162 replies to this topic

[some_weirdGuy]

Kelvin was so tempted to go on one, but held back his desire. Although he loved the thrill of riding, he wasn't to good on a bike, and was sure he would be even worse with a bunch of infected getting in his way...

Edited by Cheshire Fox, 20 May 2008 - 06:59 PM.
a comma is not an acceptable substitute for a period

[southsidediablo]

John looked up. Back in his teenage days he would ride dirtbikes around the woods and towns. "I'll take that third bike. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to handle it like a pro."

[Fire Ze Missiles!]

((OOC: Hey guys. I'm gonna post about our hurried departure on Thursday when I have more free time; in the meantime, load up, mount up and post up. ))

[some_weirdGuy]

((rofl, every post I have made recently has been edited by Cheshire Fox for spelling/grammar))

Edited by Cheshire Fox, 21 May 2008 - 06:59 PM.
"i" should be capital/there is no escape from me, even in OOC

[Copaman]

"Sounds good. We've got one left - who wants it?"

[Fire Ze Missiles!]

((OOC: OK, whoever does want it, go ahead and say so in the following action.))

It was several hours later, and night had fallen across the land. Along with several of the fort's residents, Dean had volunteered to stand watch for the the night. Looking out over the darkened plains before him, his thoughts turned as ever to the sleeping Helena, lain in the back of one of the trucks in the garage.
'What if she never wakes up?'
An eerie wolf howl split the silence of the night from somewhere far off in the distance, but cut off abruptly. Nobody on guard seemed bothered by it, as the small number of infected at the 'gates' had not responded to it. Dean forced himself to relax, and sat down on the ledge of the roof. He stared into the dark distance, and thought of happier days...
After some time had passed - Dean had no idea how long - he was suddenly jerked from his revery by whispered voices to his left. He glanced over and saw two other guardsmen talking in low voices. He moved closer in order to pick out the words.
"Look, it's probably nothing. Just some dust-devils." one of the men was saying.
The other looked uncertain, and replied doubtfully. "Dust-devils that big? I dunno man...maybe we should wake the others." But the first man simply scoffed, and moved away.
Dean looked out to the horizon to make his own assessment, and sure enough, a cloud of rising dust was just visible in the darkness. He decided that the man's worries were not unfounded - Dean had seen enough rising dust-clouds to know that they usually meant large numbers of something moving. He turned to the hesitant man, who was still looking out uncertainly, and reassured him.
"I think you're right. I'm gonna go tell Jim-" His words were cut off as he staggered back onto the roof, clutching his head. An ear-splitting scream rent the air as if reality itself was tearing in two. It was a scream of anger, of hatred, of denial. It was a scream that brooked no argument.
Dean, fallen to his knees, looked up fearfully as the terrible noise receded. "What the fuck was that?!" uttered the now terrified man beside him. Dean did not reply, for he knew the answer well enough already. There was only one thing that could make that sort of noise. The Screamer was back.

And sure enough, in a moment of horrible clarity, Dean could make out the noise of thousands upon thousands of running feet...

Edited by Cheshire Fox, 22 May 2008 - 08:07 PM.
there was a missing "e"

[Copaman]

((OOC: OK so I had a beautiful post up leading ALL THE FUCKING WAY up to the showdown between Ryn and the Screamer. Until Windows Explorer (Your StartBar pretty much) and my U3-powered flash drive crashed simultaneously. Now I can't get back onto Opera which is housed in the flash drive to recover the post. Which was beautiful.

Also, this weekend is a 4-day weekend out of school for me. Next post date will either be later this weekend (gonna weasel some more internet time) or Tuesday next week.))

[war_angel]

The screamers high pitched wail, rused throught he building, and Silva knew instantly what it was. He jumped from where he was laying, "They're fucking coming" He yelled as the noise of thousands of feet filled the air. He grabbed his weapons, his scoped rifle in hand, with his M4 and shotgun strapped to his backpack. He ran towards the barricade, where he found a few others that were already up. He propped up his rifle, and scanned the horizon with the scope.
"We are so fucked"

Edited by Cheshire Fox, 26 May 2008 - 11:34 PM.

[Fire Ze Missiles!]

Darkman strode purposefully through the dark hallways, panicked people rushing past him in all directions. He felt like the eye of the storm, an oasis of calm in the desert of fear. As he moved past the frontline barricade, he shouted out to the defenders looking anxiously out at the horizon as the noise of stampeding infected reverberated through them.
"Everyone! Get to the trucks! We need to leave, now!"
He began to jog, hoping to find Jimmy. Sure enough, the commanding figure of the fortress's long-time residents was walking straight towards him.
"Jimmy!" he hailed him, "We gotta go. That sound - it comes from one of them. He's a huge motherfucker and he don't give up easy. Plus we sort of pissed him off last time we met. Oh, and he's got four arms."
Jimmy struggled to take in all of this at once. "Wait, four arms, what?"
"Look, the point is we have to get the fuck out of here, or we'll be literally devoured. So help me get everyone into the trucks and outta here. I'll go get the guys on the roof."

[Vortigern]

Augustus heard the bizarre conversation between Jimmy and the one called Darkman. Four arms? How was that possible? Holding his sword one-handed, and the pistol in his other, he felt like an officer from the Civil War or from Napoleonic times, except of course that his sword was from China and several hundred years old. Wondering what he should do now, Augustus found himself drawn towards the wall. An officer should lead from the front, he thought vaguely, but mostly adrenaline was too busy pumping up his body to care about thinking. The fight or flight hormone; Augustus was very much a fight man.

[some_weirdGuy]

Kelvin woke up, the nightmareish vision still in his head, as someone came running past where he was sleeping, he pulled out his ear plugs
"wha.."
"Hey! You! Get Up And Spread The Word! We Have To Move Now!"
"move.. why?"
"something about a screaming infected..."
now Kelvin was wide awake
"Holy crap!... uh, ok then, i'll get everyone i can" he grabbed his stuff, which he had left next to him, and started scrambling around, waking those still asleep, but there weren't many, the screamer had at least partially woken up everyone...

[Copaman]

Ryn knew his time had come.

"This thing is not coming to kill all of us," he spoke up above the din, "It is coming for me and me alone. I want everyone to get into their respective vehicles and leave, now. I will take care of as many of them as I can; do not wait for me. I can promise you that one day, I will return to aid the group. Until then, do not look back nor feel sorrow for me."

He then turned and walked to the store room to gather his weapons, ignoring the pleas for him to rethink his position. Two backpacks full of C4, a shield, a spear, and a sword. Two RPGs and a sack full of rockets.

Further ignoring even more pleas now that everyone could see he was serious, he seperated a small section of barricade and walked out into the former parking lot. Jim ran up to him. "Sure you want to do this?"
Ryn merely nodded.

And the Screamer knew. "Your... soul... be... mine... will..." He tele-spoke to Ryn.

[Paladin58]

"Well, damn it, if you're going to go play 'Kamikaze', then you're at least getting some support fire. And a spear? Shield? Unless you're going to make that spear into a stabbable explosive with that plastique, get some real weaponry," grunted Titus, looking through the endless ammunition stores and weapon caches for what he figured Ryn would have: a Vulcan minigun turret with 2000 rounds; an AA12 combat shotgun, preloaded with titanium/tungsten flechette rounds, no less; and a Barret anti-tank rifle. He handed the shotgun to Ryn. "You'll do more damage to him with that in three seconds than you would even try to inflict with those ancient weapons."

"Don't be stupid, keep this in your favor."

"And, for the love of God, take this with you," he said, while handing out a battery-operated headset. "I'm gonna be sitting on top of the walls, giving you some serious cover fire. Just talk to me when you want me to take the shot. We'll see how that thing takes to rounds the size of my thumb punching through it at twice the speed of its scream."

Edited by Nology5890, 25 May 2008 - 08:03 AM.

[Fire Ze Missiles!]

After some minutes of confusion, everyone had finally made it to whatever vehicle they were travelling in. Ryn stood at the head of the bloodied column, waiting. The noise of stampede washed over the survivors like the seas upon the shore. It reverberated through their very essence, seeking to shake them from their own skeletons with its tremendous sound.
The wash of noise was interrupted by a loud chattering as the automated miniguns opened up with the last of their ammunition. Behind the barricade, the survivors could not see the carnage being wrought, but the screams of dying infected were evidence enough. Suddenly, the first wave threw themselves bodily into the barrier. There was a tremendous crash, and an ominous groan. Then the rest of the horde's momentum impacted and the barricade collapsed spectacularly.
And that was the signal. With engines already gunned, the convoy surged forward, pouring a storm of fire into the newly opened breach. Against this sudden surge of fire-power, the undead were literally shredded, de-atomised. They became no more than clouds of blood-mist as the trucks and bikes roared through the gap, forcing a wedge into their numbers.
While the force of the charge still lasted, the armoured trucks crashed onwards...

[Copaman]

((Nology - I'm assuming you're going to have Titus ditch on one of the remaining motorbikes after a bit? Ryn isn't going to make it through this showdown... or at least not for a while lol. He's going the same route as Gary.))

Ryn had grabbed the shotgun - while he didn't think it necessary, Titus is not one to argue with over weaponry. And to be perfectly honest, Titus underestimated Ryn's proficiency with sword, shield, and spear.

After the barricade has fallen, Ryn walked calmly out of the storefront, weapons hanging off his shoulders, arms, legs, and wherever else he managed to get them to stay. The incredible quantities of infected turned to attack, swarming to within inches of his actual flesh; and then stopped. They swayed for a moment, and then nodded. Like Moses parting the Sea, the waves of infected split to reveal Ryn's opponent - the Screamer. Use them on you, I will not. You fight me and only me fight you.
"Well then," Ryn called back, "How about you move them off a few more yards? If it's only going to be me and you, I'll take all the space I can get."
"Titus," he spoke into the headset, "it wants a fair sort of fight - mano a mano. Take one of the bikes and get out of here, there should still be two left. I can handle this."

The hordes backed off about twenty more yards, much to the enjoyment of Ryn. "Now, let's get started!"

He dropped his bags, clutching the two rocket launcers in each hand. The 300-esque setup was slung around his back, and the shotgun bounced off the shield noisily. As the Screamer began to run, Ryn took aim with the first RPG at a point where the Screamer would be in about 3 seconds. The rocket flew, hit the ground, and exploded. The Screamer was five yards left of the blast, but still running; and gaining speed. Ryn pulled up another rocket from one of the bags, and attached it. He then launched the two rockets he had armed simultaneously - one landed where the Screamer was running towards, and the other about five yards left of the first.

Ryn's strategim payed off: He could see the Screamer picking itself off of the ground slowly. Time to finish him, Ryn thought. He pulled two more rockets out of the bag (his final two), and armed them. He fired.

Wha...?

The Screamer got itself off of the ground faster than expected, and managed to diflect the rockets skyward with its forearms. "Shit."

Out of long-range explosive, Ryn turned to his trusty backup plan, hollow-tipped ammo in an MP7. Peppering the Screamer didn't seem to slow it down, regardless of the strange brown-green bloodgunk squirting out of holes. Just like the Flood from Halo? Full auto didn't slow it down either, and the gun clicked empty after an eternity of continuous fire.

As the Screamer drew closer, Ryn spread his feet apart and put one slightly in front of the other. He had no idea what for - all he knew was that he saw a bullfight in Mexico and that was the stance the bullfighter used. Then again, the bullfighter was only dodging a bull; a giant slab of meat and two horns with limited intelligence. Ryn, on the other had, was dodging the Screamer; a giant slab of decaying meat and four arms with as much (if not higher) intelligence as a human. But Ryn had a shotgun... maybe it evens out?

[Paladin58]

"Take one of those arms off with that shotgun. Even it up a bit for yourself," radioed Titus, still watching the fight through the rifle's scope, listening to the steady rumble of the Kawasaki down below. He had it there for a reason, to jump down on it. Since the wall was only twenty feet, he was feeling confident that it wouldn't hurt when he landed. Much.

"Okay, I'm pulling out. You just take that damn thing down, 'kay? I'm expecting you at that safe zone no more than two hours behind us. And if you don't, I'll come back and kick your ass." he radioed again, with a chuckle.

[Copaman]

Ryn got Titus' transmission, just before he tore the headset off. The Screamer was mere seconds away, and Ryn was ready.

It came in wildly, swinging its arms in what appeared to be a feeble attempt at a bear-hug-of-death. Ryn stepped out of the way, and let loose a blast from the stogun. The Screamer stumbled back, clutching one of its arms. When it pullled its hands away, Ryn saw just how much damage he had done - the forearm was hanging by a single tendon, nearly severed at the elbow.

A scream, and another charge. But this charge was smarter: it came in slowly at first, staying just beyond the effective range of the shotgun. It circled around Ryn once, and then made its charge in a curved-zigzag pattern. Leading with the side which still had two working arms, it pounced much faster than the first charge. As Ryn dived backwards out of the way, he fired. The Screamer managed to catchthe great shotgun after the fire with one fist, however, knocking it from Ryn's hands.

Shit. I wanted to use that.

This time, the Screamer was slower to get up. Ryn could see a tremendous amount of bloodgunk pooling around its feet, and more running down its ankles. As it returned to an upright position, Ryn saw that he had hit his target - the burst had hit the abomination in the middle of the thigh, removing a chunk of flesh that was a big around as Ryn's torso was high. He could see the muscles of the great beast, struggling with the fact that they were no longer continuous. The blood vessels releasing their precious cargo into the light of day. The major artery of the leg whipping about wildly now freed from that which held it previously, spraying its contents about. The bare bone, lacerated by the pieces of shot which hadn't managed to penetrate all the way through. And the mega-plateletes, repairing the damage even as Ryn watched at an astronomically unhuman pace. Time to finish this for real, he thought to himself.

He pulled the sword-shield-spear setup around from his back. Removing the spear and the sword, he put the shield back - that would come later. In the meantime, the Screamer had collapsed again, realizing that it was in no shape to stand let alone attack. Ryn walked up to the thing, and pulled his spear back. Stepping through to magnify his thrust, he punctured the thing's throat, and repeated for the chest. He then used the sword to hack away what was left of the dangling forearm, and cut clen through to the bone on the other three arms. He looked at the leg - the plateletes were working faster than he had expected.

Ryn ran back to his bags, and brought forth the two bags of C4. He hooked one side of the handcuffs he had brought through the hole in its throat, and locked it. The other side of the cuffs pair was locked to one of the bags of C4. Duct-tape and the massive leg wound provided the anchoring point for the other bag. As he put the detonators into the plastic explosive, he noticed something was wrong. He had grabbed timer detonators instead of remote detonators. And they were couting. Ten Seconds.

He sprinted as far away as he could in five seconds, and threw the sword and spear as far as he could. Whirling around as the count reached two, he brought the sword up to protect himself, and got down in a crouch.

The explosion. Ryn had not run far enough to be completely free of the blast radius. The initial shockwave knocked him from his guard position... the blast itself singed his skin, the heat burned his lungs and throat. Handcuff shrapnel tore his calf apart and popped one of his eyes out. He had blacked out after the shockwave - he felt nothing.

As the others drove further and further away, Screamer flesh began to rain down upon the horde. Chunks of various sizes fell from the sky, pelting the infected who presumed that surely Ryn was dead beyond even the abilities of the virus. No need to try and bring something back if it's only a waste of your time.



|||||||||||

The Convoy

|||||||||||


Jim used his headset to comunicate with those in the van while he was scouting ahead on the bike.

"No bogeys up ahead, kind of strange. They must all be with that thing fighing Ryn. Is this what you guys always do, get somewhere, get confronted, and then find a new place to go to?"

[southsidediablo]

"Yeah, that seems to be the general pattern. So exactly how far away is this place?"

[Paladin58]

Titus saw the closing moments of the fight between the Screamer and Ryn. God damn, he's proficient with that ancient stuff, he thought to himself. Then, as he saw the monster go down, and Ryn plant the explosives, he trained his eye on one of the packets of C4: 10 seconds. Shit! he thought, and tried to warn Ryn, not seeing him rip the earpiece from his ear.
"Ryn, the bombs, they've got a timer, you've gotta... Ryn? Ryn?! RYN!"
I've gotta get out of here. Whether Ryn makes it or not. Sorry, man, he thought as he dropped to his Kawasaki crotch rocket.

[Fire Ze Missiles!]

The trucks cut a bloody swathe through the horde of sprinters hurling themselves bodily at the convoy, gradually forcing through them into the open space beyond. It was not a hard fight by the standards the survivors were used to as the infected were distracted by the fight, and as the blazing explosion consumed the Screamer his mental death-throes forced most to their knees in pain and fear. Without his binding influence, the pack dispersed, fleeing from the clearly impregnable mobile fortress presented by the convoy. The trucks broke free of the enemy and roared away from the scene...

***

As the prey escaped, the Screamer lay, furious, humiliated in a widening pool of his own vital fluids. Even his primitive intelligence knew that he would not survive forever. The extraordinary powers of regeneration to which he claimed right were keeping him alive, but he was too badly damaged to be truly repaired without intensive attention.
An hour passed. The Screamer was, by this time, the only infected presence left in the area. He lay still, covered in blood, staring up at the lightening sky. There seemed little else for him to do. Eventually, he knew, his injections would lose their potency and he would die here, in this barren spot in the middle of nowhere with no company but the prey who slew him and the grey, empty skies.
With a tremendous effort, he rolled his enormous body over onto the front. He could now see the human, lying motionless on the ground. But the Screamer had not had his vengeance. He would devour the frail body completely. Perhaps what little sustenance it would provide would allow him to recover and survive. Reaching out his one remaining functional limb, the Screamer dragged himself across the ground towards his helpless victim, leaving a sticky red trail behind him. Slowly, oh so slowly, the dying creature pulled its shattered body over the rough ground, a hungry grin spreading across its distorted features. Rain began to fall, thick, heavy drops, making the very air seem damp. Heedless of the enormous pain it was causing itself, the Screamer moved over the wet ground. It was so close. It could taste the scent of its prey, the stench of blood not his own exciting it. Just a few more feet...
Suddenly, the dim light of the grey dawn was blocked out. Growling in anger, the Screamer looked up, only to find himself face to face with the creature of his own kind that had attacked him. That had been just before...Consumed by fear, the Screamer whined and tried unsuccessfully to push itself away from the presence before it.
Alpha looked down sadly, and shook his head. His arms had not yet grown back fully.
'Time to die brother.' he sent. His foot descended on the Screamer's head with crushing finality, and unleashing one final cry, the spirit of the beast passed into the void...