User:Firehound450

• Firehound450 hands you a steaming hot bowl of rabbit stew, and grabs one for himself. A dalmation lays snoozing at his feet*

well kick back a bit, and I'll tell you my story...

Before the MESS, I was married, 2 kids and 3 dogs. Right before the outbreak my wife and I sent the kids to her mom and sister's for a few weeks during the summer... I only hope they have kept this contained here and that our boys are safe there on the outside... My wife was a nurse at Adelbert Gen. Hospital in Wykewood, and I was a Captain in the (original) Malton FD... ya know, the one with big red truck that ran around putting out fires all day?... Whittard Road FD was my station... We had 2 trucks and my squad truck (and elderly Chevy Suburban.) We had a 3rd rig out back- a Tanker that we almost never used.

That picture over on the wall there is from the station back in happier times...

http://s144.photobucket.com/user/firehound4035/media/Tanker/DSC04267.jpg.html That's Haligan on the bumper of the pumper, and Stokes laying down on the floor...

(IRL, yes, those are really my dogs.)

When things started going crazy, my wife and I started bringing the dogs to work... everyone was used to the Dalmatians hanging around the station with me, and our beagle- Sweety, was a registered therapy dog and was welcome in the hospital. After the first few days, and things began to break down even worse, they started sending us here, there and everywhere... and the hospital staff too... We were in a convoy that was moving patients from the south-west up towards Huntly Heights for evacuation by rail.... My wife was in one of the ambulances up front, and I was back in the rear in my squad with some "walking wounded" who could survive sitting up for a while... (mostly geriatric patients. IIRC, my wife was transporting a pregnant lady who was having serious complications...) Our convoy was hit... literally, with a rigged up Road-Warrior style 18-wheeler by a bunch of selfish idiots who tried to raid our convoy for medication and supplies... As we were mostly unarmed it was a massacre... first blood on my axe was NOT from a Zed...

I never found out what happened to the front of the convoy, but for years I'd search when I could, and pray that she made it out alive... I continued with my duties, as best we could... we began to improvise into the MFD today... MY squad truck, and the old Tanker (Tanker 42) were retrofitted as emergency barricading rigs. The newer trucks were unable to burn the concoctions we were forced to use, and became permanent barricades... last time I was down that way, they were still there blocking the roads...

One day things went pretty bad... // I heard a low growl through the grogginess of my mind, and felt a definitive tug at my collar. I lapsed back into the darkness before I could grasp the danger in those 2 sensations. Some while later, an abrupt cold, wet feeling spread across my body and brought me back to. As I struggled to sit up, and clear my eyes, a hazy form knocked me back down. I scarcely had time to be annoyed before an explosion tore through the night, bringing me the rest of the way back to consciousness. I opened my eyes in time to see a lightbar fly over my head and land some distance behind me. On my left and right, 2 large dogs lay half sunk in the mud puddle. Their coats were a matted mess of grease, soot and mud; although if you looked closely you could tell that at one time they had been white, with black spots. That was a long, long time ago...

My mind drifted back over the years, to another place and time, to a moderate house down a country road. A pretty woman, with long hazel, hair had a baby in her arms and a youngster by her side. A small beagle leapt at her feet as I pulled into the drive. A throaty bark from the passenger seat dissolved into a throaty bark from the mud puddle I sat in. I shook my head. now was NOT the time to wander down memory lane. Not out in the open, especially not at night.

I unsteadily rose to my feet and took a look around. Directly In front of me an old Chevy suburban burned fiercely, illuminating the dark abandoned buildings surrounding us. I figured I hadn't been out too long, as the fire resulting from the crash would have quickly reached one of the several jury-rigged fuel tanks that allowed the MFD to run whatever it could find through its few drivable rigs. I reached for my radio. "Dispatch, Auxiliary Rig 450...". Silence was my only answer. I tried again several times before hooking the mic back to my lapel in frustration. I was on my own. Well not completely. A silent, fuzzy streak of dirt went dashing past me into the wasteland beside the road. "Good boy Stokes!" I thought... count on Stokes to be thinking with his stomach in a time like this. That wasteland was a good place to run down a few rabbits, and we had a roaring fire to cook them on. I approached the burning wreckage that had recently been a 1987 Chevy. The fire was sputtering out in the front, having exhausted the oil, sludge, and burnables in the front seats and engine compartment. I figured the wood stuffed in the back of the rig would burn for a while, and would deter any solitary zeds for a time at least. Sitting in its rack on the hood was the metal handled ax I had mounted there for just such a contingency. As I grabbed it with my wet fire gloves, it sputtered and my gloves steamed. A sudden idea seized me, and I quickly shed my sodden gear and propped it up on debris so the fire would dry it a bit. Leaving my fire gloves on, I went and dropped my ax into the puddle to cool. When it was, I took it back closer to the fire and stuck it in the ground, hanging a glove off each side of the head.

I settled in for a bit while my other dog sniffed around the perimeter. I felt relatively safe, there wasn't a zombie yet that could hide its stench from a dogs nose. Any survivors would have probably made an appearance by now too. A rustling in the bushes interrupted the dog's incessant sniffing. He delivered a low growl, and sent out a challenging bark. He was answered by his brother, Stokes, emerging from the road side ditch with 3 rabbits in his mouth. Stokes dropped the rabbits at my feet, and pranced around a bit with an excited whine. "Spoiled dog" I muttered happily as I patted him on the head. "Some pups eat these things raw ya know boy. But as long as you bring enough in so we can all eat , you can hunt 'em, and I'll clean 'em and cook 'em."

By the time dawn was turning the night sky a dark blue, the fire was dying out. I shrugged on my almost dry bunker gear, making sure to fasten the neck flaps well. It's kinda hard to bite your way through a material designed to withstand direct flames... I slung my ax and took one last look at the burned heap of my poor old truck. "Like a Rock!!" the old Chevy adds claimed. "Like a rock indeed" I thought, "it's gonna sit right there, just like that till the end of time." I gave a rising whistle and two mudballs rose from where they had been snoozing. "Come on boys!" I said, "Time to get ourselves out of this mess and back somewhere where we can do some good!" //

After me and the dogs recovered from the wreck, I returned to the station... Tanker 42, and her crew of two were not there... and no-one had been inside the station since we left. I spent a few days searching... and found them.. dead...... they tried to circle back and see why I was no longer running behind them and got trapped in a horde...

After that, I wandered a bit, searching for Momma Hound and Sweety... then one day, I ran into a guy named Robbie McGregor... and the rest is history...

After running with the DEM, and moving up towards Havercroft, I took a leave of absence to search the nearby hospitals for my wife.. what I found... *winces*

Chief McGregor had promoted me to Looey, and sent me to Mitchell Drive FD in East Becktown.

I established my rounds of the surrounding resource areas there, and it got REAL dull very fast. Now, my memory is fuzzy, but I dont recall seeing a single zed in the streets the entire time I was in East Becktown...

You know I've been searching for my wife, and something about James General Hospital (Click for UD Wiki link) seemed fishy...

the "top" floor was the 14th... but the building was 20 stories high. The elevators are non-functional of course, and the stairwells have all been VERY securely blockaded above the 14th floor.

Well I HAD to know what (and who) was on the upper floors... so one day I started picking my way through, over, and around the stairwell barricades. Stokes and Haligan wormed their way through as well. We were aleart and ready for anything. It seemed that 15 and 16 had some "infected" there, but not many... lots of decayed bodies though... nothing we haven't all seen too many times...

We cleared our way, room by room, making sure we had cleared every nook, cranny, and cupboard so we didn't have any surprises lurkign up behind us...

the 17th floor was barricaded FROM THE OTHER SIDE!! The Plot Thickens....

It was almost dark, and I decided to barricade ourselves in a hospital room for the night, and tackle the stairwell in the dawn.

• Finishes his bowl, goes for seconds. Finishes about half, and puts the bowl on the floor. Haligan devours the contents, then curls up on the floor contentedly*

"Now where was I? Oh yes! We had cleared the 15th and 16th floors of James General Hospital, and decided to hole up in a patient care room for the night, and tackle getting around the barricades to the 17th floor in the morning light. All was quiet on the floor above us, and below...

Me, Stokes and Haligan got up with the rising sun piercing through the unbroken glass of our hospital room. We shared a can of chicken, and some fresh water, then made our way to the stairwell and headed up. The doors to the 17th floor were secured and barricaded from the inside. Scratches, bites, and gore marks showed that at one time in the past, many zombies had tried to get at the survivors barricaded on the other side. Strangely enough, there were no bullet holes, body parts, or anything else that would indicate the zeds were driven off... so what happened? I guessed at the time that the survivors were rescued by the med-evac helicopters that were running non-stop during the evacuation.

It took some doing, but I finally managed to break the door open, with Stokes and Haligan standing at the ready... (Just in case the survivors didn't get rescued, but all turned instead...) Crawling over the debris and barricades, I paused to get a feel for the area. Stokes and Haligan sniffed the air, and looked at each other in the way that only 2 brothers can, and shared their thoughts... MY thought was that this place felt like a tomb. Nothing moved- not even the dust particles suspended in the beam of my flashlight. Nothing had been through here for years. Thick dust coated everything. Each step I took thudded hollowly in the hall. Stokes and Haligan hung back, tails low, ears pinned down. Stokes came up an nuzzled me as if to say "Daddy, I'm scared." I stopped to pat him, and tried to re-assure Haligan... but they both were acting strangely. To tell the truth, I was pretty wierded out too.

The hall we were in opened up to a nurses station... and what we saw.... well... the best way to describe it was... it WAS a tomb... Patients, their family, and the hospital staff were laid out on beds and gurneys, arms folded, eyes closed. Some had notes pinned to the bed sheets that served as their shrouds. I read the notes with trepidation, and lifted the shrouds if there was no name listed. The notes told the tragedy of the 17th Floor...

During the evacuation, the 17th floor was packed, and the hospital was over-run with zeds from the bottom. The occupants blocked the stairwell below them, and secured the doors. A few family members of patients tried to make it to the roof to signal for help- only to discover that there had been an outbreak on the 19th floor as well. They barely made it back to the safety of the 17th floor. Trapped, and with no way out, and no hope for rescue, supplies dissapeared quickly. The patients started to die off from lack of medicine, and food. The hospital staff did their very best, but without food, or medicine... there wasn't much that COULD be done. Some of the notes I read spoke highly of the hospital staff, and their heroics (and attempt at heroics.)

My hands were trembling as I lifted the shrouds, or read the names on the notes... I DIDN'T want to find MommaHound here... but then again I did... I would finally know what happened to her, and know that she rested in peace, without ever becoming a zed.

We made our way throughout the floor, cautiously, carefully... and respectfully. Gurney by gurney lining the hall. Room by room. We found one body fallen on the floor at the end of the hall- a big man in a nurse's uniform. Putting all the evidence together, I realized that he had been the one acting as the "funeral director". I searched for a few minutes and found a clean sheet. I did the duties he had done for everyone else: Folded his hands, closed his eyes, and covered him with the sheet. I pinned his hospital ID card on the outside of the sheet... the only grave and headstone he would ever have.

We worked back towards the central nurses station that we had passed on our way in, when suddenly Stokes stopped, sniffed the air and popped into a text-book perfect point. He's only done that ONCE... when he was leaving the pound to join our family when he was still a puppy... I followed his point to see a pair of legs laying on the floor behind the counter. I came around to take a closer look... and my heart stopped..."

• chokes, gulps, and carrys on, voice cracking*

"There she was- the love of my life- laying on the floor. Her eyes were closed, her arms folded across her chest... and laying snuggled up so tight like she always did, was a little female beagle..."

• sobs*

"I was soo happy, and so, so torn asunder at the same time... Happy, that I finally had found her, crushed beyond all measure that I would never hear her sweet voice, or see her beautiful smile again... yet overjoyed that she had never known the bite of a zed... relieved that my own wife wouldn't ever be waiting around the next corner trying to bite me..."

• takes a DEEP breath*

"I said a few words, held her hand one last time, kissed her face *sobs* one last time, patted my sweet, sweet beagle... one last time *wipes a tear*... Stokes and Haligan sniffed their mother and sister, gently licked them both, and then sat down and began howling pitifully."

• Haligan sits up and nuzzles me as if to comfort me, and encourage me to go on.*

"We made our way off the 17th floor, and in a whirl-wind of emotions, I decided not to keep going up, but to return to the fire station. We were on the 15th floor, removing the barricades to the working and uninfested portion of the hospital, when a zed that must have wandered down from the 18th, 19th, or 20th floor attacked me. He had caught me off guard, and had me pinned down, when suddenly he was gone. I heard the smashing of glass and looked up just in time to see the zed, and a black and white ball of fuzz fall. I ran to the window, but there was nothing I could do..."

• Chokes and sobs*

"Stokes had charged and jumped at the zed that had tackled me. They both went sliding into an already damaged full floor to ceiling window... and fell... 15 stories down..."

• Haligan whines*

"I remember getting back down to the 14th floor and re-securing the blockade... after that... it gets kind of fuzzy... I remember raiding a liqueur store... getting really drunk... going on a rampage and just killing zombies left and right... then lots of darkness... well... it was a rough few months... then one day, I found myself standing in the middle of the street, outside the Brockway Row Fire Station. I began to pick up the pieces and move on... as an old movie once said... it's time to "Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying"..

And well... here I am! I made it back, and it's time to get back to living!!"