Urban Dead: The Price of the Oath

[Caz]

Sherry slung an arm around his shoulders, giving him a hearty squeeze. "C'mon," she said, "we're gonna need you at your best for this; just let it go. If we can help her, great, but if we're all dead then it's a moot point, eh?"

Up on the rooftop, Gwendolyn looked down onto the streets below. She had a near-perfect view of the two main intersections... good enough, looked like. She didn't say anything, but she knew he was still behind her.

[Pcm979]

He squeezed her back. "Then lets get a move on, hey?" He risked a little grin and they set off.

[Caz]

With Petro being gone, Melanie's bed was just too big. So she'd resolved to spend as little time in it as possible.

So far, she'd been pretty productive--helping Dorian in the infirmary, organising the last of the oil barrels and ballistas with Zimmerman--but she'd taken this last project to heart. When it was done, she leaned against an air conditioning unit with a satisfied smile. Her hands were covered with bright orange paint, as well as some flecks on her shirt and pants. But she didn't care; it was for a good project.

In gigantic, five-metre-high letters across the mall's rooftop, she'd painted the coordinates, radio frequency, and 'CAIGER MALL OUTPOST' in order to aid any contact the Irregulars made on their radio run.

Brushing her bangs from her eyes and inadvertantly smearing paint across her cheek, she sighed a bit, but smiled with approval.

[Josh]

Marley, who had drifted into a position as the overall commander of the militia somewhere along the way without anyone really noticing until after it'd happened, examined her handiwork.

"Nice job," he said. "Figure we got relief coming?"

Like any soldier, he was looking for the hot gossip on the situation, and who better to ask than the general's wife?

[Caz]

She looked to him with what was supposed to be a supportive smile-and-nod and instead looked stressed and almost nauseous. She set the painter's roller and bucket down and had to compose herself before speaking.

"If anyone can do it," she said, "he can."

She was smiling as she said it, but he'd easily get the impression that she said it in a decidedly non-smiling fashion.

[Josh]

"He's made things work before," Marley said agreeably. It'd been wholesale butchery, but they had defeated the horde.

Zimmerman approached them on the roof. "Marley, I need to talk to Silver."

The militia commander stared at him. "And? OH. You expect me to go find him for you."

"Yes," Zimmerman said, immediately turning to Melanie, having communicated his message. Marley rolled his eyes and walked off, grumbling something under his breath.

[Caz]

She said not a damn word on that subject. Melanie had learned very quickly that the best way to deal with the mall's command structure was to avoid choosing sides.

In the meantime, she cleaned up after herself.

Hm. Hopefully that orange will show through snow, too... Once it comes, that is.

If Zimmerman wanted to get Marley out of the way, he'd done it.

[Josh]

"There's a horde coming," Zimmerman said without preamble. "At least, it's passing through the area, and we have to assume they'll target us. At least a hundred, assume more mass by the time they get here. We have to be ready for it."

[Caz]

She spun on her heel, turning to face him as her hand flew to cover her mouth.

"Is it..." She started. "Are they...?"

Since he'd said it, she'd visibly paled.

[Josh]

"The 1st came across a survivor of a safehouse they smashed," he said. "They're still fine, light contact so far. We now have an asset in place to watch out for us, some woman of Petro's prior acquaintance. Apparently, she's in bad condition, but volunteered to overwatch and warn us if it started funneling our way."

He blithely strolled past the 'prior acquaintance' part. It wasn't that Petro had said anything on the radio, but he simply assumed that the man had made it with anything in a skirt back before the fall. Petro had spoken on the subject often enough.

"Her code name is 'Trouble'," he concluded.

[Caz]

"'Trouble'?" Melanie asked with a smirk. "Sounds about right, judging by the news she's brought."

Her gaze fell to the gravel-covered roof at her feet.

"I've got eighteen men in that area," she said quietly. Worriedly. Not that she was expecting sympathy from him, but she had to let him know. After all, they might get the casualties.

"If you get a call, the group's head is Freddie Malarkey."

[Josh]

He nodded, pulled out a notepad and wrote the name down. "Okay. Can you pull them in now? If they come our way, we're going to need every axe and spear at the walls."

[Caz]

"Already called 'em in because they've got two surgeons," she said. "What I'm worried about is if that mob of rotters get between them and us," she confessed.

She looked up to him.

"I did my best, we all did, but we know my people aren't fighters."

[Josh]

"At this point, everyone who can fight and isn't needed for critical medical services will be fighting, if it comes to that. Please bring them in."

The risk of them running afoul of the horde was worth it to him to have more men on the line. Human concerns didn't trouble him much, because either way, if they didn't come in that was no help to the defense.

[Caz]

"I understand," she said, "but what I meant is that they aren't fighters in the sense that they'll try to get to us no matter what, but they might get slaughtered on the way."

And that hurt, because they were loyal. And they'd do it. She hadn't thought this just a short while ago, but she knew better now.

"Also, I've got a group approaching from Lamport Hills. Bigger. Forty or so."

[Josh]

"We need them. Now. If the horde passes, then they can go back to their work, but..." he gestured. "We can put ninety people on the line right now. Meaning that we're starting out outnumbered."

[Caz]

She nodded.

"Don't worry; they'll come. That'll make our number about seventy."

Then she bit her lip a bit, chuckled nervously.

"I don't know if Petro gave you any bullshit about keeping me off the front lines 'cause of my condition and all, but you've full permission to fucking disregard it. Like his babbling matters on the subject anyway."

[Josh]

"Actually, he did mention that, and honestly it would be better to have you tending to casualties."

He paused for a moment, wondering if some sort of social frivolity was in order. Finally, he ventured out with one. "Congratulations, by the way."

[Caz]

And Melanie... Had not been expecting that.

Reflexively, she blushed and laughed a bit, fiddling with her hair. Nervous habit.

"Oh... Thank you," she said. And then: "I'm not surprised he said something... I break my goddamn back and he's eager to help me rehabilitate, but tell him I've got a baby in me and he won't let me dress myself."

[Josh]

"Sounds like him," Frank agreed, making a mental note in the plus column for this particular social frivolity. "Anyway, we all have work to do." He gestured toward the stairs.

[Cynical Cat]

It walked at the peripherary of the horde. It's flesh was tough and leathery, not rotten and decayed. It had availed itself of armour and weapons. A flak vest protected its chest and pistols hung at its waist. A shotgun was slung on its back and an axe was in its hand. It hungered. And it thought. It had named itself. Words floating in the altered chemical soup of its brain had come together. Words that somehow were associated with what it was now.

Wendigo Reaper raised its axe and buried it in the spine of the last zombie. It twitched and spasmed, ignored by others. Whatever reactions the zombies had to the living, they did not have to Wendigo Reaper. It raised its axe again and struck again, burying the blade deep into the upper back just below the neck.

From its improvised harness came another weapon. A meat hook. Wendigo Reaper drove it into the back of the zombie's skull and dragged it into the alley. The zombie was still twitching, but helpless like a pithed frog. Wendigo Reaper methodically severed his limbs.

He, he drew his knife. He was a he. He remembered that now. He had claws that could rend flesh, but he didn't use them. He began to slice of strips. Fresh meat was best, but this would do.

[Josh]

Wendigo Reaper's butchery took place as the horde proceeded by Petro's old flat. From the rubble emerged a second horde, much smaller than the first, numbering perhaps forty or fifty in size.

There was a moment as the hordes stopped, seeming to stare at each other. There was a strange, inhuman protocol to such things. Sometimes, the flesh-hungry masses would fall upon each other in a mass of cannibalistic fury.

And other times, like now, they would simply flow into each other. Where there had been two hordes, one resumed its slow, shuffling pace, moving inexorably toward the Caiger Mall.

[Caz]

Huddled in the pancho and with the blanket spread to cover her lower body, Gwendolyn suffered in silence in the hours after the Irregulars had left. Her eyes were sunken, cheeks hollow, and for all physical purposes, she resembled one of the staggering undead of Malton's streets.

For a few minutes here and there, she dozed. Tried to eat, couldn't keep it down, choked and coughed on the water.

The only thing keeping her alive was the thought that she'd see them again.

That she still had a chance at life. That doctor seemed competent... Seemed driven...

And it was at that thought that she heard them. Dozens of shuffling feet. She leaned forward, peering over the ramparts with large, frightened eyes.

And then she scrambled for the radio.

"Trouble to Head Hunter! Trouble to Head Hunter! They're passing right fucking below me!" Please answer...

[Josh]

The radio purred softly. Petro paused mid-crawl, holding up a hand and halting the progression. Fortunately, they weren't in anything too dangerous at the moment.

"Head Hunter here," he said softly. "What's up, Trouble?"

She was still alive, at least. That was good.

[Caz]

When she heard his voice, her heart slowed. Even if minutely. It meant that out in that city, there was someone else who was still human.

"There's nearly two hundred of 'em," she said, "they're passing right below me..."

A violent cough.

"... Straight for the mall," she finished.