User:Yosemite Sam/Yosemite Sam

Mass Panic and Horrible Slaughter

Just before dawn in the slumbering quiet of the police station I heard a low, guttural moan.

Stirring slightly, I opened one eye, and then leaped to my feet.

Zombies!

The very heavily fortified police station, filled with a dozen stalwart survivors, was no match for the clutching hands of the zombie horde. Already, four of the men I had been hiding with had fallen in battle with the zombies, and as I stood I saw Dr. Barlu desperately trying to patch and repair the barricades, then pausing to blow a zombie away with a shotgun as three more broke in past him.

Dead bodies and zombie parts littered the floor.

Dozens of zombies flailed blindly at the barricades, rending them apart.

"I can't do it all myself," he said.

A quick glance told me he was right; he couldn't do it all by himself.

That meant I could only do one thing.

I don't call myself a hero. Sure, others might use that word, but me? No. I just knew that danger threatened my people, these strangers that chance had made my friends. My actions didn't make me special, nor any kind of a brave selfless hero, just an average man doing what it took to survive.

I picked up my boomstick.

I could see Dr. Barlu was about to go under, and swarms of zombies were poised to flood into the room.

It was time for sudden, decisive action.

Shrieking like a little girl I rushed out a back entrance, and headed off south as fast as I could, praying they couldn't follow my scent.

I didn't stop running until I ran out of energy, hiding in a well protected building, heaving for breath.

By now Dr. Barlu and my sleeping friends were likely zombie food.

But I wasn't.

The Long Dash

I leaned back.

My shoulders hard and cold against the damp walls.

For the tenth time I checked my pistol, to see if it had grown any new ammo overnight.

Still empty.

The shotgun?

Still one shell.

Allmightiibob struggled cursing to his feet. "I'm going to make a run for it now," he said calmly.

We both knew what he faced.

I hefted my shotgun. "I'll lay down some cover fire for you."

He smiled grimly, then turned to the door, his feet leaving distinctly bloody shoe prints walked away, then lifted himself up and onto the barricades.

A silhouette, frozen against a small patch of sky, then gone.

AllMightiiBob was chasing a rumor; something we both had heard, of worthy warriors gathering to the North East.

Well we'll see.

A few hours later I stood uneasily myself, listening for distant sounds beyond the barricades.

Silence.

In a few moments I was in the streets myself.

I moved quickly; sprinting here, dropping to a slow wary lope here, then dodging through broken rubble - always watching that I didn't get to close to the groaning zombie groups I saw along away.

A brief detour into a police station brought me luck. While a group of survivors watched, I kicked through some overlooked trash, and picked out a shotgun shell. I headed out, knowing that they would face a zombie onslaught soon, and I didn't think they stood much chance of survival.

Hours later I slumped exhausted into Wetherell Row School.

The rumors were true.

I saw Captured Princess, Blue N Black, Allmightiibob, Danger Dave, Peter Marlowe, - everyone but Lex Steel and two others still rumored to be heading north to this location.

Good to see Allmightiibob had made it.

Blue N Back looked rough, rubbing some salve into his battered body.

Peter Marlow stood, heroically. He paused, took in a deep breath.

"I love the smell of Tiger Balm in the morning"

Silence hung in the air like lead.

"It smells like..."

He didn't finish.

We all knew.

I fished the shell out of my pocket, kissed it, and slammed it into my shotgun. Two shells.

Allmightiibob acknowledged this with a nod, and I slumped down beside my carefully oiled boomstick.

Time to catch some rest.

The morning would bring death.

But not ours.

New Plans

Dawn.

I ran lightly alone several blocks to the police station.

I heard the screams before I saw the dim, ragged shapes in the doorway.

Boards, wire - everything scattered.

The doors forced open; zombies with bloody jaws; bodies slumped together.

I forced my way inside where several survivors still struggled. I pumped a few shots into the zombies, but could do no more. I left, planning to come back later and see what weaponry I could find after the battle. I could see they had no chance to hold out, and guessed that the few people left would flee.

I found myself next in a train station, the vast echoing rooms empty and deserted.

Or not quite.

I sensed movement, and whirled around in a blur of muscle and cocked steel.

Even in the shadows I could see enough. Blonde. Blue eyes. Curves. And best of all?

Not a zombie.

We locked eyes for a long moment; I recognized Captured Princess.

I grabbed a handful of her hair, and pulled her in tight. She turned up her face to mine, and I whispered "Gimme some sugar, baby."

Later that day I went back to the police station, the foul evening air moving damp across oily streets.

The barricades were back.

I could see no way in, the building had been secured again. What had happened to the few I saw that morning, I could not say, but the zombies were gone, and only human eyes stared out through the cracks at me, waiting for me to leave.

We spent the night in the train station.

Morning brought new plans, a march south to Fort Creedy, to search for weaponry.

A detour by the police station showed the night had not been silent everywhere.

The shattered doors stood open. Inside lay a few dozen bodies, blackened blood still sticky on the floors and walls. No survivors, no zombies. Whatever hit in the night hit hard, and moved on. I prayed we wouldn't cross paths with whatever did this.

We saw zombies everywhere, but entered Fort Creedy without trouble.

Inside?

Hundreds of survivors.

Captured Princess took out a can of paint to paint a message of defiance and hope, but I waved her away.

Not here.

Not now.

I didn't like what I saw.

We searched and found some gear, while others bickered. On man accused another of being a zombie spy. A tall rangy man tried to convince others that one of the sleepers was really a danger, a member of an untrustworthy group. No one listened.

The rangy man took out his shotgun and killed the sleeping man on his own, to the disgust of a few others. "Playa Foola," he styled himself.

What they did to each other was no concern of mine, as I found a quiet corner to sleep, the generator humming away.

I'm not sure what woke me - I think it was the sound of the generator. Or the lack of sound.

The fool didn't drag the body outside, and in the night the dead man rose as a zombie, and destroyed the generator, before the others took him apart.

I slouched down again, needing to rest, and let the unruly mob finish with the zombie, and the fool who had stupidly created him.

Blood Feuds and Vengence

I thought I'd see chaos and madness on the streets fighting zombies.

The slaughter around me equaled anything I had seen outside.

At least two factions conflict here in the Armory, possibly three. The leader of one faction, the Creedy Defense Federation, or some such group announced his retirement. Shortly after that, the loud bang of a shotgun signaled his death.

The assassin escaped, with others organizing a pursuit, and the first of several armed scuffles broke out, with a number of woundings and deaths each time. By midnight at least 8 have been killed, from the various factions. Survivors kill survivors, for trivial, petty reasons.

One man was killed for painting a fresh slogan over the one already in place. I shudder to think that Captured Princess and I had almost suffered a similar fate.

Some of the dead rise again as zombies, killing others, and are in turn overwhelmed by the general mass of survivors with the walls.

And the assassin paid a price on the streets: the vigilantes caught her and gunned her down, but not before she doubled back and killed another of their number. They came straggling back in, taking little comfort in their victory. Clearly she had made them pay more than they wanted for their vengeance.

We have found weapons, this is a good place for that.

But I sleep fitfully, as killings go on all around me, in this savage place of refuge.

In the Morning Light

The following morning saw us headed North East.

Giddings mall.

We heard it was the promised land - crammed with hunt stores, more guns than you can carry, pyramids of stacked pistol clips.

Promised, but in the dull light of dawn, as the pools of blood on the ground slowly turned from the slick black of the predawn light to sickening matte red, a land not promised to us. The cades were built too strong, too thorough to let us in.

We have to find a way past those barricades.

We headed west, seeking a police station, or anywhere that had more ammo.

We met a zombie, and blew it apart together.

A second was more savage, closing to hand to hand combat. It tore at Captured Princess before together we shredded it in a volly of slugs and shot.

It lay in spasms on the ground, and I glanced at Princess. Her clothing was torn, but no serious injury. Actually, the torn clothes rather improved her look, some cleavage here, indiscrete rips there, buttons clawed away. Sure she was all combat and spitfire, but the less this girl hid from my view, the more I liked it.

My own shirt was torn open, my tight jeans snug and beard now three days old.

I kicked open the door to the police station, and a breeze blew back my hair as Princess clung to my bicep. My fist clenched around the barrel of my gun.

Framed by the light streaming through the door I looked beyond at the frightened survivors begging for protection in the shattered cop station, and I knew one thing, as surely as I had ever known anything in my life.

Damn we looked good.

A Marvel

I found some rope, and fashioned a grappling hook.

Simple really.

But I knew now we could beat the cades, and we slung stocks and barrels and headed out to explore. A steady rain molded our clothes to our bodies.

"Get me on the roof," I said to Princess, "and I can go anywhere."

I hooked a fire escape, and pulled myself up, then ran up the rusty iron onto the roof while Princess watched from below.

I swung down in a blur of rope and brawn, knifing through an open window. I ran through the next window, and leapt out, stretching, flinging my rope and snagging the fire escape, pulling myself up and onto the next building.

I never touched the ground.

A quick motion and I went out the window, dropping down, swinging upside down as I neared the ground.

Water dripping off me, I hung upside down in front of the drenched beauty emerging out of the puddles and cold of the alley.

"I'm Spiderman," I told her.

"You're a marvel," she answered, and silenced me with a lingering kiss.

Into the Darkness

Free running and swinging through the air proved hard for Princess to master, so we kept to the ground.

Almost to the mall, Captured Princess suddenly sank down exhausted to the ground.

"I can't go on," she whimpered, her bosom heaving.

I looked about with a steely determination.

"Wait here," I commanded. "I'll find a safe place for you to rest."

With buildings all around, I needed to find one I could get her into. But all were barricaded too securely, and she didn�t know how to use the hook yet, so I needed a ground level entrance. I searched, first down one god-forsaken alley, and then another.

I stopped, looking for a safe place, when I heard a noise, close by me.

Turning, I felt the slashing claws of a rabid zombie tear open the side of my face, ripping away a mass of blood and flesh.

"Damn," I thought. "I ain't so pretty now."

We struggled he and I, my personal Grendel. I tore off his arm with a rending twist, but he came on, biting, snarling twisting. I felt the poison in my body and broke free, running a few blocks northwest before collapsing into the street, outside a massively barricaded building, my face inches from a puddle in the gutter. My eyes closed, and I rested a moment, knowing I had outrun the zombie to this place of safety.

And then a pile of boxes moved.

And another zombie fell upon me, as I slipped into a nightmare of darkness and foul dreams.

A Plan

I awoke lying on a street many blocks away.

I had lost time. Days perhaps.

With no one around, I rose to my feet and headed to what little safety I knew I could find, first the mall, and then I headed south with an armful of ammo, pushing through the barricades around the armory, and into the ranks of the men beyond, pausing for a moment at the door to one of the many battered barracks.

I staggered into the room, clutching a few pistol clips and shotgun shells in my hands.

My eyes stabbed through the steely room.

DeMorte.

I could trust DeMorte.

He looked up as I sat down with him, back to back on the damp concrete floor, kicking an empty pack of smokes out of the way; his eyes fierce and hard. He worked his shotgun, checking, testing it, ready to go.

I started loading clips and shells into my weapons.

Got a plan?

We can't stay here. The armory was a seething chaos of warring factions who had lost sight of the enemy.

We had both seen the enemy.

Up close.

We both were splattered with blood, some of it ours.

We'll head west.

Into the heart of the zombie masses.

Dip south, and move through gaps and spaces between the hordes, and slip into Barrville from the western border. Attack them from behind.

Move into Ridleybank from our base in Barrville. Strike at their strongpoints, their leaders, if they have leaders.

We'll be alone - no powerful groups fighting over scraps in barricaded, lit buildings, letting their humanity decay as rapidly as the zombies bodies rot outside.

We'll sleep alone in buildings, the doors wide open. Places the zombies don't expect to find us. In separate buildings, alone, so if one of us is slain, the other has a chance to revive him. We'll carry needles, first aid kits.

Ok we have a plan.

How good it is, we don't know.

But it's a plan.

Who will come with us? Are there others brave enough to stare destruction in the face and fight down their own fears?

The more who come with us, the better our chances are.

I nodded to Demorte.

I stood, raising my shotgun over myis head and stood in the doorway, shouting at the quarrelsome scum in the next room.

"Alright, listen up you primitive screwheads..."

War Cry

Demorte and I found no takers in this grim room of cowards.

We took to the streets alone, separately.

We need a war cry, I told him.

He smiled, that crooked, friendly and yet bone chilling smile of his.

"Ya�" he agreed. "I'll write something."

I choose to run along the streets, down from the roofs, ready to engage any stray zombies in brutal and short sharp combat.

I saw few traces of them, until at last I approached the Hilldebrand Mall in Roftwood.

I slowed my pace to walk. To my right, a mob of dozens of zombies. Ahead, still more. On my left flank, yet more zombies moving forward.

I opened fire on the lead zombie, and he surged forward to attack me. In moments, two more swarmed up against me, and I fought back savagely. Again I felt the familiar sting of their poisonous bites, infection reaching deep into my bloodstream.

I had to give ground. I decided to give ground like no man had ever given ground before, and with energy flagging, turned and ran.

I couldn�t find a place to hide, everything was barricaded tighter than, well, you can fill in your own off color simile.

But I was in a bad spot. With poison eating away at me, and a zombie repeatedly attacking me everytime I paused, I took one final surge into a side street, and saw open doors.

I would have preferred some sort of barricades, but there was no choice. I ran through the doors of the Crooker Bank and passed out, knowing even then that if the zombie followed my scent I would awake as one of the undead.

I came to a half hour later, thinking I was the luckiest man alive. This unprotected, open building was a place of refuge. I looked about me, for other survivors. I saw figures in the dim light, and then realized in sudden horror they were zombies.

Eight of them.

Lost in some sort of stupor, they had not noticed me, so I climbed up to the roof in a growing panic, and swung my way into a heavily barricaded factory, completely alone. I reflected that I had jumped from certain death into a room full of even more certain death, and yet walked away alive. Badly wounded, but still alive.

I looked out at the streets, and saw the remains of a destroyed zombie moldering along the sidewalk.

Looking again, I knew I'd seen that handwriting before.

Demorte.

The man had been near here.

And above the ruined zombie, Demorte's cry of triumph, written in blood:

"Fear the pulse."

I Ain't no Hero

I've lost DeMorte.

Days now.

Not sure where he went. Not if he's still alive. Nothing.

Good fortune threw Captured Princess in my path once more.

Rallying a group of survivors near two police stations, I threw my lot in with her once more.

Zombies were gathering outside, a massive horde. We knew they would attack soon, and we got ready to handle the assault. It came down to a simple choice; which of the two adjoining police departments to spend the night in. Princess liked the southern building, with its better barricades. I liked the north building. Barricades weren't as strong but easily twice the number of survivors.

More chance to sleep with others to share guard duty.

Zombies broke through several times that night, but we threw them back each time.

Morning.

Sleeping next to me was a survivor I'd seen in the other station. He'd come in during the night.

Ominous.

I slipped next door to the police station while Captured Princess slept, just to look.

Bits of zombie stuck to the walls, smears of rotted blood on floors and ceilings. Decayed arms and legs blown into scattered chunks by shotgun blasts.

But no survivors.

They had not gone gentle into that good night.

But they had gone, nonetheless.

No one alive, and zombies all through the building. I climbed over the bodies over my former allies, shredded a few zombies in their memory, then fought my way back to Captured Princess.

Zombies came in waves after that. We fought them for hours, days, who knows? We woke and fought zombies, and slept while others fought them. But they didn�t stop.

Finally, we had to fall back.

We found a hospital nearby, and holed up there with desperate survivors.

We used it as a base to try and retake the police stations.

Until the morning we woke up to slaughter. Zombies had broken in, and had over powered the defenders at the barricade, and had infected everyone in the hospital. Waking Princess, we opened fire with a pistol in one hand, and a shotgun in the other. The wounded writhed at our feet, begging for someone to stop the zombies.

Well I ain't no hero.

But I can stop zombies.

Over the screams and moans I heard an incessant clicking, over and over. The hammer rose and fell on my shotgun, but I had no more shells. Princess had none. She had no clips either. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm us before the zombies did. I couldn't afford to miss with my next shots.

So I didn't.

Staggering, I dropped the final zombie. With the last remaining ounce of strength, I heaved their bodies outside, as they struggle to reanimate, then passed out on the floor. Princess lasted just a little longer, slamming the wrenched open doors shut, and barricading them as best she could before she dropped exhausted, partially standing against the barricades herself.

Did we save everyone in the hospital?

Who's to say?

But I knew the next morning I had better be worshipped like a god, or there would be trouble.

I'll Kill Her!

I slept sitting, hunched over, one hand on wrapped around the barrel of my shotgun.

A gentle nudge dimly registered on my mind.

I ignored it, desperate for sleep.

It repeated. Persistent. Annoying.

I looked up, a snarl curling my lips even as I forced an eye open.

A pretty girl dropped down on her haunches to my level.

"Yosemite Sam?" she asked.

I just stared. She pushed a piece of paper into my hand.

"Call me Princess Leiea," she said. "That's my mobile phone number."

"Call me Ishmael." I answered.

She smiled.

"I'm keeping track of certain people, shall we say?" she continued. "Call them celebrities."

She stood up. "I've been in a few wet t-shirt contests," she said cryptically, then turned and walked away.

Well I've won a few wet t-shirt contests myself.

"A scientist," I thought. "Or maybe a Doctor."

I watched her walk away.

She doesn't walk like a scientist.

That woman was dangerous, in more ways than one.

I drifted back to sleep, and told Captured Princess about the encounter when she awoke.

"Where is she?" she said, slamming fresh cartridges into her shotgun. "I'll kill her."

"Gone," I said. "Gone like a freight train, gone like yesterday. Gone like a soldier in the civil war bang bang."

Captured Princess relaxed slightly. "There's only one Princess here," she said grimly. "And she's me."

Oops!

OK I was writing off the worshipped like a god thing.

Unless you count the Princess Leiea thing the day before. Which is a stretch.

Captured Princess and I headed down into the chaos of the police station again, both hunting and searching for ammo.

We wandered apart in the gloomy darkness.

A muzzle flash and a roar in the dark.

"Got a fresh one" shouted Princess. I moved over quickly to help her. Out of ammo she scrounged on the floor for a clip while the zombie threatened her.

I opened up on him, watching slugs tear into his rotted flesh. Princess reloaded with a clip she found, and tore him up from the other side. Together we watched him dance between us, then suddenly he slipped to one side, and out the door.

I held my fire, squinting to see where he went.

Princess stared into the darkness, and squeezed off one final round.

Thank god for flak jackets.

I spun to the ground; the shot hitting me square in the chest.

"Whoops," said Princess.

I got up, and went after him, while Princess looked for more ammo.

I caught the zombie two buildings away, and calmly blew him into the next few buildings. A head in one, an arm in the other. A patch of something nasty left in the street. Nothing special.

Then back to Princess.

Tomorrow brings another ammo run.

Dregs, Scum and Hopeless Losers

Final Entry before the creation of RAT - Monday 1st May 2006, 6:17 PM

I finish reloading and restocking, my guns are oiled and ready for action - more ammo than I've seen in days.

I've a mission now, a suicide mission with absolutely no chance of sucess.

Just the way I like 'em.

I move through Giddings Mall, gathering a crowd about me and give my speech:

"All right, listen up you primitive screwheads...

I'm heading on a suicide mission to Ridleybank 55,47; there's a Necrotech Building there that is ripped open and unprotected.

I've got a generator and fuel, but we'll need some science boys and girls to run the stuff, and gunslingers to hold back the mob.

Our chance of sucess is zero and none - the zombies will not let us operate right in the midst of their stronghold - they'll eventually throw everything they have at us.

So that's why we're going. You'll need axe training and free running - there's no easy ammo like this soft life in the mall here. There's hospitals all around it for FAKS, and a police station to the NE for ammo.

And that's about it. We might die, but we'll die with honor. Meet me there if you can handle the job."

We'll see who signs up for this death march. I'll get the dregs, the losers, the hopeless scum who have failed at everything and see this as their one last chance at redemption.

My kind of people.