if either of them know?”

“Doc Hooper might,” Steve ventured.

“Worth a shot.” Kevin turned around in his seat, nudging open the rear window. “Doc, do you know any blood bank near here?” He shook her head slowly. “A hospital?” He nodded.

“Looks like we don’t have a choice,” Kevin said to Steve. “Where?” Kevin asked the Doc.

“Two blocks east, one block north. St. Rose's.” Doc Hooper told them.

“You heard the man, let’s go.”

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 26 Jun 2011 16:02 
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***

Oddly enough, the sight of a pair of SWAT vans outside of St. Rose's hospital was encouraging, at least to Kevin. Assuming the officers had been called in for security, and not to retake the building. Arriving at the emergency room entrance a pair of heavily-armed officers flanked the doors, suggesting that the building was indeed secure.

When Kevin’s group approached, one of the officers ordered them to stop. “Why are you here?” He asked, seemingly oblivious to the unconscious men Steve and Kevin were carrying.

“This man has lost a lot of blood and he needs a transfusion, while the other one has been bitten but has not risen, something odd is going on with him.”

A wan expression flashed over the officer’s face, settling into pity. “Good luck, they’re almost out of clean blood.” He said, waving them past.

Walking in it seemed like this annex of the hospital was the only area that the staff was actually in control of. Heavy padlocks barred some of the doors, and makeshift barricades had been built against others.

Doctors rushed to and fro, trying to save whatever patients they could. Distantly, Kevin heard a burst of gunfire from another part of the hospital. Much more closely, he heard a single pistol shot fired. The door to one of the operating rooms opened, and a police officer and doctor wandered out, the doctor looking weary to the point of collapse. The officer was holstering his pistol.

Apparently Steve was right about one thing, these creatures were making the hospitals one of the worst places to be.

The melancholy doctor sidled up to us, practically sighing as he asked, “What do you need?”

Although Kevin wanted to ask why no one seemed to notice the comatose pilot, instinct told Doc Hooper the hospital would not be a good place to linger, so he answered before Kevin could. “This pilot needs a transfusion, the sooner the better.”

This time the doctor did sigh. “Even if we had any blood left, we’d still need to find a match for him. I’m sorry, but—”

“I’ll be donating the blood.” Kevin offered.

Doc Hooper raised an eyebrow.

“I’m O Positive.”

“You’re sure?” the hospital’s doctor asked.

“Positive.” Kevin said, smiling weakly at the lame attempt at humor.

“Very well, come on.” The hospital's doctor led Kevin into the room he and the officer had just vacated, where he saw a generous splatter of blood and brains on the far wall, where a corpse lay crumpled beneath it.

“Not exactly sterile conditions, doc.”

“You try doing better,” he said, his tone was bitter, and Kevin started to apologize, but he cut him off.

“Lie down.” He indicated one of three gurneys in the room, and he bustled off somewhere out of sight, getting whatever he needed. Kevin hoisted Dan and Steve hoisted the pilot onto the gurneys before Kevin took his place.

When the doctor returned he was carrying some sort of containment apparatus that Steve nor Kevin had ever seen before. Although, Kevin seemed to be fixated on the enormous needle the doctor seemed rather keen on stabbing him with. Kevin gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, never having been a fan of getting stabbed, with any type of sharp metallic object.

To Kevin's mind it seemed to last an eternity before the doctor said, “There, that’s as much as I’m going to risk taking.” And took the needle out.

He put some gauze and a bandage over the needles entry site and turned to the pilot, whom he promptly began pumping with Kevin’s blood. While that was going on he undid their hasty dressing on the man’s injured leg to survey the damage. He rushed off again, muttering about getting a needle.

When the doctor began stitching the wound closed, the pilot started to regain consciousness. He protested the stitches with a harsh bark, then settled back into silence, but Kevin swore he heard him grinding his teeth. The doctor wrapped a more permanent bandage around the wound, and took the needle out of the pilot as soon as the flow stopped.

“No heavy lifting, strenuous exercise, what have you. Good luck, and get out.”

“Wait a sec, doc,” Kevin said, sitting up. His head started spinning right away, and he almost fell back down. “Do you know what the hell’s going on?”

“Hardly anything. All we’ve been able to tell is that your chances of getting infected are determined by the amount of the virus that manages to make it into the bloodstream. As such, single bites are usually not fatal, but a mauling will kill someone and infect them. Contact with infected blood on unbroken skin does nothing.”

“My friend, the unconscious one over there,” Kevin said, pointing at Dan. “He was bitten rather harshly several hours ago, and is infected, but he hasn’t turned yet. Doc Hooper think’s his system is fighting the infection off, somehow.” Whatever else Kevin was going to say was drowned out by a large crash from the waiting room.

Several voices shouted what sounded like orders, but they were lost in a chorus of screams. Gunfire penetrated the din, and the doctor rushed out, leaving Kevin and his compadres in the ersatz operation room. Steve had drawn his pistol, but Kevin shook his head.

With only him and Mav combat ready, he knew they could not stay and fight. Doc Hooper and Jenna led the pilot out of the room while Kevin grabbed Dan. Steve and Mav left the operating room together, weapons high, leading the way.

What they saw in the waiting room made their blood run cold. Walking corpses, dozens of them, had broken through one of the barricaded doors and were streaming into the room. Patients and doctors screamed while the SWAT officers tried to hold back the advancing tide of the undead. They did not have a snowball’s chance in hell.

The noncombatants knew this too, and started streaming out of the doors. When an officer saw Mav and Steve firing into the crowd he started screaming for us to leave, but his decision to take his eyes off of the reanimated horrors was a fatal mistake. Three of them lunged at him, bringing him down under their weight. Across the room, another officer called for his brothers in blue to leave the hospital. He knew that this battle was lost.

They made it out of the hospital with the last of the police, and had to duck to dodge the first few Molotov cocktails the officers were lobbing in the entrance. The plate glass hospital doors broke under the fusillade, allowing the firebombs entrance. Inside, the ghouls recoiled from the flames, but even as we watched some walked through, unmindful of the fact they had become walking torches.

Most of the civilians had made it into vehicles and were speeding away from the hospital. The SWAT officers followed suit, clambering into their vans.

They pulled out of the parking lot just ahead of the first police vehicle, with their newly conscious pilot sprawled out on the back seat of the cab. Kevin reclined in the passenger seat as far as he could without it hitting the pilot and laid back, still lightheaded.

Steve flashed Kevin a grin and said, “Let’s try not to do that again.” Unable to speak without hurling up his lunch, Kevin firmly nodded his agreement.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 28 Jun 2011 22:30 
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Steve turned in his seat to address the pilot, “You got a name buddy?”

“Jason Mayo,” the pilot groaned.

“What happened to your helo, Jason?”

“One of those ghouls grabbed on as I was taking off. I tried to get rid of it, but it was throwing the chopper off balance. The copilot tried to kick it off, but got pulled out for his effort. Then it tried to climb into the cockpit with me.”

“Can you shoot?” Kevin said with a grimace.

“Barely. Give me a shotgun and I might just be able to hit the broad side of a barn... from three feet away. Pretty good with my hands though, I ran maintenance on that chopper pretty much all by myself.”

Kevin nodded, and he filed the info away for future use. “Where we headed, anyway?”

“Hunter’s Point.”

“You crossed the bay yet?”

“Not yet, we’re still a few minutes away from the bridge.”

“Shit, we got a ways to go.”

“Yup.”

“So who are you guys, anyway?” Jason listened quietly as they told him their story, but butted in when they got to the radio broadcast about the cities that had fallen. “Is that all you know?” He asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“I work for channel four, we had heard about a few more cities. It was mostly rumors, but we heard Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, and Manila had been added to the list of infected cities.”

“Jesus... it’s everywhere,” Steve said in amazement.

“Have you guys found out what’s been causing it?” Jason asked, worry crossing his face.

“Not a clue. Probably a virus or something, if it’s transmitted by blood, right?” Steve wondered.

“That’d be my guess.”

“What happened to you this morning, by the way?” Kevin asked, once again jumping into the conversation.

“Well,” Jason said, in the manner of one settling in for a long tale. “I decided to go in early because I wanted to double check some work I did on the chopper the night before. Fat lot of good that did me, eh?

“Anyway, as I was going back in someone told me about the shit going down everywhere. I didn’t really think about it until I was working, when I heard a gunshot in the distance. I went back into the building just in time to see one of those things coming out of the newsroom. A couple of guys made it to the roof behind me, but they got brought down before I started the chopper.”

“Well, hopefully the day’s gonna get a lot better when we get to the Point. Now that I think about it though, don’t you think it’s weird that we haven’t been seeing military vehicles in the city though? Hunter’s Point is an active navy base, you’d think they’d be moving for something like this.” Steve asked, wondering just what was going on.

“They had mobilized the National Guard on the SF side of the bay, dunno about this side. Maybe they have been overrun, or, hell, they might be having a hell of a time just holding onto the base.” Kevin suggested. Neither Kevin nor Steve were ready to put to voice their worst fear; that the Point had already fallen.

Jason spoke again, “You know what the kicker is though? I officially quit smoking yesterday. But seeing as how we’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of making it through the night, I don’t wanna die jonesing for a smoke. Either of you got any?” When they responded in the negative Mayo gave a bitter laugh, “Figures. We getting close to the bridge?”

“Should be less than a block or two away.” Steve said, turning the corner.

What they saw made Kevin’s jaw drop. “MOTHERFUCKER!”

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 29 Jun 2011 20:51 
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MOTHERFUCKER!” Kevin screamed again, as if the sheer volume of his epithet would be enough to ferry them across the bay. In the back, Jason sat up to see what had gotten him so rankled. The San Mateo Bridge had collapsed into the waters of the bay. Kevin tilted his head skyward and vented at whichever deity was on duty. “IN CASE YOU FORGOT, I WAS THE GOOD ONE! SHE CHEATED ON ME!”

Kevin cast a final, desperate look on the ruined span, beyond which lay the San Francisco Airport and, ultimately, Hunter's Point. He turned to Steve, “What now?”

“Next bridge is almost five miles away, the Bay Bridge, and we have to go through the entire length of Oakland to get to the bridge. And, if Jenna’s right, there aren’t any reliable bridges up north. That leaves the maglev.”

“Shit, we aren't going through Oakland. The maglev though, that might be an idea. Granted, any one tiny thing goes wrong, the train goes flying off the tracks, into a building, we all die, but really, isn’t that pretty much what we’ve been working with this whole time?”

“Exactly,” Steve said with a smirk.

“Is the maglev even running though?” As if in response to his question, a maglev train thundered overhead. Steve did not even glance up, but his face did acquire an idiot grin Kevin remembered vividly from high school, slowly spreading to take up his whole face.

“So... maglev... where do we go?” Kevin asked.

“There’s a station right between the San Mateo Bridge and the Interstate 880.”

“Which would put it very close to the edge of the city.”

“Yup.” Steve said, grinning.

“And very close to where we need to be.”

“Yup.”

“Where’s the closest station to us?”

“Uh... I’m not sure. If we could find a convenience store or something, they’d have a map.” Steve suggested.

“Well, then luck is with us. How hard can it be to find a gas station in the city?”

“Not very, considering there’s a gas station at the last intersection we were through.”

“See?” Kevin said with a grin.

“Should we tell the others the new plan?”

“Yeah, I’ll open the rear window. I don’t think it’s safe to sit still though, so let’s move it.”

Steve did a 180 and headed back down the street while Kevin gave the passengerss in the rear a much-abridged version of the new plan. When they reached the gas station Steve climbed out and Kevin moved over to the driver’s seat. He heard a faint thud through the roof as one of the riders, Mav, Kevin guessed, stepped onto the top of the cab to get a better vantage point.

The windows of the gas station lit up as the sound of gunfire met their ears. Kevin was about to get out of the pickup when Steve came running out of the gas station, pistol in one hand, an armful of maps in the other. His right sleeve was torn and bloody. He hopped in and they took off.

When Steve went to reload, he winced and recoiled as he moved the injured arm. “Shit!” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“Jesus dude, that looks bad. I’m stopping as soon as we can so Jenna or Doc Hooper can take a look.”

“It’s not that bad,” Steve insisted.

“I’m driving, that means I decide when we stop.” Kevin said adamantly.

“Don’t--”

“Dude, someone needs to patch you up.”

“Not Jenna. I’m not going to make her situation any worse by forcing her to do work for me.”

“First off, it isn’t work, it’s putting your arm back together. Second, she’d want to do it anyway. Third, even if she didn’t, and the doc was busy, she took an oath. She’d have to.”

“Still no. You do it.”

“Me?” Kevin shouted out, surprised by Steve's request.

“I know you can, and this way we don’t have to make either of them do it.”

“Yeah, but I can drive the car into a building, that doesn’t mean I should.”

“I don’t care, I don’t feel right about taking the chance doc Hooper is busy and making her do it.”

“Fine,” Kevin conceded, worried about Steve losing blood while they argued. “We’ll switch spots with them, they can drive us to the maglev station,” Steve said.

“Good.” Kevin hit the brakes as soon as he thought they might be able to swap spots without having to worry about the bad guys from the gas station reaching them. They got out and Jenna did a double take at Steve’s arm, but otherwise remained stoic. The first aid kit was in the bed of the pickup, as Kevin expected it to be, and he cracked it open.

Kevin started pulling things from the first aid kit when a loud curse from Steve drew his attention back up. Steve was having trouble pulling off his shirt with his injured arm. Kevin advised him to hold still and did it for him, trying as hard as possible not to cause any further pain. He winced when he saw the extent of his injuries. “Jesus man, what happened?”

“Fucker bit me.”

“Oh shit. You heard the doctor, the Infection is transmitted that way... if enough of the agent is introduced.”

“Shiiiiit.” Steve groaned, pondering the possible ramifications. “I turn into one of those things...”

“You got it,” Kevin answered. “And you me?”

“For sure,” Steve responded. Given the circumstances, a mutual promise to kill each other did not seem that odd.

Kevin poured alcohol over the area to wash away the blood so he could see the actual wounds. It did not look like they were too bad, none were bleeding enough to indicate that a major blood vessel had been ruptured. So he formed a pad using the gauze from the first aid kit and held it over the bite. “Here, hold this, apply—”

“Direct pressure until the bleeding stops. I know.” Steve hissed through gritted teeth. Kevin knew this had to hurt like a bitch. He swore when he saw they did not have any fancy antiseptic, so he grabbed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the gas station booty. He took off the cap as Steve asked if the bleeding had stopped. “Just about. Let’s get this part over with.”

Kevin poured the hydrogen peroxide over the bite. The H2O2 hissed and bubbled as it met the torn flesh, and Steve muffled a cry of pain. He tried to lean forward, but Kevin pressed his shoulders back against the rear window of the pickup. If Mav came to a sudden stop, Kevin did not need him taking a blow to the head. The goofy looking bastard could not afford to get any dumber. And Kevin meant that in a good way.

After it was mostly done Kevin dried the area off and applied a dressing. Small red spots soon flowered on the white fabric, but they did not grow, which meant that the bleeding had indeed stopped.

The pickup eased to a stop and Kevin looked up. Stretching gracefully above them was the elegant steel track of the maglev.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 01 Jul 2011 21:27 
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Kevin hopped out of the back of the truck and helped Steve out. His arm hurt, and he was lightheaded, but other than that, he seemed fine. So far. Mav, Jenna, and Jason came out of the cab, the last heavily favoring his injured leg. So, counting the bullet wound in Kevin's arm, three of them were injured. One dead. But the thing is, honestly, Kevin did not know if he had expected any of them to even get this close to crossing the bay.

Believe it or not, Kevin used to be an optimist. Then life happened, broke his spirit, yadda yadda yadda, you know the rest. Or will, before long.

They went up the steps, Mav leading the way with his shotgun at the ready. Doc Hooper and Jenna helped Jason climb up the stairs, while Steve followed close behind them. Kevin was in the rear, tail-end Charlie, while the others had out of sheer ‘kindness’, saddled Mav and Kevin with all of their supplies.

The open-air terminal was deserted, although, at noon on a Monday, even under normal circumstances, Kevin would not have exactly expected throngs of commuters. A train was pulling into the station as they reached the top of the steps.

The trains were all automated, thank God, Kevin thought with relief. The doors slid open soundlessly, revealing a beaten-up cabin under the glare of fluorescent lights. Weapons at the ready, they entered.

The lead car of the three-car train was deserted, but had obviously seen riders other than them that day. The ceiling and walls were pocked with bullet holes, and more than a few windows had been broken. Here and there, throughout the cabin, a crimson stain spoke of violence not long passed. The door to the conductor’s area, a redundancy, stood open, with both seats unoccupied.

The second car told the same sad story. Seeing as how the chaos had reached the streets early yesterday morning, it was not too hard to imagine that the train had carried scared commuters in the bay area, witness to the insanity below. If even one of the Infected made it into a car, they would have had a nightmare on their hands.

Kevin had just slid the door to the rear cabin open when a bullet screamed by his head. He ducked and drew his own pistol when he saw the shooter. A man in a set of camoflauge utilities cowered at the far end of the cabin, his knees drawn up to his chest, a pistol in his outstretched hand.

Kevin ducked back behind the door as two more bullets hit the wall. “STAY BACK,” he screamed, “Stay back, you’re not turning me into one of those things!” This time Kevin heard the click of a hammer on an empty chamber.

He bolted into the room, ran to the huddled figure in the corner, and struck him right above the eyes, which then proceeded to roll back into his head as he went limp. He would not be out long, and he would probably have a concussion, but Kevin felt it was necessary, to save the man’s life.

Mav came into the car right behind him, and without speaking, began cuffing the man, whose uniform identified him as Private First Class Rossalini.

His pistol dropped to the floor, and Kevin stooped to retrieve it. Any weapon they could get would help, but if Rossalini did not want to disembark with them, Kevin would have to give it back.

No way in hell would he leave anyone unarmed against those things. Also on him were a pair of frag grenades, which he removed, and did not plan on giving back.

The train was three stations into San Francisco when Rossalini finally came to, about halfway to their destination. They had cuffed his arms in front of him, to make it easier for him to eat if he needed to, but he refused food or water. He was less than informative, and kept screaming at them.

To Kevin it seemed he thought they were Infected. He would need real psychiatric help, but they were in no position to provide it. A raving lunatic would not help them get to the Point, either.

As much as Kevin hated the need to do it, but when they got to the station he planned on leaving Rossalini on the train with his weapon. As it turns out that was unnecessary.

When Kevin went back to the last car, where Rossalini was sitting with Mav, the deranged soldier took advantage of the situation when Mav turned to greet Kevin. He lunged forward, bringing his clasped hands down on the officer’s head. He fumbled for a second, then pulled Mav’s Glock from its holster. He grabbed a grenade from the bench Mav was sitting on and sprinted off down towards the front the train, with Kevin in hot pursuit.

Rossalini stopped in the middle of the first car, where he dropped the pistol and pulled the pin from the grenade. Kevin shouted for everyone in the second car which, thankfully, was everyone, no one was currently in the lead car, and stepped back himself, standing in the middle of the car.

With a whole car length separating them, Rossalini very calmly picked up the pistol and held it firmly against his temple. Kevin tried to yell for him to stop, but he said something like ‘I won’t be one of you’, and dropped the grenade.

Kevin dove towards the back of the car when the sound of the gunshot met his ears, followed closely by the explosion of the grenade, which knocked him out cold.

The explosion was powerful enough to sever the first car from the rest of the train while the shorter segment jackknifed, and the train briefly formed a T, with the first car making up the crossbar.

The rear two cars derailed and landed on their sides, the second car teetering perilously over the edge of the tracks. The others were beaten around by the explosion, but had not been knocked out as Kevin had been. The car Kevin was in started to list dangerously. Steve ran to where Kevin's backpack lay on the wall/floor of the rear car.

He pulled the rope out and tied it quickly around his waist, handing the other end to Mav. Sliding down the floor/wall of the second car, Steve grabbed Kevin while Mav, Doc Hooper, and Jason began pulling them up. They made it back into the third car just as the second car’s connections pulled free and it plummeted to the street below.

Kevin woke up as the others were picking up the supplies that had been scattered around the cabin. Jesus, everything hurts. Kevin moaned to himself.

A gash on his forehead was weeping blood, and there were small cuts up and down his arms. Small spots of blood on his shirt confirmed that his torso was similarly afflicted. Steve’s face swam into focus above him, and Kevin said, “Shit, if you’re here, I’m sure as hell not in heaven.”

Steve's smile, quick as ever, flashed across his face, before he asked, “Can you see okay?”

“Depends on which one of you is asking.” Kevin said. When Steve looked concerned, he said, “I can see fine. Where the hell are we?”

“Well, good news is, we’re over the bay. Bad news is, we’re on the southern end of San Fran.”

“Shiiiiiiiit.”

“Yep, we’ve gotta go through the entire eastern half of San Francisco to get to the Point.” Steve said, frustration coloring his voice.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 03 Jul 2011 21:17 
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***

The only good thing about their situation was that they were not stranded on the track. The first and third cars had come to a rest in the middle of the station. Southern Station, SFIA, technically. In an interesting bit of trivia, of the eleven stations on the maglev route, each was named for its location in the Bay area. They wanted to go to the North San Francisco Station, Hunter's Point, for example.

***

Descending the staircase to the street they were immediately struck by the most prominent difference between the eastern and western sides of the bay. The Oakland side was a hell of a lot better. Cars, some destroyed, some intact, some tipped, some right side up, some burnt and some whole, all abandoned, littered the streets of Oakland.

There were enough hulks throughout that city and it’s ‘burbs to make driving an arduous affair, but nothing like this. The streets of San Francisco was thickly clogged with steel. Until and unless they could find a faster method of transportation, they would be stuck walking most of the way to the Point.

They had a more pressing problem, though. Jason’s leg was still in no shape to be walked on, and they would need to cover miles if they wanted to get to the Point by nightfall, now a scant seven hours away. That should be easily rectified though. A bank of handicap spaces stood by the maglev entrance, with three cars occupying the spots. Kevin peered into the first two, with no luck, but in the third he spotted a folded wheelchair.

He pressed his face against the glass to get a better look when a hand, torn and bloody, smashed against the window, intent on escape. Kevin reeled back, and when a face rose up behind the hand, bloody lips twisted in a mirthless smile, he fired two rounds with his Colt. The window shattered and blood and brain painted the interior.

Steve ran over to see what had happened, and helped Kevin get the wheelchair out of the back seat. It had received only a small portion of the gore that covered the inside of the vehicle, which was fortunate, because Kevin was not going to wipe it off, even if hell had frozen over and the Cubs won the World Series.

They started winding their way through the maze of twisted metal. At an intersection Jenna gasped, pointing down another street. A mob of the walking dead were working diligently together on overturning a car. Kevin let out a painful gasp. If these things were beginning to work together, then, in time, nothing could stand against them.

He suddenly noticed there was at least one person in the car, but they may as well have been across the world from them. It was too risky to try to fight off that many to rescue that few. Even if the car were full, five or six people were not enough to justify Kevin risking the whole group.

Steve thought differently. He bolted towards the car, leaving Kevin just enough time to swear explosively and order the rest of the group to run down the way they were going, before taking off after him.

Steve stopped about twenty yards from the nearest walking corpse and shouldered his rifle. The M-1 Garand barked three times, and a trio of the shambling dead collapsed. The rest decided that, until they found a can opener, their first meal could wait, and turned round on Steve.

Kevin reached his side and brought up his shotgun. As the first one reached them, Kevin was extatic over the throaty roar of the weapon in his hands, and delighted in the massive chunk it took out of his target, flinging it back.

They fired until their magazines were empty, and, with thirty or more still closing on them, drew their pistols. When both of those were empty and their attackers numbered about a dozen, they did what trained soldiers have been doing ever since the first battlefield loss: They ran like scared little girls.

They bolted, Steve towards the car, Kevin towards the eager arms of their enemies. Kevin ran for his life as he pulled the people out of the vehicle. Kevin heard Steve shout something to him, and prayed he was set. When Kevin managed to turn he saw the fleeing backs of a woman and two children. They were far away, but not enough. He needed to hold off the deadheads for a little longer.

If Kevin had had the breath to sigh or swear, he would have done both. He had been running full tilt for far too long, and a painful stitch was starting to develop in his side. Mav hopped onto a dumpster, and from there he leapt to a fire escape, a maneuver Kevin would have to repeat as soon as he bought the escapees enough space to make them an unappealing meal.

Kevin hauled himself onto the dumpster without a problem, but lacked the acrobatic flair of your average chimp, and, although he maintained his grip on the ladder, he managed to smack his head on one of the rungs. Kevin saw stars as he clumsily clawed up, and had nearly reached the first level when he felt a pair of hands grab his legs.

He tried to kick them off, but when that threatened to dislodge him from the ladder, he stopped. Mav reached down and hooked his hands under Kevin’s arms, and soon he had the pleasure of being the central object in a furious tug-of-war with the stakes a touch higher than your average game show. Mav won, and yanked Kevin up onto the grating that served as the ‘floor’ of the first level of the fire escape.

Kevin lied on the grate a while, trying to catch his breath. While he did that, Steve and Mav reloaded pistols and calmly unloaded them into the heads of the crowd gathered below, making the last few of the mob permanently dead.

Kevin stood, and in response to Steve’s question of “Are you okay?”, he punched him in the stomach. Although he did not strike with as much force as he could have, Steve was unprepared for the blow, and fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

“You dumb son of a bitch, you could have killed us all! What the fuck were you thinking?”

“The kids,” Steve wheezed. “Saw the kids.” Kevin sighed and helped him to his feet.

“What you did was stupid and reckless. We’re incredibly lucky that we didn’t get killed. More than us, you would have killed the rest of the group too.” Steve's skin was thick enough that he did not let a lot get to him, but hearing this from Kevin cut him to the quick, and he looked thoroughly despondent.

He opened his mouth to reply, but Kevin cut him off. “But... it was also the right thing to do. We need to help other people whenever we can, and with any luck they’ve found the group and are waiting for us.” Steve nodded while the three of them moved for the ladder, when Kevin gently hit him on the shoulder and asked, “We good?”

Steve smiled and nodded, “Yeah.”

“Good. Now let’s go get back to the others.”

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 04 Jul 2011 19:34 
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***

As Kevin had expected the group was only a couple of blocks down from where Steve and he had left them. Now the ‘group’ was plus one woman and two kids. She was younger than Kevin would have thought, say twenty-six or so, same age as Steve, but younger than himself. The two kids looked like a pair of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl.

When Kevin got closer the woman, who he took to be the mother, ran to Kevin, throwing her arms around him. The two kids ran to him too, running towards the man who saved them with almost enough speed to take out his knees when they connected, their smaller arms around his legs. In any other circumstances, it would have been quite funny, but Kevin knew they were on a deadline.

Kevin gently detached himself from the family and began, “I hate to interrupt such a nice thank you, but we need to get going. We’ve got to go through this entire city of the damned before nightfall, and we’ll have to hustle to make it!” The woman and her kids finally exchanged introductions with him. Her name was Cathy Talley, and the kids were Angelique and David.

Walking through the car-strewn streets proved slower going than Kevin had expected, with a lot of the rubble giving the wheelchair a tough row to hoe. The bad news was they ended up still several blocks away from the Point by the time night fell.

The good news was, according to Jason, they were less than an hour’s walk away from one of the bigger hospitals in the city, although it was bound to be crawling with the walking corpses. But they were all but assured the use of one of the two helipads on the roof, at least one, they hoped, would still hold its helo.

After a brief discussion they decided it was best for the group if they spent the night in a building close by, instead of storming the hospital at night. They found a hotel not too far from the hospital and picked the third floor to be their fortress of solitude.

They called the elevators to the floor and engaged the brakes, and moved dressers from other rooms to block the hatch on top. Unfortunately, the hatches opened out, so they realized they would have to cram the cars full of as much junk as they could, to prevent anything from entering and forcing the doors open.

With that task accomplished, they barred the entrance to the stairwells with more furniture and chose a pair of adjoining rooms at the end of the short side of an L-shaped hall to be their hideout for the night. They did not barricade these doors, but they did engage every lock possible and slid the heavier furniture nearby, just in case.

Even with all of this effort Kevin felt they still needed to keep a watch. Steve volunteered to go first, then Mav, then Kevin, and finally Jason. Doc Hooper insisted on the fifth watch, and Cathy wanted hour six. By then it would be close enough to dawn that they could move again.

Having commandeered only two suites, they had sleeping space enough for ten people... in theory. It was dependant on beds being shared and couches being serviceable. Eventually they got settled in, with Cathy and her kids in one of the beds in the left room, they were able to make it fit. Kevin was lucky enough to get the couch in the right-hand room, a position of dubious honor, seeing as how it was closest to the doors.

Unable to sleep, Kevin stared up at the ceiling. The only indication of how long he had been up came when Steve leaned over on his way back to the bedroom, saying, “Jenna’s coming to see you in a few minutes. Just a heads up.”

“Thanks,” Kevin muttered, sitting up. “How are you holding up?”

Taking a seat beside Kevin, Steve said, “I think a rib or two got cracked when I got hit today. Not positive, but I got a bruise the size of a freakin’ dinner plate in the middle of my chest. Mav can’t be a lot better off.”

“And your arm?”

Wincing, Steve said, “Hurts like a bitch, and it is turning a nasty shade of green.”

“Shit’s fucked up,” Kevin announced. Solemnly, Steve nodded his agreement.

“Think it’ll be any better when we get to the Point?”

That managed to wring a bitter laugh from Kevin. “Think we’ll even make it to the Point?” Kevin asked, raising an eyebrow.

“We’ve gotten lucky so far.”

“You’ve been bitten and shot, I’ve been shot, blown up, and beaten, Mav has been shot, and don’t even get me started on the pilot. This ain’t luck.”

“Are we dead?” Steve countered, then winced when he realized what the impact of those words would be.

“John died,” Kevin said quietly.

“You’ve lost men in combat before. This isn’t much different. I mean, I know it doesn’t get any easier, but...” Steve let the sentence trail off.

“It is different though. The men I led into battle were trained and equipped for it. The day before yesterday, John was working at a bank, teaching a class, whatever. He wasn’t ready for this.”

Putting his hand on Kevin's shoulder, Steve said softly, “None of us were. But we made it through today, and we’ll make it through tomorrow.”

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 06 Jul 2011 19:53 
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“More of them are back now,” Kevin said more to himself than to Steve.

“Huh?”

“Those... things. Jors said they’d be waking up, coming back as the night wore on.”

“So?” Steve said, confused.

“So it might only be a block or two to the helo, but with thousands of those shuffling corpses on the streets now, we might never make it.”

“Do you ever look at the bright side?” Steve said with a grin.

“Once. Hurt my eyes, though. Decided to stick with what I knew.”

Laughing, Steve stood up. “Smartass.”

Kevin made a feeble attempt at a smile and said, “Better than being a dumbass.” It was hard to tell in the dark, but Kevin thought Steve rolled his eyes before turning away.

Sitting up again, Kevin asked, “How did you know I was awake?”

“I know everything,” Steve chuckled, walking away, and Kevin made a decidedly unfriendly hand gesture to his back, albeit in the friendliest possible way. With that Steve retreated towards the bedrooms.

As promised, Jenna came out of the bedrooms just as Steve opened the door. Before she said anything Kevin waved her over. When she sat down, he started. “Listen, Jenna, I wanted to talk to you about your brother...”

She cut Kevin off. “If I thought it was your fault that... what happened, I wouldn’t still be here. No matter what happened today, I know if you wouldn’t have joined us, all of us, we’d all be dead by now.”

Kevin was touched by her words, but he was not vain enough to think that she was right. Doc Hooper, Cathy, and Jason, maybe, but the rest could have handled themselves.

“We trust you,” she continued. “Not just to get us to the Point, but we trust you with our lives. If we thought you hadn’t earned that trust, we wouldn’t be with you right now.” And before Kevin knew what she was doing, she leaned in and kissed him. Not long, but, damn! She pulled back and stood up, saying “Get some sleep before your watch, Kev, we can’t have you sleepwalking when we go for the chopper in the morning.”

Kevin sat silently, watching her walk away. Of all of the things he had expected, and dreaded, that was not one of them.

Kevin slept fitfully, and it seemed like right when he finally managed to drop off to sleep, Mav was standing over him waking him up for his watch. He grumbled, grabbed his shotgun, and shuffled out of the room. He took up his spot in a makeshift fort made up of couches and dressers that were left over from the barricades.

Forty minutes into Kevin's watch a creak betrayed one of the doors down the hall opening. Stepping into the passageway was a dark silhouette who turned in Kevin's direction and casually strolled down the hall towards him. Even before Kevin could see his face, he recognized Jors by that damned walk of his, like he did not have a care in the world. Kevin stood, bringing the shotgun up, and the bastard actually laughed.

“Aren’t we past the silly games, lieutenant? You’re not going to shoot me anymore than you’re going to off those kids in there, so point that thing at me again and I might get offended.”

“What do you want? How’d you get in here?”

“This will be the last time you see me for a while, I’ve got business further south, but you need to know something.”

“Oh? And what might that be?”

“Huntger's Point will be lucky to last through the month. If you’re still alive by the end of the week, take your shit and get out.”

“How do you know that?”

“These things want to eat. The Point is going to be one of the few places left where they can get a nice big buffet. It would take more than a couple of companies of Marines to keep them out. If you’re smart, you’ll find a way out of the area soon. Not that anywhere on this planet will be safe, but it’ll buy you time.” Before Kevin could say anything, he Grabbed the shotgun and slammed it against his temple, turning out the lights in Kevin's mind.

Before Kevin went fully unconscious Jors turned on his heel and walked down the hall towards the bedrooms. He slowed, but did not stop as he looked over his shoulder at Kevin. “Avoid the fourth floor of the hospital,” Jors said as he opened the door to the bedrooms. As Kevin was going under he noticed Jors had Steve and Dan draped over a shoulder each and, as suddenly as he arrived, he was gone.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 09 Jul 2011 12:52 
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***

Kevin did not know how long he had been out when he finally awoke. He put his hand to his temple and winced at the pain. He quickly withdrew his hand, covered in blood. This time he gingerly felt the side of his head. The hair was matted with blood, but the good news was it was congealed. He had a large knot and a screaming headache, but he did not think that he had any lasting damage.

Kevin struggled to his feet, heading into the bedroom where Steve and Dan had been bunked, along with Doc Hooper and Officer Felna. When he got there Mav was regaining consciousness.“Mav, what the hell happened?” Kevin asked as he went to check on the doc.

“I was getting ready for my shift when I heard you talking with someone. I didn’t think much of it until I heard the distinctive sound of metal striking flesh. The next thing I know a human shaped blur hit me with something. I woke up just as you entered the room,” Mav said with a wince, when he felt the rather large knot on his head.

“I don't think there will be any permanent damage. The dickhead was only after Steve and Dan. Also, the son-of-a-bitch is playing games with us. He has been dogging our asses for a while now.” Kevin said with a bitter tone in his voice.

“What dickhead?” Mav, asked, totally confused. “The scary guy you and Steve had been talking about?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Kevin said with disgust. He turned to Doc Hooper and gave him a mild slap to the face. The doc started awake.

“Anybody get the name of the freight train that whopped me upside my head?” Doc groaned.

“That would be our freindly neighborhood bad guy,” Kevin said bitterly.

Doc Hooper suddenly shopt to his feet and began to rummage through his bags, finally digging out two vials. “Mr. bad guy may be all-powerful,” Doc said with a grin. “But he isn’t all-knowing. He forgot to check to see if I had made any samples to test.” He said, his grin growing wider, holding up two vials, one with yellow, viscous fluid and the other one with a yellowish-pink fluid.

Kevin was astounded. “Doc, is that what I think it is?”

“You bet it is. That bastard may have taken our friends, but he did not get our possible key to ending this plague. You noticed the difference between Steve’s and Dan’s Blood, correct?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“The reason for the difference is that something in Dan's blood kept him from making the final transition. While something in Steve’s blood it actively fighting back against the infection. It is slowly losing, but the increased efficiency of fighting the plague in Steve’s blood, along with Dan’s non-conversion, can give us the way to halt, and finally defeat the infection.”

“You mean we can bring back the infected?” Mav asked excitedly.

“No, only the ones who have not fully transitioned into zombieland. Up to that point though, yes we can.” Doc said, with sadness. “Although, We can give the dead the peace they do not have right now. If I am right, injecting any serum we come up with should begin to negate the infection and within a few hours the dead will have returned to their graves.”

Kevin smiled. “Doc, I knew there was a reason we kept you around.

“Now comes the hard part for me, I have to tell Jenna about the kidnapping of Steve. The girl has been through a lot already, with the loss of her brother. And now the loss of her fiance, I don't know how she is going to handle it.”

Jenna took it better than Kevin had any right to expect.

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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 Post subject: Re: When Things Go Bad
PostPosted: 10 Jul 2011 15:36 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
***

In the predawn light, Mav and Kevin ascended to the roof of the hotel, to get a better view of the route they were going to take to the hospital. It stood out like a sore thumb, its white façade a stark contrast to the steel and glass around it. On the roof, both helipads were occupied by Ospreys. Whistling quietly to himself, Kevin asked, “What do you make of that?”

“I guess the boys at the Point decided to help out.” Mav suggested.

“Think any of them are left?”

Mav shook his head. “No... not after what happened at St. Rose’s. I’d bet we find them all on the first four floors under the pads.” A chill ran through Kevin. He had decided not to tell the group about the details of the conversation he had had with the man in black, because he could not even explain it to himself.

They made it to the ground level of the hotel without incident, and started toward the hospital. When they had a clear view, Kevin stopped short. “Mav!” He whispered back, “hand me the binoculars!” Mav moved up the line and passed them to Kevin. What Kevin saw on the hospital wall made his blood run cold. Dangling from the windows of the fourth floor were the mutilated bodies of half a dozen Marines. Silently, he passed the binoculars to Mav. “Take a look.”

“Shit,” Mav breathed. “That can’t be good.”

“Make sure Jason knows about that. This... is going to suck.”

They advanced a little further and started seeing burned out shells of cars and several dozen headshot corpses. Kevin paused a second, then motioned for everyone to get down, hugging the pavement myself. He hit the deck just in time, he heard a round sail over his head. “Fuck!” Kevin grunted. Turning back to the group he held up three fingers. Two. One.

“GO!” He stood up, firing short bursts into the fourth floor windows. Doubled over, the rest of the group streamed past him as bullets impacted the metal husk beside him. He felt a round zip by his ear and decided now was the time to clear out. Ejecting his spent magazine, he bolted for the cover of the building, a good ten feet behind Mav, who was bringing up the rear.

Pressing his back against the wall beside the doors, Kevin reloaded while Mav took up a position on the other side of the entrance. “Good news, and bad news,” Kevin said. “The good news is that we know where they are... ish. Bad news-—”

“They know we’re coming,” Mav finished.

“Yeah.”

“Ok folks, listen up!” Mav called out, addressing the rest of their motley crew. “The bad guys have more numbers, superior firepower, a more defensible position, and, we can safely assume, they are, pretty much, gone around the bend. But we have an advantage they don’t! We’re stupid enough to think we can win. Jason, take the Beretta, stay with the women and children. Hang back a good distance from us, but stay sharp.”

Kevin turned to Doc Hooper. “Doc, you wanna give me the shotgun? The biggest boomstick goes first, and I don’t wanna stick you in that position.” He grumbled, but handed it over, taking Kevin's offered Colt.

“Okay, gentlemen, in we go.” Kevin stepped towards the door, yanking it open and leading with the Mossberg. Sweeping the barrel left and right, he called out “Clear!” and moved further inside.

This was a side entrance, with only a sterile white hallway stretching out in front of them. It would be dangerous to not clear the entire floor before they started up, but Kevin was willing to bet that the only inhabited level was three floors above them.

Swiftly, efficiently, they made their way towards the door marked ‘STAIRS.’ Praying as fast as was humanly possible, Kevin kicked open the door. The stairwell could easily turn into a shooting gallery, and with the bad guys having the height advantage, he would prefer it did not happen. He slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor, the rest of the team following him.

Making his way towards the other end of the building, Kevin stopped at a bank of elevators. “You guys keep going. Go to the stairwell at the other end of the hall. I don’t think they’ll be expecting that. I’m gonna distract them. Wait for my signal, you’ll know it when you hear it.”

Mav turned to Kevin. “You’re going to get blown to hell if you ride the elevator.”

Kevin grinned at him, “Exactly.”

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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