The Shearbank Resistance

The Shearbank Resistance
Abbreviation:	SR
Group Numbers:	0
Leadership:	Hikari, MixedResults, Filbert the Vengeful
Goals:	Save Stickling Mall and our beloved Shearbank!
Recruitment Policy:	We are no longer recruiting
Contact:	The Shearbank Resistance

As of May 23rd, 2007, the Shearbank Resistance is officially disbanded. Thank-you to all our past and present members -- you all were a marvelous bunch to game with!

Previous Operations

• The Eastern Front - Aid Huntley heights in rebuilding + holding suburb, then move to Santlerville and help fend off the RRF
• Home Base - Hold Stickling Mall
• Operation Insancipate - Essentially, a plan proposed by one of our members (Insansipatory) to frustrate Zombies through the barricading of empty buildings. It was eventually realized that this plan employs the philosopy of River Tactics
• Information and Comms - Hold Keedwell Plaza School, the local phone mast
• The North-West Front, part 1 - Aid Yagoton in retaking Bale Mall and defending the Yagoton Revive Clinic - ABANDONED IN LIGHT OF MALL TOUR '07
• Operation Bastion - Hold Stickling and the surrounding area from Mall Tour '07 - OVERRUN AFTER 1 MONTH
• The Home Front, part 1 - Regroup after the fall of Stickling, and secure Shearbank from the undead menace - COMPLETED
• The Southern Front, part 1 - Aid Roachtown in stamping down on the Zeds - COMPLETED

Our (Brief) History

The suburb of Shearbank, though a little rough around the edges, was safe enough when it welcomed most of us in only a few months ago (February-early April 2006). But since then the suburb has been decimated by coordinated zombie attacks and abandoned by its more lukewarm residents, seeming lost to feral raids...until now. The SR began its humble efforts when a few hardy survivors said "Enough!" and began to restore barricades and dump corpses out of resource buildings all over the city.

We know the bloody history of our chosen land, but our motives are as noble as our predecessors' were corrupted. We don't shoot recklessly, but we do kick ass when we have to. Take Shearbank for the living (and those who wish they were)!

	Blackmore Bastard
	The RRF has had to lay siege to its own NecroTech and this group sent the Bastards inside some reinforcements. 8/18/06 -

The Last Stand of the Shearbank Resistance

One For The Road By MixedResults (AKA JavaElemental)

Filbert twitched aside the tattered rag of the blind, looking down. He sighed.

“Bad?” Hikari looked up from her gun.

He glanced over his shoulder, face grim.

“How many?” Kilroy stood in the corner, shadowed, holding his shotgun. His voice was flat, quiet.

Filbert shook his head. “Couldn't say.” He paused. “Hundreds.”

“Jesus.” Zhoodoon's voice was shaking.

“No, I don't see him.” MR drawled, blowing out cigar smoke. Her face was ghost white despite her dry, amused tone.

The Resistance had only been back in Shearbank for a week. For months, they had ranged across desolate Malton, fighting the hordes. At times, they seemed to be winning, and at other times . . . not so much. They had been to see the fortified walls surrounding Malton. Behind them, the group had heard, stalked the mighty army tanks, and platoons of Marines, waiting. Just to peep one's head over the wall was certain death, they'd been told. The outside world was taking no chances with the zombies. It was permanent quarantine. Forever.

And inside, it was apocalypse, over and over again, forever.

They had found Malton reasonably quiet. Certainly, a few suburbs were lost to the hordes, but by and large, the menace seemed contained. Pleased with the fact that they'd had a small hand in “saving” Malton, the gang had returned home to Shearbank. And two days later, the horde came.

Horde, singular. No wonder Malton had seemed so quiet. “Every zed in the city, waiting in freaking Earletown.” Bubba lit a home-rolled cigarette, rubbing his face tiredly.

“We've seen big hordes before.” Boriss lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

MR shook her head. “This isn't just a big horde. This is the horde.”

“We knew they were getting smarter.” Kilroy said. “We knew they were organizing.”

“Dead bodies don't organize.” Soup was a newer recruit – a friend of Hikari's they'd found in their travels.

“And yet.” Filbert waved a hand, indicating the sea of rot surrounding the Whippey Necrotech building.

“How many do you think we have here?” Asked Twix.

“In the building? Able to fight?” Hikari ran her hands through her hair. “I don't know. Sixty. Maybe. Since the mall fell . . . “

They went quiet. Losing the mall was bad. Losing the mall meant no more ammunition, medical supplies, food, equipment, or fuel for the failing generator. Outside, the zeds moaned, a dull roar of droning cries, drowning out the creaks and crashes of the falling barricades.

“You think this is their big push?” Ironsmoke looked around. “I mean, you think this is it for us humans?”

“Shut up, Smoke.” Twix snapped.

“No, seriously. I mean, what'll they do when there aren't any humans left? That's what they eat, right? Do you think they'll finally, like, starve to death?”

“Smoke --”

“Take it easy, Twix.” Filbert rubbed his chin. He jumped at the sound of a resounding crash from outside.

“They'll be in, soon.” Said Bubba.

“Nuke.” MR puffed on her cigar.

“What's that?” Hikari looked up.

“When we're all dead. If they've got any sense, they'll nuke the place. Right down to slag. Salt the earth and never let anyone live here again.” She looked outside. As far as she could see, Malton was dark. The radios had been silent for a day now. It was as though they were the last pocket of humanity in Malton. That probably wasn't quite the case, yet, but it seemed that way.

Outside, the barricades crashed like thunder. There was a rousing war cry from downstairs. Bubba grabbed his back pack and started going through it. “Here.” He set down four of the gray steel Necrotech syringes. They looked like guns, only with larger barrels, to accommodate the precious syringes. “Pony up, guys.”

“What?” Filbert's brow crinkled. “What are you doing?”

Bubba emptied out all his supplies, leaving himself only his ammo and a few rags and band aids. “Come on, guys. We won't be needing this stuff. Zhoo will.”

“What?” Zhoo yelped, eyebrows shooting up.

“Hey, one of us has to get away, and you're our best free runner. We'll hold them off downstairs, and you get out of Shearbank. Head around behind the horde, working clean-up.”

“Do you see that freaking horde? I'll have to jump ten blocks just to get to the edge!” Zhoo through his arms out wide. “If there is even an edge!”

Before the radio had died, reports had been grim. There hadn't been a word from anything northeast of Shearbank, and everything southwest had been asking, “Where's all the zombies?” MR looked across the group, meeting Filbert and Hikari's eyes. Filbert had said “hundreds” of zeds out there, but they all knew he meant thousands. This was one huge horde, comprised of – quite possibly – every zed in Malton, and they were mobbing from northeast to southwest, killing everything in their path, led by the older stick-thin corpses, those who had been dead so long or so often their brains had gone to mush, and they couldn't be revived any more. They had become . . . something else entirely. They weren't exactly intelligent, but they certainly weren't dumb, either. They could communicate and organize, and they had done so. The effects of the zeds' communications were that they had had enough of the Malton humans, and they were cleaning house.

The Whippey Building, and it's sixty-some hungry, frightened, gun-toting occupants, were in the way.

MR nodded at Filbert and Hikari, and started emptying out her supplies as well. “Grab us that duffel bag, Kilroy. We'll fill it up. I got four syringes. Who else?”

Everyone sorted out their Necrotech syringes, filled with the chemical cure that could bring the living back from shambling undeath. A couple here, a couple there -- “Here, I got, like, fifteen.” Kilroy began emptying out his duffel bag.

“Fifteen?” Hikari exclaimed. “Where do you keep all that stuff? I swear, you're skinnier than me!”

Kilroy shrugged, grinning. “I'm a good packer.”

“No kidding.” MR said, shaking her head.

Gunfire, like a storm, echoed up the stairs.

“No more time, kids.” Filbert grabbed Zhoo, giving him a bear hug. “Stay safe. Stay behind the horde. Find other survivors, if there are any.”

“This is a futile gesture! It's stupid. Look at them!” Zhoo pointed out the window. “I can't hide from that!”

Soup snorted. “You have to. Someone does. As long as there's one of us alive, we can keep coming back, Zhoo. I don't care if it's scary. You have to get out. Or it really is all over, and maybe they will nuke the place like MR says.”

“Right. With any luck, Bubba ain't the only guy to think of this. Here.” She handed the duffel bag off to Zhoo.

“What are you guys going to do?” Zhoo exclaimed. The zombie groans were filling the stairwell.

“We're going to hold the stairs, so you can get out of here.”

“You'll die!”

“Yeah.” Said Filbert. “But I'm sure we'll eventually remember to shamble off to Allder Row, right?” As one, they all refused to look out the window, where the corner of Allder Row and Nulty Lane could just be seen. It was the Resistance's “revive point”, where zombified members collected, by some instinct, if they could. Allder Row, like every other known revive point in Shearbank, was empty. The horde of zeds flowed carefully around it, as though invisible walls kept the space clear, as though they were making absolutely sure that not even one of them would be revived, even by accident.

Even that had changed.

But everyone made sure not to look, and no one mentioned it. Everyone just hoped.

“This isn't going to work.” Zhoo said, defeated.

“Doesn't matter, kid.” MR said. “We have to try. Get moving.” She hugged him, and stepped out of the room. They all heard the sound of her shotgun racking.

“Good luck.” Filbert thumped him on the shoulder and stepped out. One by one, they hugged him, patted his arm, shook his hand. Hikari kissed his cheek. One by one, they left the room, leaving Zhoo there, alone. Shaking, he left by the other door, to the back stairs, where he could climb to the roof.

In the halls, the zeds were coming up the stairs. Like good tacticians, they had blocked the stairs up, not that it had ever stopped anything. It only ever slowed down the zeds' relentless march. Downstairs, they could hears screams, gunfire. They looked at one another – Filbert, MR, Hikari – Soup and Kilroy, Bubba, Boriss, Ironsmoke and Twix – the last of the Shearbank Resistance. They smiled grimly at one another.

“Last stand.” MR said.

“Think Zhoo'll make it?” Hikari asked.

“I hope so.” MR leveled her shotgun, and took the head of an advancing zed. It dropped and twitched. The air filled with lead and thunder. God, I hope so, she thought, and fired again into the advancing horde.

Zhoo came out on to the roof, slamming the door shut behind him. Panting from the run up the stairs, he stopped and surveyed the throng. As far as the eye could see, gray corpses shambled and moaned: long, low, wretched sounds. There were thousands. How many people had lived in Malton? How many zeds could there be? A million? More? Malton had been a big city.

He could see the freerunner's road, set up and maintained during the first outbreaks, rickety ladders and board paths stretching out over the tops of buildings. This is the path he would take, northeast, as far as he could. He wondered if he could even find a safe place to sleep. He wondered if there were even such a thing left. He took off north, aiming for Millen Hills. If he could make the north Hills by dawn, he might, just maybe, be able to find a safe house. He could go as far as the Wall in Lamport Hills by tomorrow, and follow that east to Dulston, where the Treweeke Mall stood. There, hopefully, he could resupply and hole up. Perhaps get a radio working, and sent out a call to other survivors. In a week or two, with luck, maybe he could come back to Shearbank, and see if he could find the others.

Below, he heard gunfire, screams, zed moans. In the building below, his teammates died to give him a chance to escape. And so, he did. I'll come back, he thought, eyes burning. Ahead of him, he couldn't see even one other survivor trying to escape. It was wall-to-wall zombies, and he ran over them on the freerunner's roads, hoping.

(Original fiction. Copyright 5-29-07. See here:[1]. With thanks to UrbanDead.)