• This section is for roleplays only.
    ALL interest checks/recruiting threads must go in the Recruit Here section.

    Please remember to credit artists when using works not your own.

Realistic or Modern Dying to Live, Living to Die REBOOT (Not cliche Zombie survival) *COMPLETED*

Agent said:
ViciousVip3R ViciousVip3R This sounds way too elaborate.
Click to expand...
Meh, I guess. But imagine the comedic effect, and that asshole Falco deserves it too.

(He is not some law abiding police officer just doing his job, he is abusing his position of power to rape defenseless young women, he wont hesitate to bash in your head in you interfere either. Reminds me a lot of the atrocities committed by the Japs at Nanjing. And we don't even know if he has a missus, having one just makes his actions look even worse, if that is possible)
 
ViciousVip3R said:
Dang, I had an elaborate plan all thought out in my head, too bad it wasn't write in. (I'll outline it here in case The Omen of Death The Omen of Death could still work it in, obviously only if the others agree with this: Ok, so I was thinking that we could orchestrate a little accident for the Lieutenant involving the latrines on the third floor. It would be an ideal location to strike as this is an area that everyone has access to, meaning that it will be hard for them to pin it on you. The plan would involve using a weight from the gym to weaken the structural integrity of the bench for a specific toilet enough that the weight of a healthy human adult is enough to send the person crashing through the bench. Then, using your contacts with the other civilians, you would ensure that one of your people is on toilet duty on the day of the plan. It would be that person's responsibility to ensure that the target toilet is conveniently out of service until Falco shows up, to prevent any friendly casualties. I think it would be justice well served to see Falco - pants around his ankles - fall to his death at the hands of zombies in a pile of shit.@Agent Historical Storyteller Historical Storyteller What do you guys think?)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hmm, based on the choices given, I think we should subdue him first. His gear will no doubt be useful outside the safehold, and the police uniform may prevent us from getting shot at first sight if we are unlucky enough to encounter any officers. Choice 1 will draw too much attention and there is always an off chance that he may survive, while 3 has too little reward compared to the bounty of gear we could get from Falco. So, in summary, let's bind and gag Falco, take his gear, then slit his throat. Instead of making it look like an accident, we could just take all the heat for it, by the time the authorities know anything is wrong, we will be long gone. Of course, for this to work, we should probably knock our friend out before we leave, in order to avoid eliciting suspicion.

Choice: 2.
Click to expand...

2. Huh, you know what? I'm actually going with Vip's suggestion here if given the choice, otherwise I'm taking option #2.
 
(Unfortunately you are in the midst of doing the plan already outlined forth, so sorry about that, and sorry for the delay there. Anyway it seems Option 2 has been chosen with 3 votes!)

The two of you agree to jump Lieutenant Falco up here on the rooftop, so that you can get the firearms off him – as simply shoving him over the side is likely to take the weapons with him.

You come up with a ruse to draw him over to the backside of the building with you, by telling him that you see something odd on the street in this direction. It works, and the Lieutenant comes over to your position to look down over the side.

That’s when you and your accomplice attack. You go low, wrapping your arms around the Lieutenant’s torso and trapping his arms; while your accomplice goes high, trying to lock in a choke to subdue him quickly.

It’s amazing how fast one’s best laid plans can unravel.

Being a trained combat professional, the riot team leader has no problems ducking low and sending your accomplice flying over his shoulder – and right over the edge of the building. Your arms are then abruptly forced open and the Lieutenant is yanked forward. You reflexively grab the man around the legs and hold on.

Looking, you see that your accomplice has grabbed ahold of the Lieutenant’s sniper rifle and is hanging from it, while the Lieutenant has been pulled over the side by the weight of the man. Apparently, Lieutenant Falco refuses to let go of the rifle – and you are currently holding them both from dropping to the streets below.

“Let go of the rifle you worthless fuck!” Lieutenant Falco yells angrily at the man hanging below him.

“Help me!” your accomplice cries in panic.

Lieutenant Falco meanwhile, struggles to retain his hold on the rifle, while simultaneously reaching for his side arm. You know that it’s only a matter of moments before he shoots your accomplice in the face – and then you’re next.

“God forgive me,” you say, lifting the Lieutenant’s legs over the side. Both the Lieutenant and your accomplice tumble off the building to splat on the zombie-clogged streets five stories below. The zombies quickly close in on the remains.

They made a lot of noise on the way down, and in spite of the constant din of angry zombies below, you fear that some of the other watches might have heard.

Given this, you:

1. Continue with the plan anyway – get your rope and head down to the evidence locker

2. Put things on hold for now and report the “accident” to the Watch Captain; then try again in a day or so when the heat's off
 
(Aw, oh well. That's ok. I actually had a feeling this was going to end badly but at least it makes things real interesting)
1. It's going to be real hard explaining this away. Time to go!

The Omen of Death The Omen of Death
 
Last edited:
1. Nope nope nope i'm the nearest person so these jerks will blame me! Let's bail!

ViciousVip3R ViciousVip3R By the way I meant the quote unquote "protaganist's" wife.
 
Last edited:
(Hey guys, sorry for the delay with this, to make up for this I will do two posts today to make up for yesterday being missed, (this will be my policy for now on if I miss a day of responding to your guys). Nonetheless Option 1 was selected with 3 votes!)

You head down the stairs toward the second floor. As you go, you immediately hear footsteps tromping up the stairs from below. Shit! The other watches are coming up to investigate the fall!

Thinking quickly, you duck into the gym on the fifth floor and wait for them to pass by. You hear a number of men continue up the stairs towards the rooftop and then quietly sneak out and hurry down the stairs.

Arriving on the second floor, you see the precinct house infirmary; equipped with a small triage unit and recovery beds. A number of individual recovery cells also line one wall. You note a single male prisoner lying on a rack in one of the recovery cells. He is either sleeping or unconscious, as he doesn’t stir when you enter.

Across the infirmary is a double set of stainless steel doors that lead into the precinct’s crime lab as noted by the large sign on the doors. Looking around briefly, you spot the large CO2 fire extinguisher on a nearby wall and move to grab it. The thought occurs to you to gather some medical supplies from the triage unit before you go, but you see that all the equipment appears to be locked up in a number of sturdy-looking cabinets.

You opt not to waste your time with it and hurry down a hall towards the evidence locker. At the end of the hall you see a single door under a security camera. You hesitate a moment, but then realize that the security camera needs electricity to work, and the lights are all still off. You try the door and it opens up into a small waiting room, across which is a closed teller-like counter-window in a secured off area.

A locked steel door enters into the area beyond the teller counter-window, where you can see a small desk with a computer, under the only window in the room, and shelves and shelves of boxed items going as far back into the dark room as the beam of your flashlight will reach.

You head over to the steel door and ready the large CO2 fire extinguisher.

Here goes nothing, you think as you unload the extinguisher at the doorknob. The extinguisher shoots out a freezing blast of carbon dioxide gas a full fourteen seconds, coating the knob and door in a thick layer of frost. You then raise the heavy extinguisher overhead and bring it down hard on the doorknob.

There is a loud clang as the doorknob breaks off under the blow. You check out the door and find that it is still secured by the inside half of the doorknob, but a few solid blows on the door with the extinguisher knocks that half out as well. You can now manipulate the latch manually through the hole where the doorknob used to be. You grab a pen off the teller counter and jam it into the mechanism hard enough to twist the latch open.

You are just about to go inside, when the door behind you busts open.

“There he is!” you hear, moments before three riot team members storm in and grab you.

“Oh, you’re not going to get out of this that easy you fuck!” one of them says, slamming you in the gut with a taser. Your body abruptly goes rigid and you fall over twitching. It feels like you just jumped into a bathtub with a plugged-in hairdryer.

Your limp body is then carried back up onto the rooftop, where you and the riot team members are joined by a small number of officers. The riot team members hogtie you with plastic zip-cuffs and spend a few minutes kicking you in the ribs. When they finally tire of it, they lift you up so they can address you.

“Got any last words?” one of them says as they start dragging you toward the edge of the building.

You try to fight, but your body is still numb from the tazing and subsequent beating. All you can manage is a defiant declaration before they toss you over the side.

“That rapist bastard deserved what he got! The rest of you can all go to hell!”

You bite your tongue on the way down, so as not to give them the satisfaction of screaming as you fall.

The next thing you know, you are standing on the street in some sort of surreal out of body experience – watching the surrounding zombies fight over your remains. Looking down a small side alley to your right, you see that strange shadowy black specter from your unconscious subway dreams lurking nearby. As it regards you, you wonder what it is and what it wants with you, but that is another story…

END



(This was one of those events dictated by a behind the scenes dice roll, and you got the short end of the stick on that roll, so unfortunately you guys had to wait a day, AND you died. As per my policy (that at least ViciousVip3R ViciousVip3R and Historical Storyteller Historical Storyteller should remember or know) this is not the complete end of the RP, as I love to see the story continue, and I know you guys would definitely like to keep going, as would I so I will leave you off with some stats with a permanent counter that will state how many times you have died in this RP.)

Here’s a rundown of how you did –

You Killed 4 Zombies

???

???

???

???

???

???

You Killed 2 People

You Saved 0 People (including yourself, unless you died)

You Have Died: 1 Time

(Anywho since there were only 2 choices that time, and as per how I roll, choices that kill you will always remain that way, so even if a dice roll decides what happens, that choice will always now lead to killing you (besides this isn't a stat based game really, so it's not like that matters all that much, this would be a bit different if I was doing a more stat based game) so looks like you are going to need a double-take on the plan. Oh and this won't count for two posts in a day which means, once a choice is presented you can choose whatever comes next, and then once everyone has chosen (unless there is a debate over a decision) we will do one more. So yeah, fun! Anyway! Elevator going up!)

With all the noise that was made, you decide that it’s too risky to go right now. The last thing you need is to be caught trying to escape with this on your head as well. Breaking into the evidence locker you might be able to explain away, but not this.

You get on your radio and call the Watch Captain.

“This is Rooftop Watch,” you say, “we have a situation.”

“Go ahead,” a voice replies through the radio.

“The Lieutenant and my watch-mate went over the side,” you say, “they got in some sort of fight and went over in the scuffle.”

“Stay put,” the voice directs, “We’re sending someone up now.”

“10-4,” you say.

Man, you hope they buy it. You’re not sure how much more of this you can take.

A few minutes later and you have been relieved from your watch and are being grilled about the ‘incident’ in the holding area by Captain Cunningham and the members of the riot team.

You explain that the man on watch with you confronted the Lieutenant about him having raped some girl; and that a fight ensued. When it looked like the Lieutenant was about to subdue the man, the man wrapped his arms around the Lieutenant’s waist and flung himself over the side – pulling the Lieutenant over with him.

The members of the riot team are clearly not satisfied with your account, but after repeating it back to them a dozen or so times, Captain Cunningham finally dismisses you back to the holding pens.

You head to your bed, knowing that you are now on the riot team members’ ‘shit list.’ You need to get the hell out of here, before they take the loss of their Lieutenant out on you not that you don’t exactly deserve it.

You are a little surprised to find yourself back on the night watch again the next evening. You play it straight and get through the watch without any problems – though do you feel that the officer on sniper duty was watching you a little more than the courtyard below.

You decide to make an escape attempt the following night and anxiously wait out the day, until you are once again up on the roof.

This is it, you think to yourself, freedom or bust!

You get your rope and subtly move it over to the stairwell that leads down from the rooftop.

Once it is in place, you move close enough to the sniper on duty to call over “Excuse me sir, I’m going to need to hit the latrine.”

The sniper seems annoyed at your request. “You know there’s no piss breaks on watch – go pee over the side!”

“It’s not that sir,” you reply as humbly as you can manage, “I must have ate something that’s not agreeing with me, I got some serious diarrhea and gas pains going on here.”

The sniper looks even more annoyed, but relents. “Get your sorry ass to the latrine and back ASAP! You lollygag around and I’ll see that you sit in the hole for a week! You got that?”

“Yes sir!” you reply and hurry away.

You grab your rope as you head down the stairs toward the second floor. As you go down, you suddenly hear a stairwell door open and footsteps moving up from the third floor. That would be the roving watch coming up the levels. They must be finished on the third floor and are moving to the fourth. You quietly head back to the fifth floor landing and wait in the shadows. When you hear the roving watch move into the fourth floor and the door close behind them, you resume heading down.

This is actually pretty good timing. The roving watch will check out the fourth floor, then the fifth, then down to the basement and on back up the floors. You’ll have a decent amount of uninterrupted time alone on the second floor to work with.

Arriving on the second floor, you see the precinct house infirmary; equipped with a small triage unit and recovery beds. A number of individual recovery cells also line one wall. You note a single male prisoner lying on a rack in one of the recovery cells. He is either sleeping or unconscious, as he doesn’t stir when you enter.

Across the infirmary is a double set of stainless steel doors that lead into the precinct’s crime lab as noted by the large sign on the doors. Looking around briefly, you spot the large CO2 fire extinguisher on a nearby wall and move to grab it. The thought occurs to you to gather some medical supplies from the triage unit before you go, but you see that all the equipment appears to be locked up in a number of sturdy-looking cabinets.

You opt not to waste your time or cover trying to break into any of it, and hurry down a hall towards the evidence locker. At the end of the hall you see a single door under a security camera. You hesitate a moment, but then realize that the security camera needs electricity to work, and the lights are all still off. You try the door and it opens up into a small waiting room, across which is a closed teller-like counter-window in a secured off area.

A locked steel door enters into the area beyond the teller counter-window, where you can see a small desk with a computer, under the only window in the room, and shelves and shelves of boxed items going as far back into the dark room as the beam of your flashlight will reach.

You head over to the steel door and ready the large CO2 fire extinguisher.

Here goes nothing, you think as you unload the extinguisher at the doorknob. The extinguisher shoots out a freezing blast of carbon dioxide gas a full fourteen seconds, coating the knob and door in a thick layer of frost. You then raise the heavy extinguisher overhead and bring it down hard on the doorknob.

There is a loud clang as the doorknob breaks off under the blow. You check out the door and find that it is still secured by the inside half of the doorknob, but a few solid blows on the door with the extinguisher knocks that half out as well. You can now manipulate the latch manually through the hole where the doorknob used to be. You grab a pen off the teller counter and jam it into the mechanism hard enough to twist the latch open.

The door opens and you are able to go in…

You quickly move into the evidence locker. Man, where the hell do you start?

You check out the desk and see a large paper ledger on it. Looking through, you see your name as the last entry. It has a list of the items seized from you and the location of the box they have it contained in. You take a moment to check through the other entries to see if there is anything else of use, but don’t see anything. You also note that the ledger is only as old as the zombie outbreak itself. The must have started using it as soon as they lost power.

You move back through the racks of shelving and find your box. Taking it off the rack, you open it and see that some of your things are missing...

Notably, your 9mm pistols are missing. It sort of makes sense that they would commandeer the weapons and other useful items for the defense of the safe-hold, but that doesn’t help you in the least.

All that’s left in your box is your melee weapon, watch, cell phone, small tarp, keys with the small led penlight, and empty Pepsi bottles. Those rotten bastards even took the $50 cash from your wallet. At least the photo of your family is still here; and all of your credit cards. You guess that the ‘plastic’ isn’t of much use to them in the zombie apocalypse.

You gather your gear and spot a handy duffle bag to carry it in. Then moving to the window over the computer desk, you see that it can’t be opened manually. Looking out across the twelve foot gap, between the police precinct house and the city courthouse, you see a set of very tall curtained windows on the courthouse side. Two stories above them are a normal set of office windows.

The tall windows directly across must be those of a large courtroom. If you could throw your rope up through the windows above the courtroom, you could then swing across the gap to the courthouse side and break into the courtroom itself. Hopefully, you can make it across without getting shot by your sniper friend up on the roof when they hear the windows breaking out. That, and it would be nice if the courthouse wasn’t so full of the walking dead that you get eaten alive before you can make it out of there…

Conveniently, the cops never removed the tire-spider from the end of your rope, so it’s ready to throw up through the higher windows in the courthouse. Taking a deep breath, you kick the window out over the desk and toss up the rope. It hits the wall, just short of the window you were aiming for, and falls down toward the bottom of the walkway.

You note that, like the streets, the walkway between the two buildings is also thoroughly packed with zombies. They react to the shower of broken glass and the clatter of your tire-spider as it falls just above their heads – reaching up at you and gnashing their teeth hungrily. It’s not them that you’re worried about however, it’s the sniper on the roof. With the sound of the breaking glass (and more to follow shortly), you know that it’s only a matter of moments before they’ll be looking down over the side to see what’s going on.

You quickly reel up the rope and try again, this time leaning out of the window a little farther before making the throw. This time your tire-spider smashes through the upper window. You carefully pull back the slack and see that you have a solid hold.

“Hey!” you suddenly hear someone yell from above.

Shit! Someone is looking over the side from the rooftop. You then see a sniper rifle swing down to point at you. Looking at the tall curtained glass windows across the gap, you realize that you only have a twelve foot swing standing between you and your freedom.

You are just about to make the swing across, when you hear a loud shot from above and the concrete on the window ledge near your feet chips sharply from the hit.

“Don’t move asshole!” you hear from above.

You have to go for it and hope they’re not the best shot. If you stay and get caught now, you’re as good as dead. You got nothing to lose at this point.

You close your eyes and swing out across the gap toward the tall curtained windows. Another shot rings out and you feel the bullet just graze the top of your left shoulder. It actually strikes the bottom of the window you are headed for, as it passes by, and shatters it just as you swing through.

You drop into a large empty courtroom, amid a rain of tiny glass fragments, and immediately push up against the wall to stay out of the sniper’s line of fire. After throwing some slack up your rope a few times, you loosen the hold and are able to pull it back down. As you glance back across the gap between the two buildings, you see the lights of the riot team members, as they are just entering the second floor stairwell.

You need to hurry now, just in case they are spiteful enough to try coming after you.

You make your way out of the large courtroom and into a dark hallway, off which are a number of lettered courtrooms. Using your light, you see that you are coming out of courtroom ‘G’. Following the hall, you see that it leads to a large open landing off a fancy flight of ornate marble stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, you can see the glass entry doors to the courthouse and the metal detectors used to screen people as they would come in.

While you don’t see any zombies up here on the second floor with you, the first floor around the doors is choked with a number of them, apparently trapped in the building. Even if you could somehow get past them and through the front doors, the streets out in front of the courthouse are impassible with the undead.

You’re going to have to find another way out. Perhaps if you can make your way to the far side of the building, you can get down into less crowded streets. You cautiously make your way past the upper landing and into the other wing of the courthouse. Along the way, you pass a water cooler. It still has enough water in it that you can fill your empty Pepsi bottles and satisfy your current thirst.

As you fill up on the water, you happen to notice a dry-cleaning bag, hanging off a coatrack visible through the window of a nearby attorney’s office. Cautiously heading inside, you find a really expensive suit hanging on the rack – fresh from the cleaners. It’s a lot less conspicuous than an orange prison jumpsuit, so you take the time to change into it. For someone else’s tailored suit, it fits well enough; the guy must have been close to your build. You forgo putting on the tie however, but still take it anyway as it might come in handy for tying something up.

Then passing down a hall of more legal offices, you arrive at the end of the west corridor and enter a large library of sorts, filled with volumes and volumes of law books and old case files. Looking beyond the stacks, you see a window on the northwest side of the library, near a bank of ancient-looking microfiche machines. Man, you though those went out of style ages ago!

Making your way to the window, you see that is can be opened from the inside.

You open the window to lean out for a good look at the area below. The window opens above a municipal parking lot off a small backstreet behind the courthouse. Like the other parking lots you have seen, all the cars are clogged together at the exit points and specifically in the streets, where the gridlock prevents them from going any farther.

A number of zombies prowl around the parking lot; and the street is especially thick with them. As it’s still the dark of night and you don’t want to attract any of them by flashing your light around too much, you hesitate in trying to get down there just now. You would really be at a serious disadvantage out there in the dark with them all, unless you could somehow get to a manhole cover or other place of refuge before they swarmed you.

You go back to the door that exits the legal library and listen. You don’t hear anything out in the corridor besides the mill of zombies down at the bottom of the marble stairs. If the riot team from the adjacent police precinct building isn’t coming after you, then you could barricade yourself in the library for the night and head out the window in the light of day. You check the handheld radio, but don't hear any chatter on it. Taking a cautious look out the door, you don’t see any sign of them.

Going back in, you close and secure the door.

You decide to:

1. Head down into the parking lot now

2. Barricade yourself in the library for the night

(Seems I was inspired to write a lot again, nonetheless you guys didn't get a good roll but not too bad of one either, so you guys were missing out on some stuff and got caught. Guess you guys gotta stay on your toes.)
 
Wowww we died. Didn't expect that but I guess that those lucky breaks only happen in the movies.

2. Alright, let's hunker down in here. If those military jerks come over they're gonna have to shoot their way to me.
 
The safest thing to do is to hunker down and rest up for our journey tomorrow. We will take proper precautions against the possibility of the police following us, but if worse comes to worse, we can always use another life!
 
(Hey everyone sorry for the delay, I was hoping Historical Storyteller Historical Storyteller would've replied, and I seemed to wait too long, I will make sure three responses come out even if it's only 2 people responding to get this moving along at the rate it should again. Anyway option 2 has been chosen with 2 votes!)

You barricade the doors to the library by carefully pushing a couple of large desks in front of them and then piling a few hundred heavy law-books atop and under each desk.

You then clear the microfiche machines off the tables near the window and lay down on them to sleep there, so that you can make a quick exit out the window, if anything begins to get in through your barricades.

You try to relax, but have a hard time falling asleep, due to having been on the night watch the last couple of days. Eventually you fall into more of an uneasy doze than anything else.

You awake early the next morning and see light shining through the window into the room. Looking at your watch, you see that it’s 7:03 am. Looking out the window, you see a clearer picture of the parking lot and backstreet below, than you did last night.

You’re glad you waited until daylight, as there are far more zombies in the area than you had initially thought. You are still close enough to the police precinct house, where the zombies are all being attracted to, that the streets are completely packed with them. The parking lot itself is not quite so crowded, as the zombies more or less tend to gravitate towards each other in the streets, but you really don’t see any avenue of escape from there either.

You are about to give up on trying to escape the courthouse through the library window, when you suddenly spot a manhole cover on the far side of the parking lot. The problem with the manhole is that it’s got the front of a car parked over it. You can just make out the rim of the manhole sticking out from under the front bumper. Man, you’d never have spotted that at night – good thing you waited.

The front door of the car parked over the manhole is open, which probably means the vehicle’s battery is dead – not that you’d actually want to start it and attract all the zombies to your position. Still, you could stealth your way among the cars in the lot to that particular one, and then shift it into neutral, to push the car silently back enough from the manhole that you could open it up and get in.

You figure you have a decent chance of pulling it off. And at least this particular manhole cover won’t have a sniper or two waiting above to pick you off as you try to get near it.

Gathering your resolve and steeling your nerve, you open the window as far as it will go and carefully slip out. As you are only on the second floor of the courthouse, you simply hang yourself down off the slight ledge under the window and drop the remaining six feet. You land behind a parked car and crouch low, waiting a moment to make sure none of the zombies have spotted you.

When it looks like you are in the clear, you slowly make your way to the far side of the parking lot, ducking low and easily maneuvering around the one or two zombies still in the parking lot. Arriving at the car, you see that you only need to push it back a couple of inches to get access to the manhole cover.

Climbing into the car, you note that the keys are still in it. You try to shift the car into neutral, but the shifter won’t budge. You realize that you’ll need to turn the key first to unlock the mechanism. Carefully turning the key just enough to free the shifter, while not starting the engine itself, you are surprised to hear the car suddenly bing loudly – indicating that the door is open.

The zombies near the parking lot suddenly perk up and begin turning toward the sound of the noise! Cursing, you throw the car into neutral and turn off the key. Scrambling out of the car, you see about a dozen zombies slowly wandering in your direction. They haven’t seen you yet – or they wouldn’t just be wandering slowly, so you at least have that in your favor.

With only moments to act, you decide to:

1. Move the car now and try to get down the manhole before they get to you

2. Retreat back to the far edge of the parking lot and wait for the zombies to wander back to the street before trying to move the car
 
(As I stated I wanted to catch us up to make up for lost time, I will now do another one. So Option 1 has been chosen with 2 votes!)

You rush to the front of the car against your natural instinct to go any other way and heave it back a few inches, just enough to try to pry up the manhole cover. With the massive zombie horde pouring in at you from the street, you hook one of the holes in the manhole cover and drag it open.

As you expected, it drops down a deep shaft into the sewer main.

You swing yourself down into the shaft, grab the manhole cover, and pull it back in place over you – just as the zombies crowd in around and scrabble at the lid.

Ignoring them, you head down the iron rung ladder and drop into the fourteen foot wide tunnel.

“It’s time to get the hell out of here!” you say to yourself aloud, as you begin walking south down the tunnel. As you go, you hope that you haven’t lost so much time that it has cost you any chance of saving your family. You hope that you still have something to return home to.

Before making your way south through the sewers however, you decide to take the time to go recover your mountain bike from where you left it, because you see it as far too valuable a resource to simply leave behind. In spite of the danger, you head back and after some doing, have retrieved the bike and are once again walking down the sewers – pushing the bike along from the side.

You can’t help but think how glad you are that the manhole covers in the city are wide enough to accommodate the mountain bike’s tires once you take them off the frame of course – it’s also a good thing that the bike’s tires have quick release bolts.

You once again head down the sewers. After hours and hours of walking your bike alone in the dark foul-smelling tunnel past one endless intersection after another, you begin to notice that the side tunnels dropping into yours are all smaller now. Initially, all the tunnels were the same size – fourteen foot in diameter – but now, the side tunnels are only six feet and not all of them are marked as street intersections anymore. You also notice that the water level has risen from two and a half feet to about four and is flowing faster. You’re up pretty high on the slope of the tunnel now, and if the water gets any higher, you’ll be walking in it. You’re also fairly sure that getting any of the fetid brown sewer water in your wounds would be a bacterial death sentence – so you’d better be extra careful.

Checking your watch, you see that it is 5:11 pm. Damn, you’ve been down in this hole longer than you thought.

Continuing on a little farther, you suddenly notice a shaft of light streaming down into the tunnel ahead from above. Stopping to look, you see that the tunnel opens into a small, twenty by twenty foot, square camber ahead with a raised ledge about three feet above the level of the water surrounding the perimeter. A rung ladder climbs up from the ledge to a four foot diameter shaft that ascends well over a hundred feet, to an open manhole cover above.

You note a fresh air tube hanging down the shaft from above and a yellow hardhat on the ledge underneath it – and a huge splatter of blood, as if someone recently fell down the open manhole. Listening, you can hear moaning sounds coming from the darkness of the tunnel beyond the square chamber. City workers must have been working down this manhole at the time of the outbreak. That means the manhole cover has been open the whole time. No telling how many zombies have stumbled down into it since then…

Listening, you hear the moaning again and it sounds like two or three zombies in the tunnel up ahead, this time drawing closer – but it’s not the harried desperate sound of hungry zombies zeroing in on you just yet. They don’t appear to know that you’re in here with them at the moment.

1. Ready your weapon and take them out before continuing.

2. Hurry up the open shaft to the streets above, before the zombies can get to you.

3. Head into a side tunnel and try to circle around the zombies and back into the main tunnel further down the line.
 
(Ok this is the last one free one I will do before we go back to the 1 a day so once you guys vote I will post one more section but any responses will have to wait for tomorrow on that one, so with that considered, Option 3 has been chosen with 2 votes! Looks like you guys got unlucky around this point.)

You quickly duck into a side tunnel and follow it on an upward slant for a few hundred feet, then see a smaller three foot diameter tunnel opening in from the south. Disassembling the mountain bike, you crawl in dragging your gear behind you and squat-walking through the water running at you through the tunnel – thankful that it appears much cleaner that what you’ve been seen in the main tunnel.

After what seems like a good fifteen to twenty minutes in the pipe, you see light up ahead. Cautiously approaching, you come out in a small storm drain under a sidewalk grate. Looking out through the narrow slit in the curb, you see a street full of abandoned cars and shambling zombies – much the same as you had seen in the north side of the city. Without any means to get out, even if you wanted to, you crouch back down and head into the tunnel across the drain. At least you’re still headed south.

After crawling through the tunnels under three or four blocks, you get back into a storm drain and see that the tunnels ahead begins to head back down into unyielding darkness. Continuing on, you eventually come out into one of the six foot diameter tunnels. The downward slope and smell to the west tell you that you’re not too fat from the main line. Sure enough, you step out of the six foot tunnel and into the main one after another minute or so.

You reassemble your bike and press forward again through the sewer main towards the river. After half an hour, you notice that the water level is rising and you stop to watch it a moment. You can actually see it slowly creeping up the sides of the tunnel – you need to get out of here fast! With a half hour of tunnel now behind you there’s no going back, so you begin hurrying as fast as you can go down the tunnel towards the river.

It’s not long, before the water reaches up and is lapping at your feet. With your footing compromised, you suddenly slip – falling into the flow of surprisingly cold sewer water.

Trying to get yourself out of the water proves futile, as the current is too fast and the sides of the tunnel are incredibly slippery when wet. You watch the water level continue to rise higher and higher as you wash along. Even if you could climb out of the water now, you would have a hard time moving through the tunnel on the steep slope of what’s left of the side. After a few minutes, the water is rushing very fast and filling more than half of the tunnel – it’s now at least seven feet deep.

You got nowhere to go but with the flow, so you just hold onto your gear and watch the ceiling of the tunnel getting closer and closer. You are beginning to think that you might actually drown in here, when the water level rises just a foot and a half from the ceiling of the tunnel. It is then that you suddenly feel everything drop out from under you; and you are abruptly spewed out of the sewer tunnel, to land in the Indian River some twenty-odd feet below.

The waterfall of filth pushes you under the surface of the river and for a moment you are tumbled and tossed in one spot. Before your breath runs out however, you manage to kick swim yourself out of the current and come back up on the surface. It smells terrible out here on the river – not just from the sewage spewing freely into the river, but also the smell of dead fish and an odd chemical smell. You also note a rainbow colored slick across the surface of the water and frothy clumps of gray foam lapping up on the nearby shore.

You swim to the shore and crouch low, not seeing any zombies on the rocky embankment – at least you managed to hold onto most of your gear.

Too bad the mountain bike is now on the bottom of the river…

You are sitting on the rocky embankment running the length of the north shore of the Indian River. Looking out across the dark waters, you see the suburbs on the south shore over a mile away. Something is wrong with the water though, as it appears to be covered in an oily slick of chemicals – not to mention that the sewer main is dumping right into the river not too far from you. Observing the shore itself, you notice hundreds of dead fish floating among the gray froth lapping up against the rocks. As you stand there, a body also floats by in the water – perhaps another zombie from the sewer main.

Looking up and down the river, you see a number of large concrete pipes – all dumping stuff into the river. You never noticed this before, when crossing the river on the train or in your car, and wonder if it has something to do with the city’s power being down for so long.

You also see the large stone pier of the abandoned ferry station about a quarter of a mile upriver to the west. Just on the other side of that would be the Indian River boat club. Beyond that, about two more miles upriver, you see the highway and Veteran’s Bridge, where it crosses the river. Something is wrong however, and looking at the length of the bridge, you see that the center has collapsed out of it – one end actually dipping at a steep angle into the river itself. You can even make out a few vehicles still on that section of the bridge and imagine there must have been many more, but that they all slid right into the river when the bridge went down.

Looking downriver to the east, you see the silhouette of the Parkway Bridge about five or six miles away. It too has been demolished and no longer crosses the entire span of the river. You wonder if all the bridges crossing the Indian River were blown, in an attempt to contain the zombie virus. God, you can only hope it worked…

Then you remember your morning train rides into the city and recall that the train had its own bridge not too far to the west of the Veteran’s Bridge. Turning to look back upriver to the west, you see past Veteran’s bridge itself and spot the train bridge a mile or so beyond. From here, you can’t see the entire length of the train bridge, but you don’t see any gaps in it. Maybe they left it intact, because the zombies wouldn’t be coordinated enough to cross over all the trestle gaps without falling through and into the river.

You consider your options:

You have to pass by the abandoned ferry pier and boat club on the way to the train bridge, so it makes sense to check them out when you get there. Maybe there’s a boat left that you can row across the river. If not, then it’s off to try the train bridge. Swimming across is not an option – at least not in your current condition. You might have been able to do it when you were younger and in shape for it – but not now, and not all beat to hell from the get-go.

You then climb up to the top of the embankment and see a lonely road following the edge of the river. It’s empty of both vehicles and zombies, so you get up on it and cautiously begin walking. If the need arises, you can always get back down to the rocky embankment below, to hide or move unseen past anything that might be up on the road ahead.

You arrive at the abandoned ferry pier. The place is nothing more than an open steel structure over the top of a wide stone pier that juts out into the river. Back when the ferry was in use, folks would drive right onto the pier to wait in lanes for the boat to land at the far end. A metal gate would drop down and cars would drive off the ferry, then the waiting cars would be loaded on.

The building is not much more than standing rust now and the lanes running down the pier have faded in the elements. You know from your youth that the pier is actually hollow inside. You remember discovering it as a kid, when on a class trip to the city – when you and some other boys found a secret way in and snuck under there to smoke cigarettes, while the rest of the class was waiting for the next boat. Looking now, you note small barred openings in the upper sides of the stone pier along its length. You remember light streaming into the space under the pier through those openings in the thick stone wall.

Walking out onto the pier, you look west down the rocky embankment along the river. From here you can see the boat club on the west side of the ferry station, about a hundred yards upriver – and not a single boat in any of its seven floating docks – unless you count the blackened burned down hulls of a large trawler and three sailboats near the charred remains of the dock’s fueling station.

It looks like there was a huge fight down there on the docks – and not between humans and zombies – but between people. Bodies lay scattered across the area, but none are moving or shuffling around. Nobody alive is there now; they’re all gone with the boats.

You note however, that the parking lot out in front of the boat club is full of abandoned vehicles, while the road you’ve been following has been empty. It makes sense though; as those with boats would have come here to escape the city on them and simply left their cars. You’re actually a little surprised that none of the zombies have wandered down into this area yet at least none that you can see from here. A cluster of vehicles on one end of the parking lot suddenly catches your eye – it’s a group of green military vehicles, three Humvees and a two and a half ton truck, complete with canvas cover.

The boat club building itself is a large two-story modern affair of tinted glass and steel. Inside would be a charter office, a meeting hall, a small equipment shop, and a bar and grill. Of note, is the fact that many of the first floor glass has been smashed or shot out all around the building.

Looking at the sky, you see that it’s going to be dark pretty soon. You’ll need to find a safe place to sleep.

You consider your options:

You can see if it’s still possible to get under the stone pier. While there doesn’t seem to be zombies around at the moment, you’re pretty sure that they wouldn’t be able to get under there with you if they did suddenly show up.

You could also make your way to the boat club to see if you can find a safe place to crash there. Maybe there’s a dingy or rowboat down there that you can’t see from here. If so, you could also take it out onto the river and anchor it for the night. You’re pretty sure zombies don’t swim after all…

Another option, perhaps better suited for daylight, would be to search through the vehicles for anything of use.

Given that, you:

1. Try to get under the stone pier for the night, then check out the boat club in the morning

2. Go check out the boat club first, with the option of returning here if you don’t find something better
 
(Since I wasn't able to reply last night, I still owe one more free reply today and then the next will have to wait for tommorow, and it seems I have to act as a tiebreaker, so I'd say since there's still a bit of time, and it doesn't for the time being look as if it would do any harm to not check out the area, I'd say I'd go check out the area. So Option 2 has been chosen by tie breaker.)

You make your way to the boat club. Since you have to pass through the parking lot, you decide to check out the military vehicles parked at one side. The three Humvees and the two and a half ton truck are empty. Even the radios and headlights have been taken out and the batteries from under the hood. The only thing left in any of them are the vehicles’ jumper cables, crowbars, tire-spiders, and jacks. Looking around, the other vehicles in the lot appear normal, but hold nothing of immediate use – at least they still have the batteries in them though. Ironically, you notice that the keys have been left in the military vehicles, but not in any of the civilian cars – all of which appear locked.

It then occurs to you that with the road following along the river currently clear of zombies, you might be able to take some batteries out of the cars and place them in the two and a half ton truck. You don’t really have the right tools for the job, but you could crowbar-out the batteries and hook them up with the jumper cables. It could work – and then you could drive the heavy military vehicle almost all the way to the train bridge. The question would be how many zombies the sound of the truck would attract and whether you could plow through them and any abandoned vehicles you might run into on the way.

You decide to further explore the truck option in the morning and:

1. Check out the boat club building

2. Go around the building to the docks first

3. Go back to the stone pier and stop looking around and check the rest of it in the morning
 
(Alright this is the last free one, tune in tomorrow for the reply once this matter is voted on! We should hopefully be at the point we should've been at if I hadn't missed anything, and Option 1 has been chosen with 2 votes!)

You make your way to the side of the boat club building, near a pair of large propane tanks, and look in through the broken out windows. You see dead civilians inside all men and some spent shotgun shells, but no guns or any other valuables on or near the bodies. They appear to have been engaged in a firefight and lost – not to mention looted afterwards. The smell of death is almost overwhelming.

You cover your nose and carefully make your way inside to find the various spaces within and give each of them a look through.

The charter office is a ransacked mess and now lies in shambles. A few maps and charts of the waterways are still here, but the majority of them appear to have been taken, along with anything else of value in the room – including the club’s radio set.

The meeting hall is where the majority of the dead men lie scattered about. It looks like they had tried to overturn some of the tables as protection from the returning gunfire, but the large holes blown through them both the tables and the bodies reveals the futility of the effort. You note that the men all look rather wealthy, but currently there are no actual valuables on them, aside from their bloody bullet-riddled clothing.

For some odd reason, you feel a sudden wave of contempt for these men; and can’t help but hope that there are at least a few politicians among them. Fucking rich bastards trying to skate out on the city, while those not wealthy enough to have their own yachts, get turned into ravening cannibalistic monsters.

You then realize that you’d do the exact same for you and your own family, if you had the chance. You let the thought go and then continue your search.

The small equipment shop near the exit to the docks has also been thoroughly looted. While there are still some large heavy items left, such as anchors, buoys, mooring cleats, and a set of large wooden oars, almost everything else even conceivably useful has been removed. Sifting through the mess, you do find a single life-jacket however. Worse case, you could use it to float across the river if you absolutely had to.

You go upstairs and find a set of large restrooms, both men and women’s, complete with private shower units and a small laundry facility. There is also a large sitting lounge upstairs with a huge widescreen TV, some dart boards, and a small private bar though you don’t find any booze here.

A number of administrative and private offices round out the rest of the second floor, but you find nothing of immediate use in them.

Heading downstairs, you go toward the only space in the boat club you haven’t checked out yet – the ‘Sailor’s Delight’ bar and grill.

As you walk in, you note that the bar at the end of the sitting room has been completely plundered – not a drop of booze or liquor remains. Hell, you don’t even see any salt, pepper, sugar, or even ketchup on any of the dining tables. Whoever it was, took just about everything.

As you move closer, you hear a sudden clatter from the kitchen area behind the bar – like a pot or pan just fell off a counter. The wide swinging door to the kitchen stands open and you listen carefully for a moment, but don’t hear anything else.

You set down your gear and test the grip on your weapon. Then you cautiously move toward the kitchen door to give a look inside…

You cautiously peer into the kitchen area behind the bar and see a ransacked mess inside. You don’t see what caused the noise, but note the clutter of pots and pans all over the place and the empty shelves and drawers everywhere. Damn; you hope they left at least a scrap or two for you to eat – you’re starving.

You don’t relax the grip on your weapon and move in, careful not to trip over anything. Suddenly you hear the creak of a cabinet door from behind a counter. Creeping around, you see two large cabinet doors under a sink – one of them is cracked open ever so slightly. You cautiously reach out and slowly pull open the door with the hook-end of your weapon – ready for anything.

As the door opens, you hear a yelp of surprise, and can see a young boy – six or seven years old you’d guess – cowering alone under the sink.

“I want my mommy and daddy!” the boy bursts out upon seeing you in – he then curls up and weeps softly.

He looks unharmed – you don’t see any blood or bites on him – but he is a little dehydrated.

Shit, you think suddenly. How the hell are you supposed to help this kid? You could take him with you, but he’d slow you down for sure. It’s a long-shot getting yourself home, let alone with some terrified kid dragging along. Of course, you only have to be able to outrun the other guy, you think sarcastically – imagining yourself leaving the kid behind to slow down the zombies while you escape. Even the thought of something so callous makes you feel guilty though.

If you leave the kid here, he’ll starve to death alone and terrified. Normally, you wouldn’t do that to anyone – but things are different now. It’s survive or die. You could also mercy kill him – your stomach knots at the thought.

Or you could be true to your humanity, and risk taking him with you – knowing it might just get you both killed.

You decide to:

1. Allow the kid to come with you

2. Put the kid out of his misery

3. Get some sleep first, then decide
 
1. It's been a long while since this apocalypse happened and this kid is still 'mostly' sane! I guess it wouldn't hurt to save his life, as long as he isn't as disabled as that woman from a while back.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top