Corpse World: Apocalypse at Zombie Lake

zombie moon

It was a warm evening for January, the horizon viewable through the glass doors at the end of the great room was still golden orange and cloud streaked. Hunched over the table in the open-plan dining room I was sketching a map on the freshly unrolled battle map spread across the dinner table with dry-erase markers. It was a map of the south end of the lakeshore of Lake Ponchateaux. This included the gravel beach, the concrete flood control outlet next to the Old County Highway, along with a small boat launch with a rowboat and a few boathouses visible from the road at the far eastern end of the lake with two-story houses built at the tree line all the way around.

Jenn was cleaning up in the kitchen a few feet from me. We were waiting for Gil to show up with Isis and Cris, he would scoop them up on his way down from Glendale. We were already aware that the Carlos’ would not be attending as they had a family emergency a few days prior. It was not long after that I started drawing the map on the battle mat than the doorbell rang. Gil, Cris, and Isis walked in, Jenn greeting them. It took me a while longer to finish the map and by then everyone had already settled in and were ready to play.

Cris (to me): “So I guess we’re getting’ nuked today! Haw! Haw!”

Gil (suddenly looking up and over from his tablet device): “Whhat!?”

Cris: “During the first test play for Zombie Horror, the game ended with the city being nuked. We got caught in the shockwave, crashed our helicopter, and all died.”

Me (the GM): “Oh yeah. Hee, hee. I forgot about that.”

Cyber-Zombie Showdown

The adventurers’ caravan was at a dead stop. The walking dead were choking the east and west ends of the Old County Highway. They were trapped. At the head of both hordes were the large 10 ft. tall monster zombies complete with tank-like armor over their torsos, faces, and legs. The ominous red lights in their faces clicked in time to the zombie hordes’ march.

Kenny Logan the young soldier and William Fodder the survivalist were standing in the middle of the road as the others broke for the ditches at one side of the road and hopefully into the trees beyond. Though the landscape seemed to drop just after the tree line into a steep hillside. The group had positioned the tow truck and the other two cars to provide at least some barrier to the onslaught when they thought they were going to fight it out. Meanwhile, the remaining pair were going to “hold off and distract” the converging hordes armed with a flamethrower, M-16, and RPG-7.

Neither was going to get very far even if they tried to run with the others. Both were still badly wounded; William’s gut wound had begun to bleed again. He was going to bleed out without proper medical attention soon anyway. Kenny’s slash wounds from the grizzly had not yet healed and Lilith’s improvised brace still supported his bullet-crippled leg. He would not be able to traverse the sharp decline from the road.

As they ran through the trees and stumbled down a steep hillside, the others could hear gunfire, exploding grenades, and two rockets explode. Lilith (played by Isis), Wesley (played by Jenn), El Guapo (played by Gil), and Steve McCullen (played by Cris) ran blindly down the wooded slope trying to find their way to the lake.

The group battles commandoes

Onto the Bloody Shore

The four survivors stumbled through the bush into a tight clearing where they could see a paved road that they assumed, rightly, turned towards the lakeshore from the Old County Highway ahead of them. They followed it taking concealment from the roadside foliage until it turned off sharply north. The group stumbled onto the gravel of the beach strewn with broken glass and old beer cans. They were next to a hummock, coming out of its face was a concrete slope and flood channel opening that drained runoff into the lake. There was a steady stream of foamy water flowing down the center of the concrete slope forming a bank of dirty white suds at the edge of the water.

They would have to either walk across the sudsy concrete or climb over and around the top of the rocky tree-strewn hummock to get to the beach proper. The group thought the flood control slab was too much of a risk and thus they began to climb the steep slope of the hummock.

They moved slowly up the steep hillside, El Guapo had to catch Lilith by the hand to keep her from taking a tumble back down towards the soapy drainage. Ahead of them all was Steve McCullen. He had climbed farther than the others by pulling himself along grasping at tree branches and the stave-like stems of shrubs. He stopped suddenly as he caught sight of an inflatable zodiac dinghy.

It was poorly camouflaged with freshly snapped branches and clumps of leaves thrown haphazardly over it. He climbed up to the dinghy and saw there was a satchel explosive device in it along with a remote detonator which had a red blinking light. The light caused Steve to recall the red blinking lights on the faces of the armored titan zombies. He bent down to examine the contents of the raft throwing aside the crude attempt at camouflage. There were fresh boot prints all around it, he could smell the freshly turned soil. Suddenly, he noticed a red laser dot dancing on his chest.

Steve: “DOWN!”

The bush erupted with automatic gunfire bursting from the crown of the hummock. Shredded leaves, pine needles, and shattered wood exploded all around the group as they hit the ground. Steve peaked above the raft and could see three commandoes crouching behind a low bush and another off to the right on his belly behind a mostly buried boulder.

Lilith pulled her 9mm pistol spasmodically shooting the ground right next to her in her panic. Steve looked back and sure no one was hit pulled the 30-06 rifle from his back and shot at the closest commando, the one behind the rock. A good portion of the boulder shattered spraying shards of decimated rock over the area forcing the soldier’s head down. A soldier at the top of the hill fired and winged Steve with an aimed shot. Another missed Lilith by a mile and a third hit Wesley causing a flesh wound and a bullet fired by the fourth soldier (behind the shattered boulder) whizzed by El Guapo’s head. Wesley shot back with her Desert Eagle blasting a chunk out of a tree near soldier number 3. El Guapo threw a headshot at the fourth soldier, the bullet skimmed off his helmet.

Lilith shot at the first soldier at the top of the hill correctly assuming he was the commanding officer, her shot shaved the bark off a tree just behind him. Steve steeled himself and readied his rifle. All heard the distinct sound of a safety lever popping off a grenade, the commander tossed a grenade at Lilith, it landed in the bushes and exploded blasting the area with choking clouds of dirt and disintegrated leaves.

Lilith had leaped to safety behind a rocky ridge and Steve had dropped to the ground playing dead. El Guapo was on his back wounded badly by the explosion he tried to recover his senses. The second soldier shot at Wesley hitting her in the side. The third peaked his head above cover with a spotter’s scope. He appeared to be counting. Wesley pulled her second Desert Eagle and took shots at both the third and fourth soldiers striking and killing the fourth but missing the third.

Steve fired from the ground missing the third soldier and still on the ground reloaded his rifle hoping the still inflated raft would serve as sufficient cover. The commander tossed another grenade perfectly landing it next to the zodiac forcing Steve from cover before it exploded destroying the raft but leaving its contents intact. Following his lead, the second soldier pulled a grenade and threw it hard nailing the tree directly in front of him. The grenade bounced back and landed in the box of grenades within all the remaining soldiers’ reach. All three screamed in horror under their gas masks a second before it exploded. Seconds later, the air was still foggy with flying leaves, pine needles, splinters, and smoke, the survivors could hear some of the trees creaking as they fell in slow motion. Most of the hummock was now clear of bush and tree.

Isis: “Well, somebody had to hear that!”

They dusted themselves off, assessed their wounds, and rushed to ascend the hilltop. Steve followed as he had taken time to pilfer the blinking device and several plastic explosive devices plus the remote that had been hidden in the dinghy.

Lake House of Bloated Horrors

They stumbled down the shallow incline into a clearing about 20 feet from a large two-story L-shaped lake house. Their ears were still ringing, and they were clearing dirt from their tearing eyes. Only Lilith saw the horde gathering, some very rotten, at the other end of the lake oozing out of the various other large lake houses.

Lilith: “Oh! Here they come!”

They finished clearing their eyes, pulled their guns, and started moving carefully around the L-shaped house. A small group of slow-moving zombies was milling around the open door of the house. They easily wiped those out when they realized the others from the next house over were already beginning to reach and surround them. Just as they were starting to pick those off a large, bloated greasy thing with a tentacle-like tongue dangling like a purple-black snake from its swollen blackened lips squeezed and slid through the open door.

Gunfire ensued. Collectively the group missed only a handful of shots though it still took a short while to put the zombies down. The bloated mutant, however, took several headshots before its head split like a rotten cantaloupe. Wesley and Steve had to dodge to avoid the thing’s tentacle-like tongue which had a razor-sharp tip. In the fight, Steve’s rifle jammed and he resorted to his bow. After the bloated horror dropped, he took the time to unjam the rifle as they beat it towards the rowboat.

However, admiring a large motorboat in the distance, El Guapo contemplated out loud about trying to get to a boathouse to try to get a motorboat, but the rowboat was the closest, a corpse and some spilled gas cans were on the beach near where the rowboat was tied to a short pier.

El Guapo: “Come on we can make it!”

Steve: “Are you sure? Man, look where they’re at and those big things! We’ll never make it!”

El Guapo: “They’re slow, especially the really rotten ones!”

Steve pointed out the large single horde that had formed and amongst them, several bloated horrors at the far end of the lake. It would be a race just to the rowboat. El Guapo convinced they took turns moving and shooting their way there. However, as soon as El Guapo reached the boat he saw that it had only a single oar. Steve took the time to turn the nearby corpse over when he reached it, its head mostly gone already. There he found the missing oar as Wesley and Lilith started to catch up to him. Wesley shot two zombies that were too close for comfort. Steve leaped into the boat and started to cut the rope with his knife.

Two bloated types were already getting close to the little pier as the last of the group, Lilith, jumped into the boat. Steve and El Guapo rowed furiously as a tentacle-like tongue shot over the water at them. Wesley plugged its owner right in the head with a double shot from her paired desert eagles. The horde began to gather and crowd the beach.

Steve: “Damn! Those yellow things are fast!”

El Guapo glanced over the side of the boat and spotted a blackened, slimy corpse just under the clear lake water. Steve spotted another on his side of the boat. Before they could say anything the creature on El Guapo’s side leaped up out of the water and gripped the side of the boat. Lilith missed it with her gun. Steve smashed it with an oar, but it kept its grip on the boat and began to pull back with its body weight almost capsizing the small rowboat. The other thing leaped onto the other side with a splash of water. Steve desperately tried to use his knowledge of boating to counterweight the first zombie to try to keep the boat from turning over.

Meanwhile, the second zombie lifted itself into the boat and snatched up Lilith’s arm after her gun misfired and sank its rotten teeth into the flesh of her arm. El Guapo smashed its brain out with his oar and Wesley splattered the other’s head with a bullet. They briefly contemplated just putting Lilith “out of her misery” right there and then but she convinced them otherwise. Steve worried that this decision would “bite” them “in the @ss later” (pun intended).

The group paddles away from the lake shore

Smoke on the Water

The water was calm, and their wooded surroundings were strangely quiet, the sloshing of the oars and the water against the sides of the boat had a slight calming effect on all of them. After bandaging her arm with a generously donated rag torn from Steve’s shirt, she picked up and started to rig the satchel charge Steve had taken from the zodiac. Shortly, she handed Wesley her cell phone. She had wired it to be the remote for the bomb as she had disabled the blinking detonator “just in case”.

The exhausted group took turns rowing while letting Lilith alone to finish her work. They noticed what at first, they thought was a fog forming over the surface of the water until they saw the fires in the distance. The forest was burning. Far off in the sky, they heard several sonic booms before Steve spotted multiple jet streams far above them.

Steve: “Aw great! We’re gonna get nuked!”

Suddenly, a roaring jet screamed into view over the woods in the distance and a trail of fire exploded behind it as it lifted away. The military was firebombing the forest around the lake. Eventually, as the group neared the platform at the center of the lake, they briefly contemplated what the commandoes’ mission could possibly have been.

They bobbed towards the floating launches all around the base of the elevated platform. They could see a large freight-type elevator on some a stable concrete platform and two large apparently empty water taxis floating aimlessly next to the launches. When they got closer, they could see the visible interior of those boats were smeared with blood. They tied their boat off and approached the elevator. Steve inspected the doors. He could not put his finger on it, but something was bugging him about the elevator.

Lilith assessed it and found that it was functional. So, she got ready to press the button to open the doors while Wesley and El Guapo readied themselves on either side of the elevator doors. Steve stood a short distance away by the boat. After nodding and getting identical responses from El Guapo and Wesley, Lilith pushed the button. The doors squealed noisily and slowly open. Immediately the reek of rotten meat and the coppery stench of coagulated blood assaulted their nostrils. As the doors screeched to a stop, they revealed a solid wall of quivering gelatinous gore and shredded flesh from which some scraps of clothing hung like rags.

The wall of gore fell forward just missing Lilith as she jumped to the side. It began to slither its way towards Steve like an inchworm. Wesley, after realizing that it was too late to close the elevator doors, backed away from the awful biomass. El Guapo tossed a frag grenade into the creature, and everyone crumpled tightly to whatever structure was nearest. The thing blew apart in a black spray of foulness coating everything and everyone in a thick chunky layer of pungent grue.

After they made sure there were no more immediate threats, they entered the reeking blackened elevator and rode it up to the platform.

Belly of the Beast

As they entered the front door of what appeared to be the main building atop the platform El Guapo adjusted his new tactical vest taken from the sole zombie they encountered upon exiting the elevator. The dark blue vest had SECURITY emblazoned across the shoulders in bold white letters. They walked into the small waiting room; a receptionist/security desk was next to a long hallway. The fluorescent lights were still mostly working, about half were off and a few were blinking on and off and buzzing loudly. The entire place was as quiet as the grave. About halfway down that hallway, they could see swinging double doors which they guessed probably opened into a cafeteria.

Wesley was in the lead with El Guapo following. Lilith and Steve were taking up the rear as they moved carefully down the hall. The other end turned a blind corner, but they figured the elevators or stairs were there granting access to the other levels of the place. Wesley approached the cafeteria doors her back against the opposite wall. She could see bloody handprints all over the doors. In addition, she could hear faint scratching noises from behind the door.

She signaled behind her for the others to be quiet. She slid along the wall and El Guapo followed. Steve crept slowly and was a few feet away from the door when Lilith let out a loud groan as she doubled over in pain. The very second that they all let out a sigh the doors burst open as a group of zombies charged through the door. The group was split with zombies in between the two leading and the other two following.

Both parts of the group opened fire and kept shooting every zombie that began filtering through the doors. As the bodies began to pile high crowding the narrow corridor El Guapo tossed a grenade into the cafeteria. They finished off the surviving zombies one at a time. After all the zombies were taken care of, Steve and Lilith crawled over the pile of zombie bodies clogging the hallway. They finally made it around the corner and to their relief found an elevator and the door to the stairwell.

However, the elevator had no power. They noticed the elevator had a sublevel button in addition to the buttons for this floor, the one underneath, and the one above. As a result of the inoperable elevator, the group decided to take the stairs up and found the door that opened into an office choked with cubicles. However, the door was jammed with zombies trying to open the door by forcing it outward. Fortunately for the group, it opened inward. They tried the door anyway and found it was impossible to open while the zombies were piled and pushing up against it. They tried going downstairs. There they found a very solid security door that could only be opened via a keycard.

Steve: “Well, I think what we’re lookin’ for is downstairs.”

They spent the better part of an hour ransacking offices and closets and periodically checking the upstairs office door and the lower security door. Lilith even tried to open the electronic lock downstairs but triggered its failsafe effectively permanently locking it. Eventually, Steve walked all the way to the back of the hallway around the corner from the elevator finding a second security desk and small office. He found a power switch to the elevator behind the desktop and switched it on.

Apocalypto

After a comparatively long elevator ride the doors opened up revealing a half-lit area of utility tunnels; bare concrete walls and pipes, conduits, and cables completely obscuring the ceiling from which the occasional light hung. It was El Guapo that first heard something following them via the ceiling hidden by the tangle of pipes and wires as they began to move down the tunnels.

After a few shots that ricocheted off the pipes, the thing dropped to the floor from the ceiling before charging Steve. It had long fangs, razor-sharp claws, and no skin; The creature was all raw slimy muscle and exposed bone. It wounded him savagely with a claw and was able to dodge a few bullets before Wesley got the brain shot.

Wesley: “I’m almost out of ammo.”

Steve: “Same here.”

El Guapo: “Yup.”

Lilith: “Yeah.”

They continued on and Lilith got the idea to follow the power conduits to a large generator room. Inside was a large highly advanced generator that was covered in radiation warnings and nuclear material stickers. Next to that was a control booth with large observation windows. Through these, they could see a zombie security guard wandering aimlessly in circles that is until it saw them. The control booth door burst open, and the zombie shot at them with the 9mm pistol hanging loosely in its bone-white hand. Lilith took it out with a single well-placed shot.

Lilith (wiping the cold sweat from her forehead): “This is it! I’m gonna rig up the bomb to this thing and set this to overload. It’ll be a big boom!”

The group agreed to leave her here and proceed down another hallway that terminated in a single steel door. What Lilith did not tell them was that the wound on her arm had turned black and was weeping puss.

Wesley, Steve, and El Guapo had found their target was another keycard activated security door and it was locked. It took several minutes of ransacking the few offices down here to find the keycard they needed. They opened the door and found an empty room behind with another electronically locked door with a number pad and a small screen that had a warning in red letters running across it: REMEMBER 10 SECONDS TO INPUT SEC CODE AFTER CARD READ!!!!

They ignored it and used the card to open the door which had a 10-second countdown before the lock opened. As soon as the lock snapped open, a laser turret in the corner of the room shot and horribly wounded Steve. They ran from the room to take cover on either side of the outer door. El Guapo tossed a grenade in the room and hoped for the best. Surprisingly, he took out the turret without damaging the security door control pad. They continued on into what consisted of two crossing hallways and a series of small labs and some airtight chambers. The trio desperately combed the area for anything that would tell them what to do and, in their desperation, they split up.

El Guapo was walking past several large glass liquid-filled tubes each containing a muscular skinless corpse save one. He stopped when he realized he was walking in a large puddle of foul-smelling liquid and the last tube appeared broken and empty. His call to his companions was cut short as it was crushed out of him. A large skinless creature had snatched him up in its powerful arms from behind. He could not break its grip and it sank its teeth into his shoulder but could not bite through his tactical vest. A single shot rang out, one of the creature’s eyes exploded, and a gush of liquefied brains splattered right into El Guapo’s face. Wesley had saved him from the far end of the hallway with a carefully placed shot.

Steve hurried over shouting that he had found something. They followed him to a vault door that was already partially open. Peaking inside they realized it was an airlock with another such door on the opposite stainless-steel wall. They entered and pushed the button to open the door and seal the other behind them. When they entered the room, it was lined with shelves holding an unimaginable number of labeled vials and bottles.

Wesley: “Ha! Ha! This is it!”

El Guapo: “Okay. So, what are we looking for in here?”

Steve: “Wait!”

His rifle was pointed at the far end of the irregularly shaped room. At the opposite end was a large square pillar obscuring the far part of the chamber which was basically an alcove. They heard slow methodical metallic and heavy footsteps coming from behind the pillar. The thing that stepped from the alcove was covered in some kind of gleaming black composite armor and wearing a full helmet complete with face mask. Built into one of its arms was a mini-gatling gun.

El Guapo: “Aw, s#*t!”

The zombie super-trooper sprayed the room wounding them all badly. They nearly emptied their guns at it thanking fortune that the creature was very slow and robotic in its movements. In a last-ditch effort, El Guapo tossed a second grenade, his last, at it. It retaliated by blasting him into a bloody mist leaving a galaxy of craters on the blood-spattered wall behind him. Steve tossed his only grenade and managed to blast enough armor from it for Wesley to put a bullet in its pickled brain. They both let out an exhausted sigh of relief.

Wesley: “Phew! Good! I have like four shots left. Two in each gun.”

Steve: “Yeah, I got about five left for the rifle.”

Suddenly, fear paralyzed both as they heard familiar heavy footsteps coming once again from behind the square pillar. Wesley made for the airlock while Steve covered the alcove. She made it into the room as he was torn to pieces by a deafening spray of bullets. She hit the button and the airlock door closed just in time to block another spray aimed at her.

Wesley ran back to where she had left Lilith. Wesley found her on the ground sitting in a puddle of her own black vomit. Lilith told her to get on the rowboat and use the cell phone she gave her to blow the place sky-high. Unfortunately, she probably would not survive the blast either, so she wished her “good luck” as she resigned herself to her fate and collapsed against the mini reactor.

It was not long before Wesley was standing in the rowboat having paddled herself almost to shore. The smoke from the forest burning was almost intolerable, her eyes, nose, throat, and lungs were on fire. Still, she could see the shore crowded with legions of the walking dead, and several giant cyber-zombies towering above them their evil lights clicking away. Ash and glowing cinders rained like snow. She shrugged her shoulders and triggered the bomb. It seemed like ages until she noticed something in the water. She gazed down into the murky depths and realized the reactor had blown and watched as a giant glowing bubble, the explosion, raced up to her. The waters began to rise with the tiny boat atop. A violent blast of steam and nuclear fire smashed her into the sky. Then nothing.

Eulogy

Meanwhile, somewhere in the next mountain valley an old man, a small dog cradled in his arms caked with mud emerged from an open storm drain grating. He finished the bottle of booze in his other hand with one final swig and tossed it aside. It was Lilith’s father and the dog, they had gotten separated in the race to the lake, fortunately for them. They had taken refuge in a flood control tunnel and simply followed it to its end traveling along the line until they reached the next town over. The brown and white smoke from the forest fire was still thick as it swirled all around them but for the most part, they were safe…for the moment.

***

With that, the game and thus short campaign ended. I didn’t feel I had done a great job this session, the reason why it took a year to blog about it. I mentioned this sentiment at the time out loud as everyone was getting up from the table after packing their books. Gil said, “What!? Are you kidding that was awesome!”

Cris: “Yeah, it was good man.”

I took the compliments in stride and turned to my wife, Jenn.

“See I didn’t kill the dog.”

Jenn: “What dog?”

Cris laughed.

Jenn (suddenly giggling): “Oh yeah, Thanks honey!” She pecked me on the cheek.

A little while later, Cris, Isis, and Gil had just left, and Jenn had headed off to bed. I picked up the empty beer bottles (there were many), dropped them in the recycle bin, and started to wipe down the battle mat. Halfway through cleaning the marker off I realized that I never bothered to draw any maps for this campaign. I had them in my head and translated them directly to the mat. They had been based on the maps found in the Zombie Horror (RGS1010) book though except of course for the lakeshore. Meh. I had figured somebody had taken some pictures of the maps as we played, seemed like the last few sessions were well photographed. My bad.

The End (Session played 1/18/20)

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Corpse World: The Forest Dark

bear in the forest

The entire gang was at the dining room table: Me (the GM), Jenn, Isis, Cris, Gil, Carlos, and Carlitos. For some reason conversation before the game had turned to the events of the end of the original Zombie Horror test-game some years back – the last pair of survivors outrunning a nuclear explosion in a helicopter then crashing in the desert. It had sprung out of Carlos wondering, “Where this will all end” and if everyone will die by the end of the campaign. Carlitos mentioned that the military will probably nuke the city and Cris concurred.

The original test campaign was a single session escape-the-city scenario that turned into a desperate run-away from everything scenario a la cannonball run. Eventually, the last two players, one of which was Cris, stole a helicopter from a deserted airfield and made their final run for it after finding out the military was going to use a tactical nuclear strike to level the city and wipe-out the zombie-plague. In fact, if I remember correctly, the other two players had shot each other over something dumb with the survivor of that fiasco put down by Cris’ biker character.

Anyway, the conversation faded out and the groups’ attention turned to the session at hand. El Guapo (played by Gil), Wesley (played by Jenn), and Lilith (played by Isis) had survived an outbreak while out on the town at the Goth Club and made their way to Lilith’s father’s Wrecking Yard. There they had a shootout with outlaw bikers and met the other three Player Characters: Steve (played by Cris), Kenny (played by Carlitos), and William (played by Carlos) the next day.

The latter three had been stuck when Steve’s car battery died stranding them on the Old Country Highway during their chaotic flight from the city. Eventually, they decided to group together for protection and then faced a small gang of zombies that threatened the chain-link gate. During the attempt to fight them off Kenny was shot in the leg, hobbled by William’s friendly fire. The group decided to flee in three vehicles: Lilith’s armored up Chevy Sedan, Steve’s Old Police Car, and the junkyard tow truck with snowplow scoop. They outran a giant tank-armored zombie probably sent by the military, plowed through a slowly oncoming herd of zombies on the road, and then finally got on their way to William’s survivalist haven.

Fortress

The three-vehicle convoy puttered slowly up to the chain-locked gates of an 8-foot tall chain-link security fence. They had arrived along a steep dirt road completely enclosed by trees. The rusted sheet metal signs to either side of the gate warned of the electric fence and that trespassers should expect lethal force. Behind the high electrical fence topped with barbed wire sat a small squat ranch-style home. It was sometime around noon but the house and indeed the small yard was cast in cool shadow from the thick umbrage of the crowded pine trees. The musk of old pine filled their noses.

While the line of cars waited for William to unlock the gate, Steve got out of his car. He walked around his vehicle and made a careful inspection of its underside and blood-spattered wheel wells. He wanted to make sure that no corpses or animated parts thereof were “hitchin’ a ride”.

Gil: “Guys, we need to find a cure for this thing!”

Isis: “Where!? Where we gonna look! I can’t do anything!”

Carlitos: “Anybody got any skills that could help try to make a cure ourselves?”

Jenn: “What!? We can’t find an antidote if we don’t know what’s causing it! And none of us are scientists! We’re just a bunch a’ @$$#oles!”

After the cars were all pulled into the yard and the gate locked behind them, the gang began to filter into the small house. Lilith took Kenny down to William’s bomb shelter. They accessed it through a door hidden behind a shelf in the basement and spiral stair leading into the small-reinforced shelter. She needed to measure his leg. She was going to use some junk she had brought with her to whip up a brace for his bullet-crippled leg. Steve had followed them down and changed Kenny’s bandages after Lilith was done with him; at least the wound was not infected.

The Old man, Lilith’s father, had settled in the old easy chair in the front room and was using the duct-tape wrapped two-button remote to flip through channels as he tugged from his hip flask. After everything above seemed settled in Wesley, El Guapo, and William went down into the shelter to convene with the others.

Once they were gathered, William pointed out the bank of video monitors on a table in the shelter. There were cameras monitoring the property inside of the fence and all around the perimeter of the electric fence. The shelter had a small main room with a walk-in gun safe, a small bedroom/bathroom off to one side and a decent-sized grow room and small storage closet. He told them that the house and shelter were running on a large diesel generator housed in a small brick and mortar shed behind the house. He also warned them that there were a few traps outside the fence. They were essentially tripwires that set of firecrackers to scare off trespassers and deer.

As evening approached, El Guapo and William decided to make a quick patrol around the outside perimeter. They made it almost completely around the outer rim of the property, El Guapo remarked on how dark it was. After the sun went down it was pitch black, the glare of the city lights could be seen faintly as a halo around a few of the lower hills from a certain vantage point as well as a few columns of smoke. The city was apparently on fire. They were sharing the common sentiment of being fortunate to have gotten out of the city when they heard a metallic tinkling coming rapidly at them then a few happy barks.

El Guapo (pulling his gun): “Zombie Dog! Zombie Dog!”

Cris: “It’s a zombie dog!?”

The GM (me): “No. It’s pretty obvious that it’s a normal stray dog running happily up to you guys.”

William checked the small dog’s collar for its tag. His name was “Tops”. William recognized him as belonging to a nearby neighbor. The dog looked like it had not eaten for several days. After contemplating this new piece of information silently, William led El Guapo and Tops back into his compound.

Meanwhile, Steve pulled out his laptop from his trunk and set it up on William’s badly worn yellow Formica kitchen table. He found that even trying to access the internet via the phone line was near impossible not because there was no connection but because it appeared that, someone had erected a firewall between the outside world and everyone in Amorset. Wesley came in and took a gander and confirmed his assessment, she also figured that most radio signals were probably also jammed. They both looked over at the television, only the public access channel was broadcasting something other than a test pattern or an emergency system message.

The pair outside came in from their patrol with Tops running inside and jumping into the Old Man’s lap. They explained where the dog came from and all decided that it would be best if some of them would go check on the neighbor. However, they could not agree on a timeframe for that. So, they decided to “sleep on it”.

Jenn (turning to me all of a sudden): “Don’t you kill that doggie, you’re going to kill that doggie aren’t you.”

The GM (me): “Ummm, No?”

Steve decided to stay up, try to hack through the internet firewall, and do a little research on Geno-Chem. At this point, the others had convinced him of the shady bioengineering chemical conglomerate’s probable responsibility for this mess. After about an hour, he had successfully accessed the corporate site and found mostly public relations garbage. However, he also found that the company had been operating a specialized laboratory out of the old oilrig on the lake.

Apparently, they had been cited for improper storage of Class I, VII, and VIII chemicals on the old platform. Geno-Chem also announced that the platform would be a part of their new plan of economic rebirth. From the sound of it as he read it, it sounded like they were about to remake the world into the Garden of Eden.

He shut down the laptop hearing only snoring throughout the house. Realizing how tired he was he went to go sleep in the backseat of his car.

A Jenn’s eye perspective in her parents’ dining room.

The Fleeing of the Forest

It was already evening by the time everyone was ready to start planning again. Earlier in the day, Lilith had finished Kenny’s leg brace and he was moving around again albeit slightly slower. Steve had told everyone what he had found out the previous night and that the internet was completely down now. He also cooked dinner, cheese topped spaghetti with spam cubes in it. William was busy setting up a “war room” around the kitchen table.

After dinner, the crew was huddled around the table looking at the maps that William had pinned to the wall. They had already decided to pursue the oilrig lead and still wanted to send a group to the neighbor out of sheer curiosity. A quiet thumping began to cause the kitchen table to vibrate. They all stood up. The will to speak died in their throats. They turned to the windows their eyes like rabbits under headlights of an oncoming diesel. The glass and picture frames began to rattle as the noise increased in volume and intensity. Vague shapes, just pale blurs, shot out of the dark just outside the electric fence and then just as suddenly flew back into darkness.

Lilith: “Oh Gawd! It’s that big thing again isn’t it!?”

Kenny: “Aww man! I shot it’s leg off! How!?”

William (looking out the kitchen window): “It’s deer? It’s deer.”

El Guapo (also looking out the window): “It’s just deer, whoa a lot of deer. A stampede!?”

The group filtered out the back door from the kitchen onto the covered back porch. The ground was rumbling with the amount of deer running panicked around the house. Occasionally a deer touched the fence and a bright burst of sparks would cause them to jump away and correct course. Then, a big buck tried to correct course at the very last minute and another large buck slammed into him thrusting his bulk into the fence tearing the chain-link from the poles and the whole length of the fence exploded in a white-hot flash of sparks.

The sound of the stampede faded into the distance towards the road. The dust left in the wake of the animals still hovered like a cloud of choking pine-scented smog. The house was completely dark; the entire electrical system had shorted out.

Lilith immediately ran to the generator shed and found that the buck hitting the fence had blown a high voltage capacitor. William did not have a spare. He had gone to town to pick up another one but decided to have a beer instead and then the zombie apocalypse happened.

Wesley: “Crap! We got to get that fence back up!”

Lilith (shouting to the others): “I can get the electricity back up after you guys fix the fence BUT I’ll be bypassing the capacitor and if the fence gets hit again it’ll blow everything, permanently!”

William: “Screw it. Do what you guys gotta do.”

El Guapo and Kenny volunteered to disentangle and pull the buck’s corpse from the fence and repair the chain-link. Meanwhile, Steve and William were going to wait on the porch with their weapons ready and keep a lookout.

The operation was moving ahead at a brisk pace as the pair of volunteers easily cleared the roasted buck from the wire and began to work on bending the chain-link back in shape and a few poles back straight as well. Lilith was waiting for the signal to switch the power back on. William and Steve were keeping their ears and eyes open for anything. Wesley was leaning against the brick generator shed watching El Guapo and Kenny fix the fence.

Mad Bear

Steve shouted, “Look out! Something big is coming in fast!” A huge shaggy shadow was bearing down on the pair working on the fence. Wesley dropped to firing position and waited for a clear shot with her Desert Eagle. Steve readied a rifle from William’s shelter gun-safe. William readied his deer rifle.

Cris: “Dude we can’t shoot!”

Carlos: “What, why? I can hit it.”

Cris: “Cause we’ll shoot THEM! They’re in between us and that thing!”

Carlos: “Oh yeah, I guess. Too bad I wanted to use my RPG.”

Cris: “Wait. What.”

Carlitos (pointing a finger at Carlos): “Dude, do not shoot me again.”

El Guapo pulled his Desert Eagle and drilled the massive animal with a lethal shot. As it began to fall, however, it took a sudden swipe at Kenny hitting with a sickening whap! The creature fell dead heavily to the ground joined by the thud of Kenny’s limp body. The bear had torn open his shoulder and slashed his face with a single bear slap.

Carlitos: “Oh man! Am I dead?”

Cris: “Pff! I dunno! What’re your hit-points at?”

A few arithmetical calculations later, it was determined that Kenny was unconscious and very near death but some first aid worked to stabilize the bleeding. Their attentions turned to the grizzly corpse.

Cris (to me): “Really!? A zombie bear!?”

Isis: “It was a zombie? Is that possible?”

To be safe El Guapo “double-tapped” the dead bear. They could see the steam wafting up from the bullet holes in its head and smell the fresh, hot blood against mixed with the cool night air. It had been a living animal but it also had some disturbing puss-yellow cysts or tumors swelling from under its greasy coat in places. El Guapo lit a cigarette.

El Guapo (exhaling): “Well, there’s definitely something wrong with that bear.”

Steve helped El Guapo to complete the fence and after about another hour Lilith was able to hit the power. Meanwhile, Kenny recuperated in a bed in the shelter wrapped in fresh bandages.

Death Squad

The following day, the group killed time by playing cards while waiting for Kenny to heal up enough to move. They continued to toss around ideas as to what to do. They only confirmed their previous plan to gain access to the oilrig on the lake. After dinner, Kenny was awake and surprisingly almost in traveling shape. El Guapo went outside on the back porch to have a smoke in peace. He puffed readily on his cigarette as he wandered aimlessly around the back yard and wound up near the power shed.

He stood for a while staring at the stars. When he finished he flicked the glowing stub against the bricks hard enough to put it out in a flash. He heard a ricochet, then another, and another. The ground around his feet began to jump and spit and he could hear the semi-automatic gunfire. Almost as a reflex, he leaped behind the safety of the brick shed.

The shots came from the large tree branches that overhung the electric fence. Squatting on the branches above were soldiers in green rubber suits bearing M-16s with drum magazines. Their exposed heads and faces revealed the rotting and partially mummified visages of zombies. With a heavy thump, one of them jumped to the ground. El Guapo swung the A-K from his shoulder and pulled the firing bolt, his back against the shed.

Wesley ran up from the shelter and yelled for the rest in the house to wake up if they were still asleep; she had seen El Guapo’s position from the security monitors. A spray of bullets from all three of the zombie soldiers tore at the bricks of the shed pinning El Guapo down. A second thump signaled a second creature was in the yard. Lilith ran out to the back porch and shot the creature squatting in the tree putting a 9mm slug between its eyes. It fell to the ground in the yard. Steve fired William’s hunting rifle from the kitchen door putting a large hole in the second creature’s forehead.

Wesley rushed out of the door knocking Steve to the side. She shot and took off half of the last creature’s face destroying it.

El Guapo: “They have guns now?”

Wesley: “See! I told you! It’s the military; they’re trying to kill us!”

Lilith: “We gotta figure something out.”

Cris: “Huh. That was kinda easy.”

Lilith (digging at one of the zombie’s forehead with a knife): “Huh. Hey guys, these have those little red lights too.”

After about an hour Lilith was inspecting a microchip she had pulled from the skull of one of the soldier zombies. It appeared to be some sort of control chip wired to receive a specific signal. She also found a built-in electronic locator but easily disabled it. She had no idea how to prevent the control signal from being received or even if she could disrupt it.

No Chill

Come sunrise, Lilith began work on building a set of walkie-talkies with signal scrambling and better range using the electronic parts found around William’s lair and a set of new walkies she found down in the shelter. El Guapo, Steve, and William were going to travel to William’s neighbor to check on things there, they suspected the zombie soldiers had come from that direction. The rest of the gang just tried to get as much rest as they could.

After a quick breakfast of pancakes, sausages, and eggs cooked by non-other than El Guapo, the three that had planned to scout the neighbor’s property packed up and left. William guided them through the woods and down the hill towards a deep cleft between the hills. They soon found themselves walking through a rocky creek bed their feet drenched in its cold gently burbling waters. The streak of sky above, a break in the umbrage was blinding and the direct sun was making them pour sweat.

Steve (to William): “Is it always this quiet out here?”

William: “No.”

Steve: “Okay.”

The dull green of the dense foliage of the trees and bushes swelled on both sides of them. Occasionally, a slight breeze would disturb the leaves the sound breaking the unnatural silence for a few seconds. The shadows in the deeps of the foliage appeared in contrast to a bright almost white clear sky pitch black.

Steve: “Are we almost there?”

William: “Yup, up this way.”

They surmounted a steep dirt path that winded its way over the top of a shallow bluff and into the shadowy cover of the trees. It was a little while longer before they found themselves at an old and ill-maintained cottage with a companion barn, everything covered in a thick brown carpet of pine needles. William walked onto the plank-board front porch and pushed the half-opened front door open. The television on white noise filled the room. The place smelled of rotting meat. The source was the fat old woman sitting in the overstuff-chair before the television. She had been shot through the temple her sawed-off shotgun still in her lap and her slippered feet still on the antique ottoman. William mentioned that she did not like trespassers … and salesmen.

A large black dog also shot was lying in a pool of blackened congealed blood near the front door. The walls around where the dog was bore a few stray bullet holes. The tag on the black shepherd mix’s spiked collar read “Laddy”. Zombies did not do this.

El Guapo: “Man, let’s get outta here!”

About an hour later, the three intrepid explorers returned to home base and delivered the news to the rest of the crew.

Lilith: “I say we get outta here tomorrow morning.”

The rest of the group concurred. The rest of the day went on without interruption. After a dinner of chili beans and canned corn, the gang was preparing to try to get a good rest before what was going to be a rough adventure. At the kitchen table, Wesley was making sure her weapons were in working order when she was done she slung her MP4 on her shoulder. The others were watching the emergency messages on the television and taking notes. She glanced through the kitchen window and saw several red pinpoints of laser light dancing on the table and fridge. She shouted and kicked open the backdoor and ran out onto the porch. She immediately had to duck for cover as the back porch was shredded by automatic gunfire.

A squad of ten commandoes was bearing down on the house. Two of them were setting up an M-249 SAW machine gun. Wesley sprayed the area with her MP4 followed by El Guapo charging out onto the back porch (hey they really did this) and sprayed some of the commandoes with fire from his AK-47. Lilith ran to her car, which was parked, adjacent to the backyard but next to the house. Steve got into firing position behind the kitchen window with his rifle. After a few seconds, William joined him with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, an RPG-7, in his arms.

William: “Yeah, I’m gonna take these mother@#%$ers out!”

Kenny also charged through the back door and tossed a grenade, it landed and exploded in a vacant area quite a distance from the machine gun, his intended target. William stood up at the kitchen window, took aim, and pulled the trigger hoping to blast the main group of soldiers away. Click. The rocket failed to function it was a dud. The crack of a single shot from a rifle and William collapsed onto the kitchen floor, blood gushing from his belly. Another wave of gunfire washed over the place. Steve took a shot dropping a soldier in the trees and turned his attentions to stopping William’s bleeding.

The firefight lasted only a few more seconds, the motley group of adventurers was victorious against all odds. The generator shed had been shot to pieces but was still standing. The rear of the house peppered with bullet holes. The soldiers had been living soldiers but they had no markings as to indicate that they were government troops. Kenny found a keycard on what he thought was the team leader. The card had the emblem of the Geno-Chem on it and nothing else.

Carlitos: “Well that seals it I guess.”

Cris: “Damn.”

Carlos: “I’m hurt, dude.”

El Guapo (to Wesley): “What’s wrong with you?”

Wesley: “Well, we can’t stay here anymore!”

Jenn (turning to me, the GM): “Damn, zombie game has No Chill! No chill, man!”

Epilogue of the Damned

The group began packing the vehicles immediately. William disclosed the complete contents of his vault. It was stocked with several boxes of 7.62 and 9mm rounds, 2 more rockets for the RPG, a couple of 12-gauge shotguns, several hunting rifles, dozens of automatic rifles, semi-automatic pistols, and a box of dynamite as well as a 1-kilo brick of cocaine.

Gil: “What? Seriously?”

Carlos: “Yeah man, I gotta make my money, I deal with everybody back here.”

Kenny kept hold of the keycard and the vehicles were pulling out onto the dirt road.

Carlitos: “So where are we getting the boat?”

Gil: “What? What boat?”

Carlitos (turning to me): “It’s an oil rig in the middle of a lake right?”

Cris: “Well, there’s lake houses around there somewhere, there’s gotta be.”

Jen: “Yeah, someone has a boat we can steal.”

The convoy of vehicles kicked up a cloud of dust and pine needles as they roared away from the hilltop compound heading back to the Old Country Highway.

****

Later that night, my wife, Jenn, and I were driving home on the brightly lit freeway through Colton into San Bernardino when out of nowhere she turned to me.

“You know if you kill that dog I’m divorcing you.”

 “Um, wha?”

Cris, who was in the backseat, started laughing.

End of Part Three (Session played 10/19/19)

[do_widget id=”cool_tag_cloud-4″ title=false]

zombie horror advert

Corpse World: Road to Nowhere

The eponymous Little Boy that El Guapo and his friends encounter.

The Zombie Horror campaign continues in Amorset, somewhere in the Northwestern U.S.A. This time around, three new recruits join the fray. It has been a single day since all hell broke loose within the city limits of Amorsetville and those that are able have fled, spreading out into the suburbs and surrounding rural county. The radio and television have been broadcasting a general emergency signal stressing all citizens to remain where they are at as the army deploys from the Amorsetville base in a rescue capacity.­

Street Walkin’

Three figures trudged, loping with exhaustion through a sea of boiling air dancing over the hot pavement of the Old County Highway in the midday sun. All three puzzled by the complete lack of traffic along the road. It was terribly quiet, even the sounds of nature that should be abundant out here were non-existent. They could feel the alien silence pressing on their eardrums save for the soft scraping of their feet over the rough road. A couple of hours previously, the motley trio had leaped into the older guy’s car and fled the city during a chaotic night of blood and fire. Their car, an old surplus police car, stranding them on the old road after parking for a brief respite. When the older fella tried to turn it over, he found the battery dead. Thus, they abandoned it knowing that there was a junkyard “somewhere around here”.

The elder car owner, Steve McCullen (played by Cris) was a Supernaturalist convinced that the outbreak had a supernatural origin focused in the old cemetery that was also located in the rural county. His companions were Kenny Logan (played by Carlitos) an off-duty soldier from the Amorsetville base and William Fodder (played by Carlos) a quiet survivalist that actually lived just off the road in the hills. After what seemed like ages, baking under a hot afternoon sun on the blacktop, Kenny spotted what appeared to be a biker at a distance of a few hundred feet shambling clumsily towards them. He was on foot, dressed in a bloodstained denim vest and equally stained denim bell-bottom pants. He also appeared to have several large bullet holes in his chest and belly.

Steve kissed one of the charms amongst the various religious symbols he wore around his neck, pulled his bow from his back, and knocked an arrow. The three stopped.

Kenny (pulling his M-16 from his shoulder): “Is it one of them?”

In response, William got in a squatting position and scoped the biker out with his deer rifle. He could see that the biker’s belly was bloated and seemed to pulsate and move as if something were crawling inside of him. His eyes were yellow and dead, blood crusted around his nose and mouth stiffening a scabby beard.

William: “Yup, it’s a zombie alright.”

Kenny unleashed a 3-round burst into its head bursting its skull like a hairy rotten maggot-filled watermelon.

Quickly, William and Kenny jogged up to the headless corpse intent on looting it. However, Steve remained about a 20 ft. distance behind them. William saw a .22-semi-automatic pistol in the back of the biker’s jeans and reached for it with the intent of tossing it to Steve. Meanwhile, Kenny saw that the biker had a hunting knife in a hip-sheath. As the two manipulated the corpse to grab the loot, the biker’s stomach at the belly button split and burst open in a gross, gory gush of blackened organs.

The organs moved of their own accord like a disgusting blob and similarly, it tried to engulf William. An arrow flew into it with no effect. Shots rang out. Kenny had shot the Viscera Blob a couple of times but to little effect. William dodged and started to run away farther down the road until his disgust got the better of him and he nearly vomited forcing him to stop mid-flight.

Kenny saw that his bullets and Steve’s arrow had little effect and so pulled out a hand grenade, another bit of equipment he had “borrowed” from the base and shouted “fire in the hole!” One end of the creature lifted up like a tentacle and vomited forth acid, spraying William down, he screamed. Kenny tossed his grenade and ran, Steve ducked where he was and William dove away to the side ditch.

Cris: “You have a GRENADE!?”

Carlitos: “Well, yeah.”

Cris: “Your on leave from the base?”

Carlitos: “Yes.”

Cris: “What were you planning?”

Carlitos: “You know, whatever.”

Their ears ringing after the small but intense explosion, the creature liquefied. Black foul-smelling bile splattered everywhere. Steve ran over to William using the water in his canteen to wash the acid from William’s torso preventing further damage. The crisis over, they continued their trek after it was determined that William could still keep up despite some pretty painful and deep chemical burns.

It was nearing dusk when they arrived at the wrecking yard fence, the dirty old sign proclaimed Fletcher & Sons Wrecking & Repair since 1965. As they neared the gate, they could hear an argument in midstream, “Hey don’t knock out my father!”

Starting Foreground Left going clockwise: Carlitos, Cris (hidden), Carlos, Isis, Jenn, The GM (me), and Gil.

Junk Yard Dogs

Wesley, El Guapo, and Lilith were standing by the front chain-link gate of the junkyard trying to decide where they were going to flee to in Lilith’s armored car. All three were debating their “options” when Lilith’s father emerged from the garage. He mumbled as he strode to the gate, mumbling about “nobody here” at work, “lazy S.O.B.’s”. At the same time, the debate became especially heated between Lilith and El Guapo. Meanwhile, Wesley noticed the old man approaching the locked gate and pulling a cluster of keys on a zip-line. He fumbled to find the right key for a few seconds then went to unlock it.

Wesley: “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! No-no-no!”

She grabbed the old man away from the gate and he spat a nasty sexist insult in her face. Wesley slapped him, hard.

Jenn: “Hey my girl assumes the old guy’s hysterical. So he has to be slapped. Also for what he said.”

The old man stepped back, his face frozen in shock. Lilith and El Guapo were staring caught off-guard by the sudden situation. The old man started to throw a punch at Wesley. She immediately knocked him out with a perfectly timed jab to the jaw.

Lilith: “Hey! Did you just knock out my father!”

Wesley: “Hell yeah! He deserved it!”

Lilith: “Hey don’t knock out my father!”

Wesley: “He threw a punch at me!”

Steve (hanging on the chain-link): “*Ahem* Hey! You open? You guys got any car batteries!”

After a brief bit of talking with the three at the gate and assessing the situation, Lilith decided to let them into the yard. Parked in the yard to the side of the main dirt driveway in a space allotted for a parking lot was two custom choppers and a pickup truck with its windshield shot out. Steve, Kenny, and William noticed there was shattered safety glass all over the driveway outside the gate. El Guapo shared the story of the gunfight the previous night with the outlaw bikers.

Steve was talking to Lilith. Her “goth senses” were tingling and she found the longhaired Supernaturalist very appealing. Kenny talked with El Guapo and Wesley. He wanted to get himself back on base thinking the military probably had a plan. At a minimum, that would be the safest place to be, as close to the army as possible. William remained silent but was extremely distrustful of the government and was not going to go with that plan.

Carlos: “Yeah dude, I’m not gonna go with that plan man. Sorry.”

After all, William believed the military was responsible for this in the first place. He hugged his rifle tighter than usual.

Eventually, Steve and Lilith decided to take the yard “wrecker” and a charged battery to go and get his car. He would then follow her back. At this point, the entire group had decided that there was “strength in numbers”. The round trip would take anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour. They soon left and Wesley took William to the office to try to treat his acid burns with the first aid kit located there.

Meanwhile, El Guapo was bragging to his eager audience of Kenny about the biker gunfight. They walked around to the rear of the garage where they had dragged the corpses. There were five corpses lying there.

El Guapo: “Um. Wait. Something is weird here.”

Gil (to me): “Wait, how many bikers did we kill?”

The GM (me): “The four that walked up on Lilith and Wesley and three in the driveway, then you dragged two from the driveway and the four corpses in behind the garage.”

Gil: “But. I shot ‘em all in the head. Right?”

The GM (checking notes): “The driver from the pickup was the one you guys shot in the face and the other four… Yes, double-tap situation.”

Gil: “That’s six right? And five in the head?”

The GM: “Yupperooni.”

El Guapo: “Uh-oh.”

EL Guapo and Kenny barged into the office and warned William and Wesley that there was probably a walker loose in the yard. They were to stay put and watch the monitors while El Guapo and Kenny tracked it down. Eventually, after several tense moments, the pair of hunters picked up a trail of blood. As they stalked between rows of the high stacks of crushed cars, pillars of old tires, and mountainous piles of scrap, they had a softly spoken conversation. As a result, they realized the biker that Kenny and his two companions had met on the road was probably a biker killed by El Guapo and the two women during the shootout. They had just forgotten the corpse by the driveway outside of the fence.

El Guapo tracked the blood trail further into the maze of junk. Eventually, he lost it. Kenny tried to keep an eye out but started to try to help El Guapo to find it again. They were out of the view of any cameras. Both were kneeling studying the ground when Kenny, by chance, heard a slight noise behind them. A zombie in leathers was stumbling from behind a mound of rusted engine blocks.

Carlitos: “Well, there’s the stealth zombie.”

Jenn: “Hee hee. Ninja zombie.”

The GM: *cough*cough* “No yet.”

Everybody at the Table: 😐

After a three-round burst to the creature’s head, the pair let out a sigh of relief.

Road Rage

Meanwhile, Lilith and Steve made it to his stalled out police car on the side of the road without complication. However, by the time that they arrived at the vehicle Steve’s non-stop blathering about the supernatural cause of the zombie outbreak had gotten on her nerves. Any attraction that might have squirmed in her breast at the sight of his pagan-symbol inscribed charms was stone cold dead.

Isis (exasperated): “Aw gawd, I hate this guy.”

It was not long before Lilith had the car hood up and replacing the battery in lieu of any conversation. Steve was just standing around awkwardly trying to keep watch for any trouble.  Lilith was almost finished when Steve spotted several zombies filtering out of the woods onto the highway some badly rotted. “Damn, it must be the old cemetery.” Lilith finished, slammed the hood, and they got into their respective vehicles. Getting the lead out and into their gas-pedal, the pair made it back in half the time to the wrecking yard. However, before he had completely left the zombies in the dust Steve had seen through his rearview mirror that the road was filling up with zombies, it was a large horde. “Aw man! They’re gonna follow the f*&#@ing cars!”

It was already dark by the time they had got back and alerted the others. They decided that Lilith would finish her car ASAP and create a portable makeshift flamethrower for Kenny (he could use one after all), and three others would take turns keeping watch from the garage roof. Kenny was already there though it was not yet first watch, he would stay until the watches started. After William relieved him, he went into the office and decided to try to get in touch with the base and let them know his location using the CB.

Kenny was soon able to get in contact with his base. At least they had the proper code words. Through intermittent static, he got orders to stay put and got some information about the checkpoints at the borders of the county and other side of the city having problems. The communique ended abruptly, the signal dropped and Kenny was unable to re-establish communications.

Suddenly, William shouted from the rooftop. Ten Zombies were at the chain-link gate. It looked as if it were going be pushed down at any minute. Fortunately, the rest of the fence had an outer shell of old aluminum siding and was plenty sturdy. The metal gate groaned.

Fight with Fire

The group of zombies at the gate pressed themselves into the chain-link seemingly oblivious to the presence of the living within. That was until El Guapo and Kenny ran into the driveway before the gate shouting. Immediately the zombies surged and the gung-ho pair could hear the metal gate strain.

Gil: “We probably should have stayed out of sight.”

Kenny readied his M-16 and El Guapo his AK-47. Atop the garage, William put a foot on the elevated edge of the roof and got into firing position with his rifle at the ready. Steve ran around and stayed half-hidden around the corner of the garage knocking an arrow to his bow. Lilith and Wesley stayed inside of the garage still rushing to finish building the flamethrower having finished upgrading Lilith’s Chevrolet.

Kenny and El Guapo swept the driveway area at a 45-degree angle at head level taking out only about three zombies in total. A shot rang out, a halo of blood and brains around a blonde head, a single zombie dropped. William’s carefully aimed shot had paid off. El Guapo slung his assault rifle onto his shoulder and pulled his machete from his belt. He did not want to do another spray and “waste bullets”.

El Guapo: “Machetes don’t run out of bullets.”

He then doused the blade in gasoline from a container by the gate and lit it ablaze.

Gil: “I’m going to stab them in the head through the gate.”

The GM: “Um, a machete blade is not going to fit through the hole of a chain-link fence man.”

Gil: “The hell? Yeah, it will.”

The back and forth on the machete debate went on for a few minutes until Gil showed me the picture on his phone. “This is what I was thinking.” The picture was of a very fancy custom blade being sold as “the ultimate machete”. I have to admit, it was nice. Eventually, I relented. His argument: “I’m an awesome bounty hunter, so I need an awesome machete!”

The GM (me): “Yeah, whatever. Go ahead and do your thing.”

The Machete Debate

An arrow thudded into a zombie temple, another zipped into a forehead and came out the back of the skull. However, Steve had failed to drop either zombie with his archery. Another shot cracked from the roof of the garage and yet another halo of blood and brains signaled the demise of yet another zombie. El Guapo rammed his flaming custom blade through the fence flamboyantly slaying another creature. Zombies continued to drop as the gate continued to hold them back. Then a shot cracked out again from William’s hunting rifle. Kenny’s right thigh exploded, he screamed and dropped to the ground.

William’s misfire had hit Kenny in the back of the thigh crippling his leg. El Guapo finished off the last zombie with a flaming stab through the gate. He then turned and offered to cauterize Kenny’s leg wound. El Guapo wisely decided not to do that when Kenny loudly objected, as did the rest of the group.

Carlitos (to Carlos): “Dude! You shot me? You shot me in the leg!?”

Carlos (shrugging): “Um yeah, I guess so. Um. Oops I guess, heh heh.”

Carlitos: “Dude you owe me man! You owe me.”

Jenn: “What!? Why does he owe you!?”

Carlitos: “He shot me in the leg!”

The zombies destroyed, El Guapo helped Kenny into the office. There, Wesley stopped the bleeding from the bullet wound; the bullet had gone straight through but it had still broken the bone. He would need a splint to walk. As a result, Steve, Lilith, and even Kenny himself had tried to splint the leg but it still took several tries before Lilith and Steve in a conjoined effort finally got it right. Fortunately, no one had further injured him.

 Afterward, Steve went outside the gate. He took out a can of silver spray paint from his backpack and spray painted protective magical runes on the aluminum sheeting of the fence.

Steve (admiring his handiwork): “There, that’ll protect us for a while.”

Little Boy

By the next morning, the gang was ready to move out. El Guapo was ready to leave his custom chopper to ride in the wrecker with Kenny and his flamethrower. However, before they left, Lilith was going to mount a few plates of armor on it as well bolt the snowplow on the front. While she did this assisted by Wesley, Kenny and El Guapo decided to make Molotov cocktails. By the time the wrecker was armored, by early afternoon, the pair had produced about 5 Molotovs apiece. They put four cocktails in Lilith’s car.

Steve’s old police car, the wrecker with Kenny and El Guapo, and Lilith in her armored Chevrolet sedan began to move out convoy style. However, during their eagerness to leave, somehow Wesley, Lilith’s father aka the Old Man, and William wound up in Lilith’s car along with a substantial load of supplies. Steve was left riding alone.

All of them noticed that a deep thumping sound began to beat on their eardrums and into their chests. This sound was growing more intense by the second until it began to jostle the junk strewn around the vehicles. The caravan of cars pulled to the front gate slowly and stopped. Lilith’s car was in the lead with the tow truck at the rear. Lilith got out of her car to undo the lock on the gate. The thumping was shaking the cars. Kenny shouted. They could all see a large green helmeted head above the tin-sheet fence. It was moving up and down in time with the thumps. The thing came into full view slowly. Lilith ran back to her car and shut the door. The tow truck tore off in a U-turn and took off in the opposite direction.

A 12-ft tall creature made of solid muscle towered over the gate. Its head encased in a green helmet with a single blinking light at the center of the smooth faceplate. The barrel-like torso was encased in a cuirass of similar material, it looked like tank armor. It was humanoid but it was not in human proportions, its legs were short and thick and its long heavily muscled arms hung down to the ground. Following this thing were dozens probably more, zombies undulating to the pace of the blinking electric eye. Some of the pathetic creatures had small red lights, like LEDs, embedded in their heads and temples, all blinking in unison with the large tank-zombie’s light.

The thing flung the gate a hundred feet behind it without effort. Thinking quick, Kenny fired his M-16 at the oil barrels and gas containers near the front gate. Miraculously they exploded and spread burning oil over the driveway. The giant monster stopped and flung an overlong arm seemingly to protect its non-existent face. However, during this brief respite, Lilith panicking had a hard time trying to three-point turn her way around while the other two vehicles were turning around and going out the rear off-road exit to the yard. Staring at that massive zombie-tank, Kenny had a sudden flash of memory.

Weeks ago while jerking around on base; Kenny had stumbled into a “secure area” run by both the government and some corporation. He wandered down the wrong hallway and through an open bay door where he spotted pieces of armor identical to those on the large zombie he currently faced. From around a corner, he had also heard a conversation about a “probably illegal” bio-weapon program and remembered seeing several corporate types in suits strutting around the on-base labs.

Jenn: “I knew it! The damned military sent that thing!”

Carlitos: “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves now, there could be a good explanation behind this. Right?”

Lilith just had gotten her car around to face the right direction when the big guy hurdled through the fire grabbing her reinforced bumper. Screaming Lilith tried to maneuver her car to try to free it from the monster’s iron grip. The creature lifted her rear wheels off the ground. Kenny fired another burst at the creature but his bullets did nothing barely even scratching its armor. Wesley tossed a Molotov into its face from the passenger side window. It took a step back and let go. All of the cars began to move in a nerve rackingly slow convoy. As they proceeded, Steve saw the creature pat out the flames on its armored face. Galloping on hands and feet, it began to charge the last car, Lilith’s Chevy.

Lilith: “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

Carlitos: “Wait! I have an idea!”

This time Kenny took careful aim with his M-16 and emptied his clip on one of its unarmored legs, specifically to the left knee. The sound of roaring engines and shouting drowned out the impact of bullets smashing into the bone of a giant kneecap and tearing through the tendons and flesh. The leg fell free of the beast and it stumbled and fell forward crashing into the ground with a tremendous thump. Lilith had just avoided the monster’s mass as it fell heavily into the dirt and the caravan proceeded to the rear of the yard as zombies flooded in.

Eventually, the lead cars moved aside to let Lilith’s vehicle speed ahead to lead. Soon they were out and away via the rear exit, a dirt road that led to a series of off-road paths that eventually led back to the main highway.

Slow Ride

The three-vehicle convoy wound its way back to the County Highway continuing west. They were looking for William’s home. He had a well-equipped bomb-shelter.

Cris: “Damn. We’re gonna run into those zombies.”

Isis: “Uhg, I forgot about those.”

Gil: “Wait. What? Weren’t those back there at the junkyard, the group you guys saw?”

Jenn: “No, but the ones they saw were 11 hours away.”

She had calculated the time that the zombie horde Steve and Lilith had seen would take to get to the junkyard on foot.

Carlitos: “So those zombies came from the other direction then. From the direction of the checkpoint!?”

Carlos: “Wait. What checkpoint?”

The convoy slowed as a dense mass of about 60 zombies came into view, clogging the road.

Lilith: “Screw it! I’m going through ‘em!”

El Guapo: “Hell yeah! We’ll lead with the wrecker and if anybody gets stuck we’ll hook you out!”

El Guapo stomped on the gas and plowed the tow truck right through the center of the crowd mashing every creature in his way, bodies shattering on the angled steel of the snowplow. In turn, Lilith hit the gas and got a corpse stuck in her wheel well stopping her dead in the middle of the gore trail surrounded by several zombies. Steve hit his gas trying to connect with Lilith’s bumper in an attempt to push her out but he only succeeded in getting himself stuck as well.

Seeing this, the tow truck backed up while Kenny climbed out of the window onto the wench with flamethrower on his back. He lowered the hook then used his flamethrower to keep the horde at bay away from the cars as El Guapo leaped out and hooked up Lilith’s car. A few seconds later and Lilith and her passengers were free of the zombie hoard. However, Steve was still stuck, his wheels spinning uselessly in a slick mass of mangled human flesh. All the others could do to help was to keep the zombies away until he could get himself loose. Fortunately, that did not take long and they all sped away at top speed soon after.

*****

After about an hour’s drive up into the foothills and trees, they pulled up to a high barbed wire-topped chain-link security fence. The warning sign stated DANGER – Electric Fence! All was well. However, Kenny was still thinking about rejoining the military somehow, William would probably not want to leave the safety of his fortress home once ensconced, and Steve believed the tank-zombie was a “true undead” calling all of the zombies to him, the reason that his protection runes failed to work on it. Wesley was utterly distrustful of the government at this point and planning to murder Kenny before he could contact the army again. Lilith glanced at her father in the backseat he was asleep. She resolved to get some sleep finally.

After the third session of the Zombie Horror game (the Corpse World campaign), my wife Jenn and I were driving home on the 10 freeway going into Cherry Valley. We had just entered a stretch where it sank into the rising hills and where lights other than on the freeway were sparse. I was drunk and pleased that I had got through all of my bullet points slouching in my seat ready to sleep staring out at the black silhouettes of hills racing by. As we passed under a brightly lit overpass, she turned to me.

“You know. Maybe you should kill at least one of us next game, to make it more suspenseful!”

End of Part Two (Session played 9/7/19)

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Corpse World: The Zombie Campaign

Jenn was driving us along Sierra Avenue already in downtown Fontana, the sky orange and gold shadowing the old mission-style church and casting the newer library glass in dim blue. We were on our way to the game after picking up Cris in Muscoy. As we passed city hall the conversation about the game turned to the old test sessions just before the release of the first edition of Zombie Horror.

Cris: “…Just be careful what you say in this game.”

Jenn: “What? Why?”

Cris: “HORROR MOVIE RULES! That’s why. Fresh batteries, look first. Y’know, in the test game those idiots wanted to stop for gas on our way out of the city for some stupid reason!”

I started laughing.

Cris: “Look at ‘em! YOU remember! So we stopped at the f&*#$n gas station and here it comes!  A gas truck on fire covered with zombies, and of course a big explosion, and ugh! We didn’t even need the gas!”

Cris (whispered under his breath): “idiots”

Me (turning to Jenn): “Ha ha, I did do that!”

It was several minutes before we arrived at our destination, Jenn’s parents’ house. We were playing at the in-laws’ house because Gil was in town and this was going to be one of the rare times we could all get together. It was not long before we sat gathered around the 6-person dining table.

Preamble or the Info-Dump of the Dead

The incident occurs in the City of Amorsetville and the surrounding county somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. The main feature of the county is a large lake, polluted by an old oilrig at its center, with a dense pine forest surrounding it. The main thoroughfare for the county, connecting it to the city and the freeway, is the Old County Highway that cuts through the forest passes and a shallow pass cut through the hills and runs into the rural areas with old houses and hillbillies, then scattered farms and ranches, then mostly new suburb developments until finally hitting the city.

On the Southside of the lake, Lake Ponchateaux, are narrow rocky beaches crowded with lake-goer trash, mostly beer cans and bottles, and a significant concrete section near the road is the termination point of the city storm drains. On the north and western sides, the lake is bordered and feeds a significant stretch of marshland with hills and thick forest on its east shore. Nearby the lake are a large and old trailer park (Atomic Park) and a wrecking yard/junkyard. There is also an active landfill a few miles west of these. To the south of the Old County Highway which runs east and west, is a maze of back roads, mostly dirt, and patches of old houses and trailers.

Near the far end of the county, at the western extreme, just off the Old County Highway is the Broken Saddle. It is an ugly faded yellow box of a building, an old dive bar. Currently, it is a pit stop for truckers and outlaw bikers who have some shady business to conduct on the county back roads. The old west style mortarboard has a chopper with a black saddle painted on it although the paint is long ago faded and peeling off to reveal a horse underneath the bike. The old horse ties still stand out front, sad leftovers from when it was a popular cow-punch themed nightspot.

The Outlaw Bar

In the Broken Saddle, the place was full, it was not a large space by any means but it did pretty good business considering its comparatively remote location. The jukebox was cranking out classic country and rock hits and a blue smog of cigarette and reefer smoke drifted lazily among the wood rafters and hanging pool table lights. Bikers in dirty denim dominated the few pool tables and various clusters of truckers occupied a few tables and some bar stools, yet there was room for more.

At a low table in the corner by the bar and opposite the rank smelling and ill-maintained restrooms sat our heroes. At the table nursing a pitcher of cheap beer were Wesley dressed in faux country & western finery (played by Jenn), El Guapo in a road-grimed duster (played by Gil), and Lilith, a pink-haired Goth in fishnets and gloss-black PVC moto shorts (played by Isis).

The GM (me): “Wha…frickin’ El Guapo! What like from the Three friggin’ Amigos movie!?”

Gil: “What? No. I haven’t seen that.”

Wesley, despite her plain looks and country-look reminiscent of a 70’s urban cowboy film, was a Bounty Hunter by trade. She was armed with a Desert Eagle in a hidden underarm holster underneath her shirt and another in a hidden holster in the small of her back accessible through a slit in the back of her shirt as well as a little .22 semi-auto hideaway pistol in her boot. She was a cousin of the Goth girl at the table, the same with the “outlaw” that was helping with the pitcher.

El Guapo, as he had dubbed himself, was a Gunslinger from southern Mexico and on the hunt for a bounty that he had pursued to the back roads of Amorset on the back of his chopper. While he was here, he had figured to source the help of his few relatives in the area.  However, he was no closer to his quarry after a week of hunting. He had a wide-brimmed grey ten-gallon hat with a small peacock feather stuck in the band. Also, he was wearing, besides the dirty tan duster, a red lumberjack button-up, a brown leather belt with a large silver buckle, a pair of dark blue denim jeans, and a pair of well-worn cowboy boots.

IN addition, he was also armed with a Desert Eagle pistol in a hidden underarm holster underneath his shirt, a folding buck-knife in a sheath on his belt, and a bowie knife in his boot. He grabbed the half-full pitcher and refilled the Goth’s empty glass.

Lilith was by all appearances a club frequenting Goth-girl in the full drag, pancake makeup, bright red lipstick, and black fingernail polish. However, she was a consummate gear-head, Gizmoteer by trade, and was the only child of the severely alcoholic owner of the local wrecking yard. Her short pink hair was spiked into a faux-hawk, she was not armed to the teeth, however, she did own a gun, but she did have a multi-tool in a holster on her hip and a pocketknife zipped in a pocket.

All were bored and looking for a job, their prime concern to get some money, but here they were more likely to find trouble. Nonetheless, they began circulating amongst the truckers and bikers. Lilith talked with the bulky and somewhat tight-lipped bartender; her flirting got her a free shot. The trio almost happened upon a gunrunning deal but that would have required them to wait a while in the bar, a few hours. Already the bikers were picking fights with unfortunate randos walking into the place.

The motley trio decided to leave and head out to the Goth club after Lilith’s suggestion. Just as they cleared the tab and rose from their seats, they heard the wrack of smashing metal and the hideous bang of a car wreck. The place shook. For a brief second, the place was dead silent as the patrons exchanged wide-eyed glances. Suddenly, a scraggly older biker rushed in and shouted, “The bikes man! He hit our f*@#in’ bikes!”

The place cleared of bikers; most of the bike-riding patrons were of the notorious local outlaw motorcycle club, the Black Skulls.

Lilith: “Aw man! We need to get outta here.”

El Guapo: “Well, I’ll follow you on my chopper.”

Wesley (pointing at Lilith): “C’mon let’s go! I ride with you!”

They rushed out of the nearly empty bar and made it to their vehicles. They could see a small red four-door sedan had smashed into the line of choppers out front of the place. The driver was in bad shape as he was pulled from the wreck. He was drenched in blood, which El Guapo thought odd; the wreck did not look that bad. The trio then heard a biker-chick, a tall bleached blonde in leopard print and tight black leather pants cry out, “oh my god! There’s a kid in here!”

The trio pulled away in their vehicles and rolled to the dirt and gravel driveway to the street. Wesley saw that the biker chick was cradling the apparently unconscious child.

Isis: “Aw c’mon! We gotta get outta here!”

Jenn: “Well, I was just lookin’!”

Gil: “Yeah this is bad, let’s go! I’m already going.”

As El Guapo followed Lilith’s beat-up ’98 Chevy sedan, he saw the biker chick suddenly stand up screaming with the child fixed to her neck by its teeth. Something else was also happening with the passenger and driver but this was out of his sight. The trio drove away.

Gil: “Whew! Just in time!”

They had been on the road for about half an hour before passing a diesel tanker pulled over to the side of the Old County Highway. It was a chemical tanker, the graphics on its side indicated that the truck belonged to Geno-Chem. The tank sides were bulging and the truck emergency lights were blinking. El Guapo spotted the driver walking around the truck with a flashlight. He had a gas mask on. They drove by still about 30 minutes away from their goal in the heart of the city, the Goth club.

Zombie Goth Party

A while later, the trio found themselves in the city’s commercial district. The sodium lit streets appeared deserted and quiet. However, the line out front of the Goth club, known as the Bat Gate, was as long, black-clad, and morose as ever. The club had two large castle-style doors as its entrance and a bat silhouette above the doors limed in blue-white fluorescent lights. The bat suspiciously resembled the Batman symbol, which was a well-worn point of humor for goers and passersby alike.

Lilith pulled her beat-up sedan into the parking structure immediately adjacent to the club. El Guapo decided to cruise around the around block as he “was not parking his hog in there”. He eventually found a parking spot about two blocks north of the club, the curbs lined with cars from the club goers. So, he parked his bike under a street light and proceeded to walk to the club entrance. He passed by a wide alley that ran along the rear of the Bat Gate where some club-goers congregated to smoke cigarettes and “get some air” after drinking too much. The pale electric-cyan of mercury-vapor light illuminated the rear double-doors and limned the tight knot of smoking Goths in impenetrable black. El Guapo spotted the silhouette of what he assumed was a homeless man stumbling through the shadowed part of the alley that spilled into the sidewalk.

El Guapo yelled a command to “stop right there” suddenly at the shadow. The lurching form seemed not to heed his warning. However, it was advancing slowly so he walked away but at a more hastened pace. As he put distance between himself and the shadow he heard a Goth-chick in the alley mutter, “What was that, ha-ha-ha!”

Meanwhile, Lilith was busy flirting with the bouncer at the door. Eventually, the flirting paid off; both women were let in without having to be searched. They waited just inside the doors for El Guapo as the deep bass thumped through the floor and vibrated their bones. When El Guapo showed up, they entered. He did not mention his odd encounter.

The trio bellied up to the acrylic and glass neon-lit bar, the bartender was in full drag and heavily muscled with a multitude of face piercings and tattoos. They ordered a first-round and as they pronounced cheers, they vowed not to split up “no matter what”. Not long after their pledge, Wesley was approached by a Goth-Prince decked out in shiny black PVC, silver chains, and hairy chest exposed by his open-breasted outfit, a mane of pitch-black hair framing his white-painted face though his chiseled good looks still showed through. She immediately went off onto the dance floor with him.

El Guapo (as he took another shot of tequila): “Figures.”

Jenn: “Whaat!? My character doesn’t know what’s about to happen and she needs a little!”

Isis: “Gaawd! I know! I’m so TENSE!”

Lilith (taking her goblet of red wine in hand): “Ya know what? I’m gonna go see if I can get us up into the VIP tables.”

With that, Lilith went to the far side of the club opposite the entrance and began to work her charms with the bouncer minding the velvet rope that held off the commoners from the tables on the mezzanine. After easily getting past that hurdle she then spotted for somebody on the upper roped off mezzanine to charm, preferably a loner, she soon spotted her target, a lone effeminate looking person with only the top of their head shaved and butterfly tattoos between the heavily linered and lashed eyes. She seductively sauntered up to their table. In contrast, El Guapo haunted the bar served tequila shots from the muscly, fully cosmetically tricked out bartender.

El Guapo (stopping just short of a buzz): “This is too much for me man! I got to get out of here.”

He left to smoke a cigarette out front. Then he started walking around the corner as the bouncer told him to “take it around the corner”. He decided to go check on his bike, his cigarette still between his lips. There were a few people on the streets, or more accurately in the street. A woman with a horrified look on her face ran past El Guapo so fast he could feel the draft in her wake. He turned back around and saw that four people were running at him!

All four appeared disheveled and dirty but they were not homeless. They were zombies, fast zombies. El Guapo quick-drew his Desert Eagle and took pumped two shots into the lead creature’s chest. It had little effect.

Isis: “No! Head! Head!”

Gil: “But my character doesn’t know that yet… hey, since my shots should have already killed him, can I take a shot?”

El Guapo took careful aim at the lead zombie it was almost upon him. He pulled the trigger and completely missed. The lead zombie grappled his weapon-arm.

El Guapo: “Sh@#! Sh@#! Sh@#!”

The second zombie was also upon him and grabbed a hold of his other arm biting into his forearm. Fortunately, it only tore the heavy material of his duster sleeve. The other two zombies were close. He strained his wrist to point his weapon at the first zombie. Its head burst like a ripe melon covering El Guapo in a thick and rancid coating blood and brains. He turned his pistol on the second zombie again. Again, he was splattered with soupy gore. The third zombie ran at him and he moved just in time to shove the barrel of his gun in between its bared yellow teeth blowing out the back of its skull. He was able to put a bullet between the eyes of the last from a comfortable distance.

Gil: “Holy crap! I almost died… it only takes ONE bite huh? Crap!”

Meanwhile, in the club, Wesley was behind one of the giant hanging Persian rugs along the wall at the rear of the club near the alley exit. She and her Goth-Beau had their hands under each other’s clothes and going at it all hot and heavy. It was a well-known make-out place called the “tapestries” and to go behind them had become local slang for “let’s go do some heavy petting”. Wesley’s Goth-Prince had just unzipped his tight leather pants at her behest when she heard some screams. The sounds of dozens of trampling feet just on the other side of the carpet overwhelmed even the loud club music. Then she was pinned against her guy by innumerable bodies on the other side of the tapestry. She could barely breathe. A crush of people coming in from the alleyway was suffocating them!

It took her a while to push her way along the wall and into the dense, panicking crowd. She could see people being trampled on the dance floor and see others being attacked or attacking, biting and scratching. The scene was insane and terrifying, the music abruptly cut-off and all that could be heard after through ringing ears were stomping feet and screaming.

Jenn (joyously): “Alright! Now I can pull out my MP4!”

Me (the GM): “What!? You couldn’t carry that thing into the club!”

Jenn: “Why not? It says it’s a machine pistol in the book.”

Me: “YES… it’s an SMG… *sigh*”

A few minutes of explanation later…

Me: “It’s in the trunk of Lilith’s car.”

Immediately, as the chaos began to spread, Lilith raced from her mark down onto the stairs to spot for her friends. She desperately messaged them on her phone. El Guapo was outside but Wesley was still near the back of the club. Fortunately, Lilith was able to spot her just as the fleeing crowd pushed her to the ground. Lilith leaped to action over the brass banister and made it easily to her friend in time to pick her up from the floor. They fled towards the entrance. The crowd pushed them along like a mudslide then suddenly as the flood of people hit the bottleneck to the entrance the riptide of the crowd forced the pair apart.

Lilith was pushed backward, Wesley was knocked to the carpet immediately taking a few kicks to the stomach, and as she struggled to rise using the wall, had the wind knocked out of her when another club-goer was forced into her catching her in the gut with an elbow. She blacked out when a knee smashed into her face while falling to the floor. The next thing she was aware of was hanging on to Lilith’s shoulder for dear life and tasting the blood flowing from her nose as they ran out into the already crowded streets.

The bruised pair of women spotted their friend, El Guapo, inspecting some dead bodies lying on the pavement. He had a smoking gun in his hand. They shouted to him and the trio agreed to meet around the corner in their vehicles and get out of dodge post haste.

Lilith and Wesley ran to the parking structure via the caged-in pedestrian ramp, Lilith had parked her Chevy on the second level. As they beat it up the ramp they stopped when a twitching and badly wounded man blocked their path. He immediately charged them. Wesley immediately drew her Desert Eagle and put a hole in his chest but to no effect. As a result, Lilith quick-drew the twin Desert Eagle from the small of Wesley’s back. Her bullet nailed the zombie in the forehead blowing a fair portion of its head off spattering Wesley with blood.

Wesley: “My gun? You pulled my gun from my back?”

Lilith: “Yeah.”

Wesley: “Don’t do that again.”

 They made it to their car as another zombie charged them from across the structure. As they backed up, they knocked it back with the rear bumper then peeled out of the garage. Wesley called El Guapo. He was already at the agreed-upon nearby intersection, it was quickly becoming “a clusterf@#k”.

Choked

Later, on their way out of the city, they ran into an intersection choked with cars and crowded with zombies rushing over them like a wave of piranha. They immediately turned around by running over the curb and onto the sidewalk avoiding the other cars as they also entered that trap and crashed in desperate attempts to escape. After driving excessively fast through a maze of strangely empty residential streets they finally drove onto the Old County Highway. All let out a sigh of relief. They had agreed to hold up at Lilith’s dad’s place, the Wrecking Yard.

They had been driving for a good while along the completely darkened road well over the county border when their headlights glared back at them off a dense yellow fog flowing over the road. It was gas coming from the stalled tanker on the side of the road. The very same tanker they had passed hours ago on their way to the club. They stopped a fair distance away, should the wind change. The bulging tank had apparently ruptured.

Lilith: “Screw it, I’m gonna ram right through it!”

Wesley: “What about the gas!?”

Lilith (shrugging): “Just roll up the window. I’ll go real fast through it, or hold your breath.”

El Guapo:  “What about me!?  I’m totally exposed!”

Lilith: “Then get in the car!”

El Guapo: “I’m not leaving my bike.”

Because of the gas, they decided to not risk it and go around the long route via the country back roads. These roads were rough, completely unlit, and mostly dirt. There was the occasional old house and group of trailers as they drove. They did slow pace as to avoid getting stuck in a rut, hitting a rock, or running into the deep drainage ditches on the side that were becoming increasingly frequent. They were finally nearing the highway. However, a few hundred feet from the highway just after the sharp turn in the dirt road Lilith skidded to a stop. El Guapo rumbled up alongside. A trailer home hauled by an old pickup sat jackknifed across the road blocking it. The pickup was still idling.

El Guapo: “Aw crap.”

Wesley: “Well I’m not getting out of the car. Isn’t there a way around?”

The trio looked for a way around the vehicle but the drainage ditches on either side were too wide and deep to cross. If they tried, they would inevitably be stuck. El Guapo dismounted his chopper, pulled a machete hidden in a scabbard behind one of the saddlebags on the back of his bike, then slid it into his belt.

El Guapo: “*Sigh* Okay, I’ll go c’mon.”

Wesley (handing Lilith the 9mm from the glove box): *Sigh* “Okay.”

Lilith: “I’ll stay here and keep my headlights on.”

El Guapo slowly and carefully moved around the trailer followed closely by Wesley. Both disappeared from Lilith’s view. EL Guapo walked up to the cab of the idling truck and saw that the keys, to his relief, were still in the ignition.

Isis: “Well, yeah it’s idling.”

Gil: “Oh yeah, hehe.”

El Guapo: “But that trailer. There’s probably something in there.”

So, El Guapo decided to walk, very quietly and carefully, to one of the trailer windows. Indeed, he could see something moving in there.

Meanwhile, back at the car, Lilith was cradling her gun. A pair fists pounded on the driver’s side window. She immediately shot the zombie through the window.

The trailer door burst open and four zombies charged El Guapo. A large bearded zombie with its throat ripped out tried to tackle him but it missed, he took the opportunity to blow out its brains. He tried to shoot another that charged him but he hit its belly instead. Wesley aimed her paired Desert Eagles and dropped two more leaving only the one with a hole in its stomach standing. Two zombies then rose from the bed of the pickup, one armed with a shotgun which it fired mostly by accident. The shot missed entirely. The second leaped from the bed and tried to tackle El Guapo but fell flat on its face in the dirt.

Wesley felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to shoot nearly killing Lilith, who had carelessly prowled around the trailer to her friends. The last trailer zombie grabbed El Guapo’s gun-hand, in response he whipped the machete from his belt and chopped off the creature’s arm. Wesley dropped the one-armed zombie splattering its head all over herself and her friends with a double-shot to its cranium.

Lilith put a bullet in the brain of the zombie on the ground. El Guapo took a shot at the shotgun zombie but missed. Wesley finished it destroying its head with another double-shot from her paired weapons.

El Guapo: “Okay, I guess we better check the trailer?”

Wesley: “Uk! Do we have to?”

Lilith: “You first.”

Wesley went all the way to the rear of the trailer finding a bloody mess but no more creatures. Wesley and El Guapo were in the middle of the trailer standing by the closed bathroom door. They both could hear something moving around in there but were busy arguing about if they should open it. Then they started arguing about who should open it and who should wait to shoot. Of course, the door shattered and a small zombie, an undead child, charged Lilith. El Guapo missed horribly with his machete lodging it in the doorjamb. Lilith blew the back of the kid’s head out all over the toilet.

Wrecked

Finally, the trio arrived at the chain-link gate of the wrecking yard. The old-style billboard sign stood at an angle facing both the dirt and gravel driveway and the highway. The dirty faded white face of the old sign read Fletcher & Sons Wrecking & Repair since 1965. There was an old barely visible picture of a red tow truck next to the name. El Guapo sneered her family name was Flecha Hierro. Lilith got out, opened the lock & chain on the gate, and rolled it open. At this time in the morning, the gate should already have been open, the yard workers should have already opened the place up. However, the reality of last night began to slowly collapse on top of each of the trio’s heads.

They had a brief discussion and decided to “beef up” the car and get on the move as soon as possible, at least by tomorrow morning. Lilith pulled her car into the large corrugated steel garage and started work immediately, too energized with adrenaline to sleep, Wesley assisted. El Guapo asked where the office was finding out that there was not only television but also a CB and Shortwave radio system. The door to the office was at the rear of the garage past the tall warehouse shelving packed with new and old auto-parts. He tried to ask a few more questions but Lilith was not listening completely focused on her task. Wesley shrugged. So, El Guapo started around the shelves into the dark rear of the garage.

He soon saw the office door, ‘office’ painted in plain block letters across the bottom of the frosted glass window of the old grease smeared door. Something groaned and El Guapo froze in his tracks. His hand crept to the grip of his gun. The groaning was coming from the wheelbarrow next to the office door. He saw a body lying there starting to move. It was dressed in old, worn and oil-stained coveralls. He readied to shoot taking careful aim and then the body raised a half-empty whiskey bottle to its mouth. El Guapo sighed realizing he had almost shot Lilith’s alcoholic father. Her father emptied the last drink and tossed the bottle mindlessly away then gurgled and passed back out.

Soon enough he had found and was operating the CB radio. On the emergency channel, an evacuation message was mechanically repeating itself. It said something about a checkpoint at the far end of the county and a few others around the perimeter of the city limits as well. Next to him on another table was an array of security monitors that someone had forgotten to turn off. He glanced over and saw that the front gate and other areas around the vast junkyard had fixed security cameras.

He turned back to the CB trying to find some paper and a pen to jot down the message details. He finally found what he was looking for after a few more minutes and then he glanced over at the monitors. At the front gate were a pickup and several choppers. He saw that a few bikers had already skipped the barbed-wire topped fence and soon disappeared out of view. They appeared armed.

Lilith had a welder’s mask on and was welding some sheet steel to the side of her car, completely focused and obsessing. Wesley had just set down some heavy steel poles. Lilith had requested them. She would build the cowcatcher from them. Wesley stretched her back and took in a deep breath. She heard a slight noise to her left and turned to see a double-barrel sawed-off shotgun shoved into her face.

There were three bikers with guns at the wide entrance to the garage. The guy farthest from them was wielding an A-K. All were wearing the colors of the Black Skulls OMC.

Biker with Shotgun: “We’re gonna take what we want … PUT YER F*#$IN’ HANDS UP!!! Now. Where’s the gas?”

El Guapo stepped out of the shadows like a gunfighter of old and put a single bullet in the shotgun-wielding biker’s forehead. With that, Lilith pulled out a 9mm, her personal firearm, and drilled some holes in the A-K biker’s chest, he dropped his rifle but was still standing, a confused look on his bearded face. Wesley pulled her paired Desert Eagles and dropped both of the remaining bikers. El Guapo ran over and picked up the AK-47 shouting, “they’re at the gate!”

He jumped behind some wrecks near the front of the yard and then peeked around the corner. A second later, he unleashed a full burst on the bikers waiting behind the gate. He knew he had killed a biker sitting on his chopper. Wesley shot into the pickup’s windshield killing the driver and the passenger. The rest of the bikers, under a hail of bullets, retreated swiftly.

Jenn (to Gil): “I am SO glad you didn’t miss this time!”

The horizon began to burn brilliant blinding silver scorching away the beautiful bands of gold and orange of dawn. The trio moved the bodies from the truck then dragged them around the back, behind the garage. They pulled the pickup and the custom chopper into the yard locking the gate behind them.

Epilogue or Dawn of the Doomed

Early morning. Lilith distracting herself with a side project out of nowhere, making leather gauntlets with steel plates for Wesley. It would be around 3 pm, after hours of wrenching madly and non-stop, when she finished armoring the car and adding an improvised cowcatcher in place of the front bumper. The other two passed out utterly exhausted. All three were safe… for now.

End of Part One (Session played 8/10/19)

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