Those posts slipped through my fingers.
Very disappointed in myself.

skeptic wrote:Those posts slipped through my fingers.
Very disappointed in myself.

Even professionals have off days, Sebastian.

Having failed to save the sheriff, my next order of business was to gather all my gear. Most of it was already to go in my duffel bag. I quickly separated out anything I didn’t figure I absolutely needed. It all went into the tub where I set it on fire. Evidence is never a good thing.

As I exited my rooms bathroom, I heard shuffling in the hallway outside. I paused, trying to identify the source of the sounds.

Then I heard that hellish moan again. Right outside me door!

Okay, so what do I do? Those things are right outside my door. I can try to shoot my way out and up to the roof or I could…

My eyes darted to the window. I pulled the duffel bag over my arms like a backpack and looked outside. The street appeared to be clear.

Something slammed against my door. Hard. And the moaning hadn’t stopped. If anything, it had gotten louder.

I should have felt scared, I suppose. But this close to death, I always feel so… alive! It heightens the senses and quickens thought. Already a plan had formulated. Tearing the sheets off my bed, I tied them together with one end of the improvised rope to the bathroom door.

The other end I tied around my waist.

I could hear the slamming on the door get louder. It sounded as though it might give at any moment.

The rather heavy desk chair shattered the window and carried all the glass shards to the ground below.

The door began to splinter.

I followed the chair out the window. The slack went out of my improvised rope and then I started to arc back to the buildings wall. I got my feet around to catch the wall while I gripped my white rope. I was facing up towards my window, still about six or seven feet above the ground.

One of the things poked it’s head out my window and peered down at me with dead eyes.

I drew one of my pistols and blew it’s damn brains out.

From within my room I heard that moan again.

It was answered from down the street.

Okay, there was no way I could stay here and I had never intended to. I holstered my sidearm and started to undo the sheet wrapped around my waist. I hazarded a glance upwards.

One of the things was climbing down the very rope I was using. Head first. Drops of saliva hit me in the forehead.

The damn knot was too tight. But I didn’t panic. Reaching down to my boot I pulled my knife and cut myself free. It swung and arm to grab me but only caught a couple of my hairs for it’s trouble.

I rolled when I hit the sidewalk and came up with pistol in hand. The creature that had nearly grabbed me took a couple of shots in the head. Then I scanned the street.

Down one end there was a slow yet relentless march of decayed, animated corpses. They were coming from the direction of the cemetery I had passed in the night.

Across the street was my vehicle. And down the other side of the street was an empty street and eventually, the open highway.

There were shouts from the roof above me. Human shouts. “Don’t just stand there! Run!”

Every fibre of my being was screaming at me, “Run! Get the hell out of here!”

But something caught my eye. The ground level of the hotel held the bar. Inside the bar were cloaked figures lighting bottles of booze on fire and tossing them at the furniture. I looked up to the roof again. A young woman was clutching her baby to her chest, yelling at me to run along with the others.

Damn it.

Nemesis wrote:Damn it.

I wonder why it is you damn every circumstance that allows you to flaunt your humanity?
You will know why you did not recieve the remainder of your payment before you are done conveying your tale.

Because it's damn inconvenient, that's why.
What the hell would you know about it? Also, these means are monitored.

Drawing my pistol, I ran into the bar that was just starting to catch fire. “What the hell are you doing?”

One of the cloaked figures turned to me. “The dead in this building will burn.”

“There’s still people on the roof!” I exclaimed. I mean if I could see what was wrong with this plan, then it must be patently obvious, right?

“They will die. Either by fire or turned to the walking dead, they will die. It is better this way.” The reply was deathly calm. I recognized the woman’s face now that I was close enough to see her. She had been one of the sunbathers at Vlad’s place when I had been scoping it out earlier.

“So what are you going to do about the automatic fire suppression system?” I inquired. “When it get hot enough in here, water will get dumped everywhere.”

“We disabled the fire suppression systems of most public buildings some time ago at our masters command.” She smiled slightly, showing the first emotion I’d witnessed from her. “A contingency against a different eventuality but one that has worked in our favor regardless.”

I shot her in the face. “Did ya have a contingency for that?!”

Apparently she hadn’t as her body slumped immediately to the ground.

The other cloaked figures were perhaps a little more forward thinking as they ran for the back door of the building.

I didn’t waste time going after them. Instead I grabbed a fire extinguisher and doused one of the blazes. A bucket and the ice machine helped me damp down the remaining fires. But I had wasted too much time. The shuffling corpses were at the front doors to the bar. So I ran towards the exits that Vlad’s henchmen had used.

Only there were more of those horrid creatures there. The only path left to me was the stairs going up. And I already knew there were more of those monsters up there.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t so damn it, I did.

I ran for the stairs and got up a flight before I heard pursuit. Looking back I saw a couple of the corpses sprinting after me. How the hell did some of them manage to move so damn fast while others could barely manage a shuffle? No matter, several head shots dropped them and allowed me to gain more headway.

On the second floor, I left the stair well and went for the elevator. Hey, that duffel bag was heavy on my back and I’m lazy, okay? Nothing was in the carriage when the doors opened although I could here those monsters shambling into the lobby by that point. How the hell did they know I had left the stair well? Could they smell me?

Again, I focused on the matter at hand. I shot the first few then boarded the elevator and punched the top floor. Only one of them was able to sprint towards the door before it was done closing. I waited until he was almost there before filling his skull with lead. At least these things weren’t smart.

The elevator took me to the top floor and dutifully opened it’s doors.

The lobby was full of corpses without the sense to lie down. They were facing toward and crowding around the stairwell leading up. They were banging on the door, trying to get to the roof.

They all turned to look at me.

“Wrong floor.” I deadpanned as I hit the close door button frantically.

Fortunately there were either no sprinters or else they were too far away to get to the door in time. But the pounding started almost as quickly as the doors closed. And of course there was that god awful moaning. If they had been more clever they would have just hit the open button or tried to pry the doors open.

Had I been more clever, I would have went back to the third floor and jumped out the window or something.

Instead, I jumped up and removed the service panel in the elevators roof. As I pulled myself up, I realized that I should have climbed up here while the carriage was climbing to the top floor. There was a little service ladder so I tied my duffel off to it. Then I poked my upper body back through the carriages roof hatch. I used a quarter to hit the ground floor button then flipped back and grabbed my bag as the carriage dropped away from me.

Gymnastics was another interest of mine that I had excelled at in school. And my coaches had been just as disappointed as my archery instructors that my Da wouldn’t allow me to compete.

I untied my bag and started climbing up to the roof access hatch. Beneath me, the doors were starting to give to the onslaught. How fraking strong were these things? I vowed never to get close enough to one to find out.

The door at the top was predictably locked. I have contemporaries who could finesse a lock. I did what I did best and shot it.

It swung open and I tossed my bag out right away. Then I rolled after it, coming up with both pistols drawn and ready.

I found myself surrounded by about half a dozen dudes armed with various firearms.

MP5K - 9mm, accurate, and good rate of fire. Its also small and easily torn down, and comes with a collapsable stock.

Anything smaller or faster rate of fire is a room broom and useless for accuracy. Might as well get the full auto version of the Beretta 92 with extended mags. You can always put in a standard mag and use them semi auto also.

Pretty close to impossible to say bad things about MP5s.

Hey Joe.

What could you do with a Glock 29 and Glock 20?

Can you make them full auto with extended mags without sacrificing accuracy?

Only if you shoot them on full auto, I'd say.

I'd actually prefer the G29. It fits my hand better than the G20. So any mods would have to keep the grip the same size as well. Unfortunately, the G29 isn't one of Glock's "C" models.

*EDIT*

Also, it will have to be able to accomodate a silencer as well as the usual accessories. I have both 10 and 15 round magazines but I'm interested in 20 rounds if you can manufacture them.

And yeah, definitely sticking to the G29.

Everything you are asking for is actually available commercially, except its only availble in 9mm. Its a Glock 18 and is selective fire - can do both semi and full auto. It has a 33 round clip, but 10, 17, and 19 round clips are also available. Get the 18C if you plan on using it full auto a lot - it has a muzzle compensator for full auto fire. Its a very fast firing machine pistol - 1200 rounds per minute. It will take any of the Glock 17 clips also. If you want to use it silenced, you cannot use the compensated model.

The 20 is a nice gun, but I am not a fan of the 29. Its compact frame and reduced slide length of the 29 are marginal for the hot 10mm rounds. Too much barrel flip IMO. Some of the earlier guns from glock, S&W, and colt had issues with the slide rails cracking when firing the 10mm, but thats all been pretty much taken care of by the 2nd gen guns. They are making Gen 3 now and Gen 4 is coming out soon.

I would not use the 10mm for full auto fire. Its too hot a round for a machine pistol. Even the FBI uses reduced power rounds in its 10mm guns to lessen recoil. I could make the 20 or 29 full auto since they share lots of parts with the 17/18 but I don't think the guns would last very long or be reliable.

10mm is a supersonic round, so a silencer is useless. Subsonic reduced load 9mm is what is usually used silenced.

But what did you do on the roof?

I knew about the 9mm being availble.

What I actually didn't know was that 10mm would be a bad full auto round. Again, my experience is mostly semi-autos or bolt actions.

Sorry for leaving you hanging out on the roof there, Joe. I'm tired at the moment and hope to have the next installment posted tomorrow.

Same bat time, same bat channel!

I slowly lowered my ‘twins’ as I like to call them. Two fisting pistols isn’t the best option in ideal circumstances and facing off against six different opponents holding firearms is never ideal. You know, there just might be something to that whole ‘teamwork’ thing.

“You boys sure know how to make a body feel welcome.” I kept my tone as nonchalant as possible and started holstering my twins.

That eased the tension and they lowered the muzzles of their weapons. One of them, sounded like the guy from outside my door from earlier, stepped forward. He was a little taller than myself, of average build and wore glasses. His clothes suggested a white collar worker of some sort. Looked brainy and seemed in charge. He was holding on to a shotgun. I’ll call him Egghead. “What are you even doing up here? We saw you get out. You had a chance to run, why didn’t you?”

I’d been struggling with that question myself. “There were some bozo’s in the bar trying to set fire to the place. After I chased them off, it got easier to go up than out.”

“Well, you created a new way for them to get up here.” I didn’t recognize this guys voice. He was the shortest of the group and stocky as well. Despite it being summer he was wearing a plaid lumber jacket, jeans and white undershirt. He was packing a tricked out AR-15 which I would have been willing to bet my life was modded for full auto. The dude also had an old style army utility belt and harness. Ex-army or militia, I reckoned. I’ll call him Lumberjack.

“Not for long.” A third guy raised his hand, palm out to the door. He began to chant. His hand and then the door started to glow with blue light. Suddenly, the door slammed shut. The door handle and edges between the door and the frame continued to glow with a soft, eerie blue luminescence. He had holstered his .38 revolver. I’ll call him Merlin.

I glanced around at the crowd beyond the six that had confronted me upon my arrival. All ordinary people it seemed, most of them townies. There was about two dozen in all. Most of them had looks of fear on their faces but didn’t seem to really be phased by the obvious mystical display. Only one other guy stood apart from the rest. He looked like he might be the local banker or something like that. He was on the far edge of the roof, walking in the same tight circle. He had his hands clamped over his ears and his eyes clenched shut. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.” Was all he’d say, over and over again.

The six followed my gaze. “With what they’ve seen today,” Egghead said, “Merlin’s little trick there was nothing. They’ve already all seen more fantastic stuff today and seem ready to accept just about anything now.”

“What about him?” I asked of the pacing man (who I will call Pacer).

Egghead looked sad. “I’ve always wondered what would happen if a Nega was ever forced to believe in the supernatural.” He shook his head, “I would rather have had my answer another way.”

“You seem to be taking all of this in stride.” It was the forth member of the six. He was squinting at me suspiciously while still grasping his 30.06 tightly. I’ll call him Squinty.

“I’ve seen a lot of odd things today, too.” I shrugged, “I just adjust faster than most.”

“You’re lying.” The fifth member of the six was the second voice I had heard outside my door earlier. He was cradling a shotgun and had a 9mm holstered. “You’ve seen stuff like this before. You’re a believer.” I’ll call him Mr. Voices.

“Yeah?” I frowned at him. “You make that sound like a crime.”

“If it was,” he replied casually, “it wouldn’t be the first one you committed.”

I was starting to seriously dislike this guy.

“Okay, they’re a crook. Like none of us have ever broken any laws.” The last member of the six was glaring at his compatriots, most of whom were finding other places to look than his eyes. “Way I see it, the past don’t matter. And the future won’t neither unless we all pool our resources and work together.” He was wearing a tool belt with some odd looking gadgets and a dirty baseball cap. He had the sort of permanent five o’clock shadow that some guys have. I’ll call him Gizmo.

Egghead cleared his throat. “You’re right Gizmo.” He turned to me. “I’m Egghead. We’re a group of paranormal investigators. We work for a University out East. I’m the research team leader as I have a degree in parapsychology. We’re here because Mr. Voices has been having recurring dreams about this place. When Lumberjack, Squinty and Gizmo all started having the same dreams without first knowing about Mr. Voices, that cinched it. We decided to come to look for ourselves what was going on.”

Squinty was still giving me the eye. “Did you have them too? What did you see?”

“They’re not a psychic, Squinty.” Mr. Voices said. “No wiff of magic or the supernatural on them anywhere. They also appear to be in perfect health. If I hadn’t seen them shoot, I’d swear they were an ordinary person.”

“I can shoot well because I’ve trained my whole life.” I was in a bit of a huff. Like you need some supernatural gift just to land rounds on target. I had earned my skill, not been handed it at birth, damn it!

“Calm down.” Egghead said soothingly. “People are all born with what we call “Potential Psychic Energy or P.P.E. for short. Psychics burn off theirs when developing their powers. Arcanists such as Merlin cultivate and grow theirs to be tapped like a living battery. Most other people more or less squander their potential on whatever. Occasionally though, we have what we call a natural or genius. Someone who focuses everything they got on being good at one thing. A natural athlete or brilliant inventor might fall into this category. If I make my guess right, you’re a natural talent.”

I decided to grin and play with Egghead a bit. Besides, there was just something likeable about the guy. “Are you saying that I’m a natural born killer?”

“If killing is what you focused on while growing up, no doubt, you’re quite good at it. Maybe one of the best.” He said it so matter-of-fact-ly that he didn’t quite realize what he was saying until he was done saying it. Then his expression changed from one of intellectual curiosity to being quite disturbed.

The others also all looked quite disturbed.

Especially Mr. Voices.

Maybe it was because he could ‘see’ the truth in my mind.

Or perhaps it was because I stared longest and hardest at him.

I should have a little more on this a little later today. Cross your fingers.

Why would I cross my fingers if I wanted to hear more?
Couldn't I just tell you instead?

skeptic wrote:Why would I cross my fingers if I wanted to hear more?
Couldn't I just tell you instead?

It is merely a turn of phrase and has only the meaning one wishes to prescribe for it.

But if you are entertained by my attempts at fiction and wish to see more, than by all means, say so.

It's cold here in DC. The city is all but shut down right now and I'm not making much progress in the investigation. So I figured I might as well type up more of my experience from this past summer.

“Okay.” I said as I scanned their faces. “You all know what I do and what I’m about. I’m death given physical manifestation and all of that. Why don’t you all let me in on what your particular shticks are?”

“Like I said,” Egghead explained to me, “I’m a parapsychologist.”

“And as I have demonstrated,” Merlin added, “I am an arcanist. A wizard if you will. Magic and obscure knowledge are my forte’s.”

“As you’ve already surmised,” Mr. Voices put in, “I am a psychic. The world is an open book to me. Including you. And no, you mustn’t shoot me in the face.”

Lumberjack snapped his fingers and a tiny flame appeared over his thumb. “I burn stuff,” was all he said.

“I’m a psychic too.” Squinty said. “I don’t see stuff… normally. And I don’t burn stuff either. What I can do is effect the world with the power of my mind.” He didn’t demonstrate his abilities or explain any more than that.

“Egghead thinks I’m some sort of psychic too.” Gizmo was playing with one of his many tools. “I think I’m just good at fixing stuff. And making stuff. Just because some of that stuff works against the paranormal don’t mean nothing.” He almost seemed petulant about it.

So they had lots of knowledge and ability to seek out the supernatural. They even had some firepower at their disposal. But not one of them was a hitter. I guess that’s where I came in. How fortuitous.

“What we really need now is some sort of plan.” He looked over his shoulder to the townies. “There’s a lot of people depending on us.”

“Right, well some of them might have some skills we can use.” I pointed out. “We should start canvassing them to see what the sum of our resources are.”

There was a general murmur of agreement and we started talking to the crowd to see what they were capable of. I started with the young mother and child.

“Hi.” I said while approaching with the nicest smile I could manage. “My name is Nemesis*. Don’t worry, I’m here to help.”

She looked me over and there was a hint of fear in her eyes. I can’t blame her for that. “Is that why you didn’t run when you had the chance?”

“Yeah.” I said while thinking, That and apparently I’ve taken leave of all my senses. Out loud I continued, “So how did all of this start happening? Do you know?”

The woman shook her head. “No. I was just out to do some shopping with my husband. We were in the parking lot when we saw a bunch of them pulling people out of their cars. Fred… that’s my husbands name, he went to try and stop some of them.” She started to tear up at this point, “The grabbed him…. One of them… they pulled his arm right out off and clubbed him to death with it!” She broke down and started balling, her little baby joining in the chorus.

“Hey Nemesis!” Lumberjacket yelled over at me. “Could you maybe try to be useful instead of making things worse?”

I had a witty rejoinder lined up, really I did. Never got to use it though.

“What’s that guy doing?” One of the townies called out.

Pacer had walked over to the stairwell door. Like the elevator service door, it had a blue light glowing around the edges. “This is all crazy.” He was saying loudly. “I’m late for work. I have to get to work.” He put his hand on the handle and tugged at it. Initially it resisted but as his frown grew and he tried harder to open the door, the blue light flickered and then went out.

The door was open.

Almost immediately the walking dead began to pour in onto the roof. Rather oddly, they were ignoring Pacer. Just moving around him as though he wasn’t there at all. Like they couldn’t sense him at all. He just started pushing his way past them, saying, “Excuse. Let me by, please. I have to get to work. Pardon me. There’s a chap. My this stairwell is awfully busy.” Then he disappeared to the levels below.

To the credit of my colleagues, they reacted fast.

Merlin waved his arms and chanted in a language that sounded like Latin yet not quite. A blue glowing mat appeared in front of the door. When the corpses stepped onto it, their feet would not rise again. Soon their own bodies had caused a congested bottle neck that stopped those behind them.

But many were already past the area effected by the spell. I brought out one of my twins and started unloading on them. Watching the sheriff had already shown me that body shots were a waste of ammo. But hitting the heads was just so slow by comparison. Still, the 10mm did what it was supposed to and sprayed brains out the other side of their skulls.

Not that I can take all of the credit for it. My new team mates were more than pulling their own weight. Indeed, if I had been alone, I would have been overwhelmed. As it was, we just barely managed to take out those that got past the stop gap that Merlin created.

“That’s not going to hold them forever.” Merlin stated matter-of-factly as he tossed some sort of eldritch net over a new group trying to climb over their fellows to get to us.

“We have to get out here.” Squinty exclaimed, panic creeping into his voice. “Now!”

Gizmo was looking over the roof. “I don’t see any of them on the streets. They must all be in the building.”

“Probably in the stairwells, trying to get up to us.” Egghead was thinking out loud. “Maybe they’re just following the moaning. Like an undead call to dinner time.”

“But the elevator shaft might be clear.” Lumberjacket pointed out. “If a bunch of us get down and clear the way, we could send everyone else down with the elevator.”

“The elevator is all the way down on ground level.” I said. When they all turned to stare at me, I shrugged my shoulders. “I didn’t want them following me with it.”

“They’re probably not smart enough to use it.” Egghead said with a disapproving tone.

“Well, they should all probably be lying down, dead too.” I pointed out. “How’s that working out for us?”

“This isn’t helping.” Squinty said as he shot at some of the squirming dead trying to get free and closer to us. One of them actually tore away from it’s lower body and he had to shoot it several times to stop it.

“Okay,” I said as a plan occurred to me. “I’ll rappel down and get the elevator up here. Then we can start to ferry people down.”

The six looked at each other and them back at me. “One of us should go with you.” Egghead said weakly.

“Naw.” I shook my head. “I work better alone.”

Confidently, I walked to the elevator door. “Merlin, if you please?”

A short chant later and the door opened for me, revealing the black depths below.

*Not the name I used.

If the weather doesn't let up, there will be more either today or tomorrow.

Sebastian tells me I should keep writing this story. He doesn't beleive it, of course. At least not all of it. But he thinks it will be theraputic to write it all out anyway.

So here it goes...

I rappelled down, ‘Aussie’ style. As I approached the opening to the top floor, Merlin leaned into the shaft from above and did his mojo thing. The open air leading to the front door was replaced solid stone. That was a relief. I didn’t want to have to deal with those damned things.

Finally I made it down the top the elevator carriage. I opened the access door in it’s roof to reveal three of those things inside it. They were just milling around. The doors had probably opened when it got to this floor and then shut again after they walked inside, trapping them.

Using a silenced pistol, I sent them all to their final rest.

Then I climbed into the carriage. I no sooner hit the button for the top floor than I could hear a moan begin on the other side of the door. The doors didn’t open and the carriage began to rise. Relieved, I climbed back out to the top of the carriage.

At the top floor, the doors opened, showing the stone wall again. I shouted up. “All ready down here! Some of them are still on the main floor.”

Egghead popped his head into the shaft. “Okay. We’re going to leave Shifty and Merlin up here with the people. The rest of us are going to go down with you to clear the way. You’ll have point.”

“Gotcha.” Then I started helping my new allies down to the carriage. It was nerve wracking, working so close to those moaning, unholy mockeries of life.

Once the five of us were assembled in the carriage, Egghead hit the down button.

I had my shotgun out and ready as the door opened on the bottom floor. There was several of them right there and I started blasting away. Once the immediate area was clear, Gizmo tossed some sort of odd looking grenades. They exploded in bursts of light that did no damage to us or the building but disintegrated a number of the shambling dead.

Once the lobby was clear, we sent the carriage back up. While we were waiting, we started moving furniture to barricade the stairwell. Just in time as some of those things were starting back down to pay us a visit. I started shooting at them, trying to add to the barricade with their bodies.

Behind me, the first wave of civilians was arriving by elevator. These were the most fit and they were put to use helping set up barricades between the lobby and the front door.

I kept shooting. Methodical, aimed shots. One by one, the shamblers dropped as their brains got misted.

The second load of civilians arrived.

Egghead and Lumberjack went outside to grab a couple of vehicles.

The civilians started to file out to the street.

I kept shooting, keeping track of my dwindling supply of small arms ammunition. One of the civilians was helping. Reloading one pistol while I shot the other.

The next load from the elevator wasn’t civilians. Maybe they had been, but now they were dead. And of course, still walking. The building shook with an explosion originating on the roof.

My memory grows hazy here. Things start to blur together. We all started running for the trucks. I was going backwards, blasting at targets to cover the escape of the others. There was too damn many! Egghead was yelling something but I couldn’t hear him anymore. There was no sound in my world.

Somehow, I’m not sure exactly, we made it to the trucks. Most of us. The guy who was helping me reload hadn’t been fast enough. There is some irony perhaps, that he loaded the bullet that ended him.

My next clear memory, I was in riding shotgun with Egghead in a pickup, a bunch of civvies in the back. “What happened to Squinty and Merlin?”

“There was a flash as we were pulling up with these trucks.” Egghead was breathing hard, his eyes wide. “Looked like squinty was finally unleashing with his full power. I’m thinking that they must have finally pushed their way onto the open roof.” He swallowed. “I can only hypothesize that the explosion was Merlin using that so called anti-matter scroll he devised.” He shook his head. “They must have known they weren’t going to make it and tried to take as many of them with them as they could.”

I put a hand on his shoulder, “there are worse ways to go.”

“There are better ways to live,” he replied, not willing to meet my eyes.

We were headed for the highway, when up ahead we saw a roadblock. It was those hooded guys from the night before...



I told you guys that there was fireworks.

Let's go with compact longarm.

I was thinking the SA-80. Very good for in close, urban style combat like I've been finding myself in. Plus the British NATO rounds pack more powder than most other nations.

The downside is that it's kinda heavy and attracts rust like bees to honey.

Momma wants her the HK53, please and thank you.

I would have pegged you as a MC51 kinda guy.

Don't really operate with western guns.

I know that Natasha is fond of the MP5, but who wouldn't be.

You know, I don't use a whole lot of accesories. Scopes for rifles and lasers but that's about the extent of it. It's the influence of my ole Da, I think.