Forest off Route 5S, Herkimer
Upstate New York September 14th, Sunday, 10:36 pm
Vandervoort scrambled into the back of the van, slid the door closed, and quickly glanced over who else had gotten in. Both of the other scientists, (Mosher and Carrell) as well as the tall blonde private Clayton, who was sitting in the driver seat, and private Waltkins, who sat on one of the benches in the van’s rear opposite Vandervoort, holding his hand to the wound in his neck. Blood was gushing through his fingers, despite his best efforts. So it seemed he had to share this vehicle with both of the other scientists…

Suddenly something struck the van. Waltkins looked up, terror in his eyes. Mosher, who had taken the passenger seat in the front was leaning as far away from the window as he could, and private Clayton had withdrawn a pistol from the glove compartment. Another bang thundered over the Van, and then, as it began to rock as bodies outside the vehicle grappled with it, in a battle to get the soft, pink flesh within.

It felt like an eternity had passed before the Van’s radio crackled, and Sergeant Johnson’s gruff voice issued an order for Clayton, and Clarke (who is driving the other Hummer) to get moving onto the highway and to just drive until further orders.

Clayton was all too eager to accept, and the tires screamed, kicking up dirt and grass before lurching forward. “Run them over! Run em over!” Mosher was screaming, and the Van slowly rolled over several bumps that Vandervoort was sure were too squishy to have been natural. Before long however, they were on the road and picking up speed. Clayton and Mosher were cheering in the front seats, and Carrell was curled up in a ball in the back of the Van, pale and shaking.

First things first. As soon as he felt safe enough, Vandervoort focused on his specimen. Ordering the soldier to take his shirt off, and to roll his right pant leg up, the scientist inspected both wounds. Waltkins calf had been pinched by one of the wolves and shaken. The skin was ripped open, and the muscle beneath had been torn. Somehow the artery hadn’t been touched however. The man was lucky in that aspect. Maybe. The wound on the man’s neck, took a while for Vandervoort to assess. The blood didn’t stop bleeding, and he knew an artery had been nicked. The muscle too, had been torn and shredded so bad that it was undeniable. If the man was going to be able to heal properly, he would need to be taken to a hospital. As it was, Vandervoort had to try and stop the bleeding…and the only way to be able to do that with these sort of tears, was through cauterization.

He had a cauterize, but as soon as he plugged it in, the radio crackled once more. It was Johnson. “Next exit, turn back towards Albany. I’m getting us out of this and debriefed as soon as possible. We need to get Waltkins to a hospital as soon as possible also. Put whoever is helping him on the line. Vandervart! Give me the run down. Can you stop the bleeding until we get to a hospital?”

((Oh don’t worry Al, I know what YOU plan. However, Johnson has different plans that might….interfere. A hospital means no more specimen for you. Also, yes the Van is open between front and ba

“Sick people eating each other?” Bryson winced slightly as Lisa’s hysterical voice rang shrilly in his left ear. “What the hell does that mean John?”

Bryson remained silent, watching in disbelief as The Bald-Headed Man and Goth Girl (as he’d now come to think of them) piled enough weapons to arm half the county into the back of their cherry-coloured sedan. Truth be told, he was struggling to find anything even half-way coherent to say.

“So you folks got a Remington Model Seven?” the minister asked incredulously, eager to break a heavy silence punctuated only by the harsh metallic clink of falling knives and firearms. “Good deer-hunting rifle, my brother-in-law, back down in Kentucky, swears by it.” On the plus side, the fear that he might somewhat have lost perspective on events was losing its sting by the second.

When the dead man, his desiccated frame still clad in the remnants of a cheap funeral suit, came shambling across the parking lot, it was all Bryson could do not to gawp. There seemed something faintly absurd about the whole sorry spectacle, like another bad dream he might awaken from at any moment. Alone again, at 5 AM, in his rented apartment, with the pale light of another unwanted morning already streaming gaudily through the curtains

And then it hit him: he was already wide awake, the air streaming from the air con bitterly cold and sticky against the sweat on his brow. “Hey! Back of pal!” Bryson shouted, fumbling in a sudden panic for the familiar weight of his .44 in the glove locker. When the revenant, uncaring or simply oblivious, didn’t check its slow, methodical step, six years of military training kicked in from somewhere within the minister’s primate lizard brain and he put a bullet in it.

OOC: Bryson, not having watched many zombie movies, will be aiming for the upper torso.

And yes, his accent is returning somewhat to his roots as the crisis hits.

They were on the road and picking up speed.

Good. They were finally getting out of this dreaded forest. Vandervoort hated woods of any kind. Still, this one mission might’ve paid off. If it truly worked out, he would never think ill of forests again. He might even come back to the wilds of Herkimer if ever he got children.

Look kids, this is where daddy first learned about walking dead. You guys remember where to shoot them?

~In the head, in the head!~

That’s right, now here….
Vandervoort inspected private Waltkins, who proved to be one tough bastard.

Why don’t you just die? Vandervoort thought to himself. But he had to hold up the appearance of wanting to help the man. He looked at the other doctors. Carrell seemed to be in some kind of shock, but Mosher was doing fine under the circumstances. He might give some trouble if Vandervoort tried to stall the aiding of the wounded … scratch that… the infected private.

An idea began forming in Lucas Vandervoort’s mind. He looked at the private’s wounds once more, when the radio crackled.

“Vandervart! Give me the run down. Can you stop the bleeding until we get to a hospital?”

Lucas went over to the radio, and looked at private Clayton. buy yourself some time…
“Private, how does this thing work… can I just talk, or what. Hello? Johnson? It’s Vandervoort. Voort… not Vart… Is this thing working? Can he hear me?”

Think now… think!
“Johnson? The run down is this: private Waltkins is severely wounded. An artery has been damaged and he’s bleeding heavily. I need to cauterize, or he’ll die of blood loss. Doctor Mosher can assist me, I’m sure. Right, doctor?”

He looked at the doctor, hoping for a negative answer.

“Anyway… that’s the rundown. There’s not much more that I can say at this moment. I’d do a better job if this van wasn’t moving so fast though. I can’t really afford to miss a few times due to unexpected bumps in the road, you know? It’s not like I have something to sedate Waltkins with.”

I’m talking too much… it will become suspicious…
(Whatever the outcome of the conversation: ) Before returning to private Waltkins, Vandervoort bent forward between the driver and Mosher.

“Look, we have to strap Waltkins down. There is a big chance that he has been infected with whatever is causing this zombie-thing. And I’m sure you’ve all seen the movies, or at least heard what happens when people get bitten. They turn into zombies themselves. We have to strap him down, whether he survives or not; and frankly, the chances that he’ll die in a few minutes are rather big. And I don’t want him to suddenly jump me and start gnawing on my neck.”

He made sure to talk to Carrell the most. With some luck, the little prick would take his gun and help Waltkins out of his misery. But perhaps he was hoping too much.

He turned back to Waltkins.

“Son, we’re going to have to strap you down. It’s just for your own safety. This is going to hurt quite a bit, and we don’t need you to pull any sudden reflexes on us. Not while I have this hot equipment in my hand.”

And now all his training would finally be put to use. Tiaan had visions of leaping up onto his car and performing a flying kick into the head of the "zombie" just like he did in The Karate Master goes to New York. Or he would swoosh into his car NASCAR style and tear out, running the diseased thing over and causing a mass of guts and infection to spread out over the parking lot.

But this was the real thing. His training amounted to nothing against a virus that could kill someone so horribly.

At least he had near-super human reflexes...

T whisked his Colt Peacemaker from his back pocket and unloaded a few into the rotting corpse, making sure to keep a few paces between himself and the thing.

There are no such things as zombies...
The words echoed through Jack's head as he was shoved into the PT Cruiser. Up until 10 seconds ago, Jack had been completely sure of this fact. Now though, he was slightly unsure.

This man certainly "looked" like a zombie, if that could really be said. The whole "trying to eat you" thing was there, and Jack was pretty sure any normal man he had slugged would have dropped no problem. This guy didn't really seem to notice. Disconcerting.

Fight now he was in an unenviable position. Whatever Jimmy had become had him on the ropes, and it was taking all Jack had to keep Jimmy's slavering jaws from eating his face. Not overly pleasant.

"Oi!", he shouted at the geek, hoping he hadn't already run off. "Git over here. Check the bike...in the saddlebags you'll find something to get this f*cker off me."
He took a small second to glance over at the kid before returning his focus to Jimmy.

"HURRY!"
(OOC: Sorry it's late. Holidays.)

Zombies are real, zombies are real, zombies are real...
That insane litany kept repeating itself over and over and over in Roger's head as he stood frozen in shock watching the fight start to unfold before him. Fear, incredulity, and a feeling of surreal panic kept his feet rooted to the spot and his finger frozen on the "Capture" button of his camera-phone; his mind partially registered the repeated beeps as the phone kept taking pictures, and each beep seemed to be in time with the voice in his head: zombies are real, zombies are real, zombies are real...
The reality of the situation couldn't be denied: the big man in the biker jacket was definitely landing authentic hammer punches on the dude (zombie), but they were having no effect. And the dude (zombie) was definitely trying to eat the big guy's face. All the zombie movies Roger had seen, all the zombie video games he'd played, all the zombie comic books he'd read...all of them rushed through his head as though for comparison. He saw a chaotic maelstrom of shambling zombies, leaping ninja zombies, goofy comedy zombies, hardcore unstoppable death-machine zombies...zombies are real, zombies are REAL, ZOMBIES ARE REAL!!
He was jolted from his imitation of a terrified statue by that last scream of the litany in his head and by the voice of the big guy.

"Oi! Git over here. Check the bike...in the saddlebags you'll find something to get this f*cker off me."
Roger's feet still wouldn't cooperate as he jammed the camera-phone into his pocket and started to shamble toward the guy's bike, which was still laying on its side next to the PT Cruiser. Surreal and fantastic horror started to settle into all-too-real horror as he stumbled closer to where the actual fight was taking place, seeing the hideous zombie (they're real!) trying to eat the big guy.

"HURRY!" the big guy yelled, finally snapping Roger out of it and bringing the moment into painful clarity as he stubbed his toe on the bike's back tire.

He reached for the saddlebag that was exposed, frantically hoping that whatever he was looking for wasn't in the other saddlebag that was pinned to the ground. Fumbling the buckle open, he reached into the bag and started rifling through its contents. It took only a moment to find the pistol, and as Roger gripped its handle a sudden feeling of confidence rushed through him. The memory of all the first-person shooter zombie games he had mastered came back, and in a great show of dexterity he managed to pop the clip out, verify that it was full, pop it back in and cock the slide, all without peeing himself or dropping anything.

Swinging back around to the fight, Roger swung the gun wildly in that direction, then tried to picture himself about to impress all of nerd-dom owning a zombie shooter game, settling the gun into a direct aim at the thing's head.

With a wild and hysterical scream, Roger started emptying the clip at the zombie's head. It was harder to tell which was louder: the gunshots, or Roger's scream that echoed every report: "ZOMBIES ARE REAL! ZOMBIES ARE REAL! ZOMBIES ARE REAL!"

Walmart Supercenter,
103 N Caroline Street, Herkimer,
Upstate New York September 14th, Sunday, 10:36pm
“So you folks got a Remington Model Seven?” the minister asked incredulously, eager to break a heavy silence punctuated only by the harsh metallic clink of falling knives and firearms. “Good deer-hunting rifle, my brother-in-law, back down in Kentucky, swears by it.”
He was trying to make conversation, of course, leaning out the window of his green sedan as Lisa peered over his shoulder with wide, brown eyes, and the bald man and goth girl hurriedly unloaded their cart full of weapons into their own car. His question was never answered.

The smell that rolled off the figure that stumbled towards him was one of a rotten deer carcass that had bloated and ripped open on a hot summer day, with a distinct, human fecal stench rolled in there. Tiann could catch a hint of formaldehyde too. The figure was tall, and dressed in what was once a very expensive suit. It looked like he had rolled in mud however, and clumps of it even hung from the thin wisps of greasy hair that hung around the brownish black face. Eyes that looked like decayed grapes rolled around in the head, and a lipless, toothy maw opened as the creature raised it’s near skeletal hands and staggered after Tiann. Jetta, who was on the other side of the car, screamed.

Tiann could not believe it. He simply couldn’t fathom what he saw and smelled, and as the creature slowly stumbled closer to him, he couldn’t bring himself to move. The claw like corpse hands opened and closed in the air, and Bryson’s mind raised….He needed to move! Move! MOVE!

A shot rang through the air, and a smacking sound hit the creatures chest. It took one, staggering step back, and then came forward again. It’s stench was forcing itself into Tiann’s nose now, waking up every primitive, survival instinct he had. The gunshot caused him to jump, and now he could move. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled up his own pistol and pumped 3 rounds into the creatures chest. Because he was using a peacemaker, he had to fire, cock, fire, cock, backing up slowly as he did so. It staggered back, and a gelatinous, black substance oozed from the ruin that four rounds had put into it’s suit. Backing around the rear of his car, Tiann fired once more. A gaping, black hole was ripped open in the corpse’s throat. Then suddenly, as if some instinct of it’s own had kicked in, the dead man’s once oblivious gaze locked onto Tiann, and its jaws opened wide. So wide that the dry crack Tiann could hear must have been it’s jaw. A black, oozing tongue rolled out between it’s yellow teeth, and with it’s hands outstretched it came forward some more. A lazy, crackling moan rose up from it’s chest, and whistled through several holes in it’s chest and throat. That sound. Oh that was the sound of nightmares.

It’s face was horrifying. Death, ancient and hungry, woven into decayed flesh. Bryson must have been shooting it, but it wasn’t effected. Jetta’s voice rang over his pounded hearbeat. “The head! Shoot it in the face!”

Both Bryson and Tiann obeyed, and in a hail of bullet’s the creatures dead face was ripped apart. Bone and skin, and hair, and blackish gray brain were vomited from the back of it’s head. The figure dropped what would have been face down…but it’s face was thoroughly blown away.

Jetta reappeared from her hiding place on the other side of the car. The corpse was unmoving. It was, he was sure, thoroughly dead this time. Suddenly a scream tore from Bryson’s car, damn near causing Tiann, Jetta, and especially Bryson, to soil themselves.

“More! There are more!”

Lisa was frantically pointing through the back window of the car, towards the walmart entrance, where 3 decayed figures were stumbling towards them. Their own hands were outstretched. They were not yet making any sound, nor were their jaws gaping wide, but they were 40 feet away and the gap was closing.

((Decide what to do. Do you think you have time to pull out in your own vehicle? Will you hop into Bryson’s vehicle? Will you fight them? Remember how many rounds your clip carry. Tiann your peacemaker holds 6 rounds….and you think you might have used them all. Bryson your 44 also holds 6 rounds. You’ve counted with each shot. And have 1 round left.)

Forest off Route 5S, Herkimer
Upstate New York September 14th, Sunday, 10:36 pm

“Look, we have to strap Waltkins down. There is a big chance that he has been infected with whatever is causing this zombie-thing. And I’m sure you’ve all seen the movies, or at least heard what happens when people get bitten. They turn into zombies themselves. We have to strap him down, whether he survives or not; and frankly, the chances that he’ll die in a few minutes are rather big. And I don’t want him to suddenly jump me and start gnawing on my neck.”


Vandervoort made sure to talk to Carrell the most. The fire-haired man had scampered from his fetal position in the rear of the van to join in on the huddle. With some luck, the little prick would take his gun and help Waltkins out of his misery. But perhaps he was hoping too much.


He turned back to Waltkins



“Son, we’re going to have to strap you down. It’s just for your own safety. This is going to hurt quite a bit, and we don’t need you to pull any sudden reflexes on us. Not while I have this hot equipment in my hand.”
The man was pale, and looked to be in a lot of pain. He was pressing a cloth against the wound in his neck, but blood was running through the clothe and his fingers.

“Stra-Strap me down? I can hold still! I mean it. You can buckle me in though if that’s what you mean.”

As he spoke, the vehicle began to a crawl. Johnson’s voice crackled through the speaker again.

“We don’t have much time, Vandervart. (there he went again….was he doing it on purpose or was that just how he pronounced “oo”?) Hurry yer ass up so we can get out of here.”

Carrell, who had been wringing his hands and staring at the wounded soldier as if he was a predator suddenly spoke up in a shrill, quivering voice. “We don’t have time to argue! We need to strap you down! You’ve been bit! That’s how you become one of those, and I’m certainly not going to take that risk!”

Waltkings face turned even paler. “Turn into one of them? No….NO! How do you know? Oh god oh god. Can’t we just clean the wound? It hasn’t been that long! Look all the blood flowing out should keep the infection out of my veins right?” The young mang looked at Vandervoort. "Right?”


(You can answer the question and then tell me what Vandervoorts intentions are and I'll play it out, or we can act the whole thing out if you wish. It's your call.)

Faxtion Healthcare Facility
State Street, Herkimer,
Upstate New York September 14th, Sunday, 10:40 pm
He was a bigger, stronger man than James had ever been, but now, in his newfound deadness, James was tireless. Jack could feel his own strength slipping from his arms, even as his terror began to peak. James mouth was gaping open, a mere couple feet from his, and a guttural moan was rising from his chest. His eyes were locked on Jacks, but there was something unnatural about them. A lack of focus maybe. Or maybe it was the fact that James was not blinking.
He barked his orders to the nearby kid, who instantly obeyed. James’ fingers were digging into Jack’s leather coat, and slobber was streaming from his lips. That damn moan continued, relentless, and Jack could nolonger bring himself to look into the mans eyes. All he could do was press his will and his strength into his own arms that were around base of the mans neck, and pray to hear the gunshots.

They came alright. With a scream that sounded like Mclovin trying out for Black Metal, the kid began unloading Jack’s gun. BANG BANG! The first two shots caused Jack to wince, but nothing more, and then the kids aim was adjusted. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! James’ head was smacked from the side, twice, three times, the other side of his head erupted suddenly and a torrent of red poured forth. His mouth clamped down, severing his own tongue cleanly, and he jerked backwards and stood stiffly. Slimy, gray flesh slipped from the cavern in the side of his head like slithering eels. Then he fell, into a spreading pool of red. His legs and arms flopped and spasmed, but even they began to subside. It took Jack a moment to realize the kid was standing there, his gun still raised, screaming.

”ZOMBIES ARE REAL! ZOMBIES ARE REAL! ZOMBIES ARE REAL! ZOMBIES ARE REAL!!!!”

“Can’t we just clean the wound? It hasn’t been that long! Look all the blood flowing out should keep the infection out of my veins right?” The young man looked at Vandervoort. "Right?”

Vandervoort tried to keep his calm, while his heart raced two different directions. He was glad for what Carrell had said, because chaos and anxiety were what he needed. Chaos would give him a dead body, or rather: a temporarily dead body.
But he had to give the doctor credit for having the worst timing in the history of patient-handling. He buckled up Waltkins’ without saying a word just yet, but when the private couldn’t see his face, he gave an agreeing nod to Carrell. Coming back up he looked the private in the eye with what was best described as professional overconfidence.

“Son, you’re absolutely right. The bloodflow will prevent infection. You’ll be safe. We need to strap you down though. I’ve explained why. Sitting still while you’re flesh is being burnt is impossible. I’m sure you understand strapping is for your own safety AND mine, since I’m holding this smoldering piece of equipment.”
He held the searing hot cauterize tool in front of the private’s face for a second, then turned around.

“Mosher, give me a hand here. We need to strap the private to his chair. We don’t want anybody to get hurt, and we can’t drive at this slow pace for long either.”

When Waltkins is strapped in properly, Vandervoort will use the tool as best as he can, and then take the radio to contact Johnson. But before seeking radio contact he bends over once more to the driver and Mosher. Keeping his voice low, he looks at them both with as much concern as he can muster.

“His wounds are treated, but I don’t know if he’s infected or not. We cannot unstrap him. In fact, we could really use some extra precautions. Do you have some kind of handcuffs, or other way to restrict his movements?”

(OOC: Did I understand it right that there is a lab in this van? Or is that another one? If there is a lab, Vandervoort will start taking samples of Waltkins’ blood and skin as soon as he can, to find out anything unusual; infection, mutation or anything like that.
OOC2: Feel free to play things out if you can. There's no real reason why we should play this out one step at a time. That would take up a lot of time that's not really needed, I think. )

I'm in a bloody Zombie movie... were the only words T could muster in his mind. He assumed, better lucky than good, that his gun was empty. He had some spare bullets somewhere... maybe.

He needed to get the hell out of this Godforsaken town. It looks like he was going to be joining a group with the same intentions.

"Hop in" he yelled across his car to his newfound femme fatale companion as he made a run for his drivers seat. He was not leaving unless it was either behind the wheel or dead.

"I'll follow you guys!" T shouted to the other car.

Bryson fired almost without thinking, his finger not leaving the trigger of the gun until the dead man’s head exploded like an overripe watermelon in the hail of bullets and the corpse crumpled limply to the already blood-spattered tarmac underfoot.

One bullet left, and it was all the minister could do to avoid cracking a smile at the morbid rightness of the situation. “More! There are more!”, Goth Girl’s hysterical scream rang out from the other car and the sight of another trio of revenants, shambling unrelentingly across the parking lot, brought Bryson sharply back to reality.

His foot already on the accelerator, praying his sedan wouldn’t stall, the minister spared a look across to the other car. "I'll follow you guys!" the stranger shouted back and Bryson breathed a sigh of relief as he felt a familiar rush, the engine roaring to life as his car darted forwards towards the apparent safety of the exit.

OOC: Bryson will be heading out of town, to one of the stores you mentioned. He won’t much care which one, provided it sells food and ammunition.

Roger's newfound Zombie-Inspired Tourette's Syndrome finally tapered off as the thing that used to be a man fell to the ground, unmoving.

"ZOMBIES! Are...real..."

His rigidly outstretched arm that was grasping the pistol slowly lowered to his side, then started trembling almost uncontrollably as the reality of this moment finally began to sink in. This wasn't a movie, he wasn't imagining it, and the undead creature before him, whose fluids were spattered over the big man in the biker outfit, wasn't some made-up actor from a zombie flick.

Roger continued staring at the thing's corpse for a moment, then took a deep breath and tried to pull himself together. He was still scared silly, but if there was one thing he had gathered from all his zombie-movie watching, it was that the goggle-eyed immobile bystander was always...well, lunch. In an absurd moment of inspired nerd-dom, he suddenly had the thought that maybe all of his zombie movies and games had been the perfect training for this moment. Maybe if he could see this weird situation as just another movie or video game, hell, he might just be the most qualified person around to protect himself from the damn things. He was a bona fide zombie expert, if he did say so himself. And he did.

It was with this inspired thought that he started to walk toward the big biker...and suddenly doubled over, sinking to his knees as he threw up his last seven meals...and possibly a toenail. As his retching subsided he began to tremble violently...who was he kidding? This wasn't a movie! It wasn't a video game! He was gonna be Zombie Chow!! Game over, man! GAME OVER!!

((Grugg, I leave this part open for you to rp the appropriate ass-chewing to get Roger motivated-hehe. Then the plan-forming, transportation and supply-wrangling and such. Do be gentle. Heh. Or don't. This should be funny.))

Faxtion Healthcare Facility
State Street, Herkimer,
Upstate New York September 14th, Sunday, 10:42 pm
He was right. This wasn’t a game. There wasn’t a television between himself and the now unmoving corpse that moments ago had been trying to chew on the bikers face. He had just emptied a pistol into real flesh and bone, and that was definitely real blood pooling around the body from a very real, cavern on the side of its head. When the reality struck, it was too much for him to handle. Roger fell to his knees, and an eruption of bile splattered the pavement to mingle with the blood. His stomach had rebelled, and he couldn’t restrain it. Again and again he wretched. Infact. He was in mid-wretch when it happened.

How they had died, or what exactly had happened was a mystery. It seemed probable, given the reports in the area, that one of them had been bitten by an infected animal of some sort, saw the news, and had decided, or been convinced to take a trip to the hospital. Why neither of them had gotten out of the car will never be answered. Most likely the man, probably her husband, had been the injured one. His wife had driven, and somewhere along the line he had died. But how had she parked in the hospital lot and not gotten out of the vehicle? Had he ‘animated’ when she parked? While she was still buckled, the entire lower half of her body was a red, stringy mess. If you took the time to look, you would have noticed that the flesh had been ripped away from her ribs down, right to her spine. Her husband, sitting in the passenger seat was smeared from head to toe with the evidence of his crime. That was really the only logical explanation. Nomatter the theory, the fact was two corpses sat in the PT cruiser that Jack was leaning on while he gasped for breath. Four very dead eyes were staring at him, from behind tinted windows. Tinted windows that had been cracked from the bikes impact, and were now very brittle.

The shattering glass almost went unnoticed for a moment by Roger, who was projectile vomiting into the sea of blood, but the shrill screams of the biker pounded into his ears so sharply that it was torture. A torture forever etched into his memory.

The glass had exploded around him, and before Jack could even respond, cold, bloody hands and grabbed his shoulders and pulled him backwards into the window of the cruiser. His arms shot up and grabbed at the frame of the window, and his legs flailed wildly, unable to touch the ground in his awkward, backbreaking state. Glass cut into his hands but he wouldn’t let go. Then he felt the teeth on his skin. Cold, sticky teeth. They came down on his neck and pinched at first, but very quickly passed that threshold. They clamped onto that artery, and pulled, and as Jack screamed, he felt his flesh tear away. A hot, wet spray sprung from his neck, and into the creatures mouth. It chomped down again on the flesh it had ripped, tearing it from his neck. Jack let go of the window-frame and fell completely into the embrace of the man in the vehicle. Hands went from his shoulders to his stomach. They grabbed at his clothes and pulled him in, and he could feel another pair of hands brushing over his face.

Only his legs were dangling from the vehicle now. It had all happened so fast. Roger was pushing himself to his feet, unsure what to do but wanting to help, no doubt. It didn’t matter. The hands on Jacks stomach tore through his clothes, and bloody fingers wormed into his flesh. He flailed his arms, throwing elbows, then, as fingers actually punctured his torso, they grabbled with those hands, trying to pry them away. He could do nothing but flail his head back and forth as the mans jaws chomped on his neck again, and ripped away more flesh. Blood was cascading down his chest and back.

Then the hands that fondled his face suddenly grabbed his hair and yanked back. His throat was now fully exposed to the chomping man, and he was looking, face to face at the driver of the car. A middle aged woman with long brown hair and an upper body that was only attacked to her hips by spine and shreds of clothe. He screamed, and her mouth opened. Blood flowed from it. Obviously. She had coughed up a lot of blood while her husband was devouring her stomach. Jack screamed louder, and her jaws came down to meet his in the last kiss he would ever have…

Roger could hear the screams muffle. He could hear the wet crunch as she chewed through the mans tongue and lower jaw. He could also hear the wet ripping sound of a torso being opened manually…

Roger could only stare dumbly as the big man was ripped apart. This can't be happening! he thought frantically.

It wasn't that he couldn't accept the reality of what he was seeing (ZOMBIES ARE REAL!); so far, the big biker was the only other living human Roger had seen since this craziness began, and in the back of his mind he figured he had pictured the two of them getting out of it together. But as Roger watched the biker get de-jawed and disemboweled before him, he experienced a moment of helplessness and despair. How was he going to survive, when this big tough hombre was making like a zombie chew-toy right before his eyes?

Shock rooted him to the spot, but the voice of reason slowly started to make itself heard. You're definitely NOT going to survive if you stay here! Find some ammo for this hogleg, find something faster than a damned bicycle, and get the hell out of this crazy town! As this ran through his head, Roger's shock and paralysis started to fade. He slowly started shuffling backwards, still overwhelmed by the scene before him.

And then the zombies, having finished with the biker, turned to look at him.

Motivation received!
Roger shoved the dead biker's pistol in his waistband and sprinted for his bicycle. Making sure his backpack was snugged, he pedaled for the parking lot exit, almost slipping down as he went through part of the blood on the pavement, and emerged onto the street. Looking around for places with big parking lots and LOTS of visibility, Roger sped toward the large nearby supermarket. He looked around for cars that were sitting by themselves, where'd he'd be able to see anything coming as he did what he had to do.

Despite the horror and shock of his current situation, Roger couldn't help but grin as he saw a gleaming new Mustang sitting near the end of the big lot, directly under a bank of lights. It was shiny, black with white racing stripes and beautiful, its chrome glittering like a rock star's shiny pants. He rode a quick circle around it, making sure nothing lurked, then dumped his bike and walked up to the sexy beast, peering into the windows to make sure nothing lurked there either. He quickly slipped his backpack off and grabbed his tool kit.

Hacking was an expensive habit, and over the years Roger had learned a few non-hacker skills for the procurement of working capital. He had, ahem, borrowed more than one car during his career, having a fellow hacker and slacker buddy whose father ran an illegal chop shop; nice money, and no questions asked. Of course, his buddy's dad was now doing 25 to life at a state prison...but hey, he'd been a good teacher.

Setting his tongue between his teeth and focusing on the task at hand, yet keeping an ear open for anyone approaching, Roger set to work.

((Val, Roger of course intends to break into the car and hotwire it, with the goal being to not set off the alarm. This seems like the kind of thing a roll or GM determination of success would be required for, so I didn't want to go any further with it for now. Depending on the results, I will proceed from here when you've updated for me.))