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Dead Men Walking
Topic Started: Nov 28 2014, 02:20 AM (71,041 Views)
Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"Yep." Brandon agreed bringing his knife down into one's neck.

Thinking about the living was taxing enough, he didn't want to dwell on the dead. Especially when they were both trying to kill them. He put his foot down on the other rotter's back and was about to finish it when he realized there was an oportunity there. He put his knee down on its back and pulled its arms behind its back. The rotter gnashed its teeth futilely. Brandon looked towards Randall and then to Kelsey and back. This could be a good lesson for her learn what kind of force it takes to puncture a rotter's skull.
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
Randall didn't quite pick up on the cue; he raised a curious eyebrow to Brandon.

"What's the occasion?"
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"Safe practice scenario." Brandon clarified.
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
Randall couldn't help but smirk. He really appreciated Brandon's proactive approach to helping the younger members. His daughter included. He wished that he could help, but Brandon was far more knowledgeable on this sort of thing.

"Sure thing. I'll see if there's anything inside the shooting range while you do."
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"Kelsey. I want to show you something." Brandon said, beckoning her over with a flick of his head.

He maneuvered one of its arms under his knee so he could free up one hand.

"I want to show you where to stab or hit this thing. There's a spot on the side of the head, near the ear, I can't remember what it's called but it's the weakest spot of the skull. It's where a bunch of bones join up. It's about here, just above and forward from the ear. I want you to try and stab this thing as hard as you can right here. Just get an idea of how hard skulls are. It's not going anywhere so don't be worried, I've got him." he explained gesturing with his own knife where to stab.

"How do you know this shit? It's kind of weird." Julie asked.

Brandon's cheeks went a little red and he was suddenly reminded of how awkward he felt in school sometimes, before he learned to just not talk about the kinds of things his family did on weekends and holidays.

"Mom was a nurse. She taught me some first aid things and also a little anatomy, like where some major arteries and stuff are." he confessed, reminding himself there was no reason to be ashamed of any of that now.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Jeff listened with interest to Maxwell's explanation of the term 'zombie,' and then to Brandon's lesson on the weakest part of the skull. The latter was good practical advice he was going to try to keep in mind. The former was just neat trivia. He had heard the term a couple times back at Mount Kisco, spoken by people he was pretty sure didn't survive that bloody night. He wondered if they knew the back-story like Maxwell did, or if they had just heard it from someone like him and repeated it. It hadn't caught on as quickly as 'rotter,' so Jeff had never bothered to find an answer.

"Well, uh, cool," he said out loud. "And good to know. Good luck Kels."

She didn't really need luck. Brandon had the thing pinned down, it was just a matter of doing what he said. Getting up that close and personal with rotter brains was gross, though, so he decided to leave her to it and join Randall on his search.

He drew his hunting knife and idly experimented with different ways to hold it as he caught up to Randall.

"Notice how many of these fuckers are white?" he commented to him when he did. "Just typical, huh?"
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Is that so?
"What, do you want some affirmative action police rotters now?" Randall rolled his eyes. "Why is that shit so important?"

He wasn't sure if Jeff was being serious or not. But considering how well he got along with Roland and the other cops (that is to say not at all), he wouldn't be surprised either way. Then again, Randall had always gotten along pretty well with cops by contrast.

The inside of the shooting range was similarly grotesque; an additional 12 or so dead rotters were scattered about inside, laying on the ground or slumped against the tables. Two more cops lay at the far end. Unlike the others, these were half eaten and genuinely dead. The stench was about as pleasant as one could expect from a poorly circulated room with so many corpses stored inside of it. Although they all looked dead, Randall made sure not to place his feet anywhere near their heads.

"Hey, I think one of those cops is black." Randall smugly added.

Was it bad that black cops only reminded him of Roland? The reference sent a quick stab of emotional pain through him, but he quickly suppressed it. He had already mourned for his deceased friend.

**********

"It's not really that weird." Willow came to Brandon's defense. "They teach stuff like that in a few biology classes, too. Little things like that are the difference between life and death out here, you know? We should be glad for it."

Kelsey reached under her shirt and pulled the knife out of the waist of her jeans. She pulled the knife out of the sheath and held it in a reverse grip like she had seen so many others do when stabbing these things. She brought the knife down on the rotter's skull, but the knife didn't really go in like she had planned; in fact she did little more than break the skin, the rotter was far from dead.

"Whoa, that's harder than it looks." She pulled the knife back and prepared to try again.

She placed her other hand on the end of the hilt to give her a little more power and this time pushed in with both hands. It took a little bit of effort, but the blade did eventually slide into the skull and the rotter fell still. Killing rotters was not the same as killing animals; she accidentally killed an already injured squirrel with her bike once and felt terrible for a week after it. But she didn't feel any remorse for stabbing a rotter in the skull. Using both hands, she pulled the knife back out and imitated what she had seen her dad and the others do all the time; wiped the blade off on the clothes of the dead rotter.

"You guys make that look easy."
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Jeff held his tongue when Randall asked him about affirmative action. He had a sneaking suspicion that he didn't really care.

Afterwards, he followed Randall’s gaze around the room, cringing at the maybe-dozen dead bodies that littered it. At least a couple of them looked seriously mangled – like they were eaten alive when they were still human. Chunks of their faces were missing too, so they probably never reanimated.

“There’s always one,” Jeff remarked after Randall’s next comment. “Actually, I’m forgetting this is Canada – is racism even a thing here?”

Jeff settled on a reverse grip of the knife, and kept looking around for any sign of movement. He reminded himself of the incident in the woods this morning, and the lesson he learned from it – always be on your guard. Always.

“Hey, just in case we don’t find any around here, do you remember if there are any more .22 rounds in the truck?” he asked, moving on. “Turns out I'm running light on those.”

* * *

Eli sat behind the wheel of the F150, looking around, trying to stay deadpan and alert. He was having moderate success. His reasons for waiting in the truck were sound – it was higher off the ground, so he had a better vantage point, and if an emergency called for him to honk the horn, it’d be louder than the SUV. Still, every time he glanced in one particular direction, he flashed back to Mac’s body collapsing against the hood and sliding off. The memory was pretty distracting.

“Let it go,” he told himself out loud.

He was feeling truly alone out there in a way that he hadn’t in a few days, and the temptation to talk to himself had hit him like a cigarette craving.

“Let it go, or it’s gonna drag you down,” he said.

He was right, he knew it, but he didn’t know how to follow his own advice. Getting laid had helped, but only temporarily. Coming across Jeff and Willow in the woods had brought the guilt back in force, and it had lingered ever since.

Then he heard a sound, and his senses all rushed back to him. It was low and sustained, and far away. He focused on it. It was guttural and pulsating. Eli recognised it, though it had been months since he’d heard it before.

“A motorcycle,” he concluded, and his stomach dropped.

So Jeff wasn’t imagining things – or if he was, so was Eli. He didn’t think so, though, and the fact that he was now hearing it miles away from their last camp was a very bad sign. Could it have been related to the hunters after all? Did they follow the group here after they failed to fall into their earlier trap?

Eli got out of the truck, and drew his Supergrade. The feel of the grip granted him some small measure of comfort. He crouched and looked over the hood for a sign of life. He couldn’t find one.

The rumbling engine sound got closer and closer, and Eli tightened his grip on his pistol as he considered his options. He was only seconds away from trying to alert the group when the sound started growing dimmer. And dimmer. And dimmer.

In less than a minute, the noise was almost imperceptible in the distance. Whoever the rider was, he must not have gotten close enough for either party to catch a glimpse.

Eli sighed. Maybe the motorcycle didn’t have anything to do with them at all. Maybe his paranoia wasn’t justified. Maybe.

He still kept his gun drawn.
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
Brandon gave Willow a quick look and a slight smile. He appreciated the backup, though in Julie's defense some of his mother's anatomy lessons were about self-defense and that particular piece of information was about how to drop someone so they didn't get back up. It was weird. Frankly he was amazed he and Kyle turned out so relatively well adjusted.

Willow seemed like a such a natural to this, maybe it had taken some time to step up but once she had she seemed so... talented. When did she learn to shoot? Did her parents show her how to shoot? What was her family like? Where were they right now? How did she feel about it? Would she want to talk about that? How often did he talk about his family? He'd been thinking about them a lot but was he talking about them too much? Did he sound like one of those people who can only talk about their parents? Oh shit.

"Brandon, I don't think that guy's a threat anymore." Julie pointed out, walking past him into the range.

He was still kneeling on the rotter.

"Right." he said standing up and clearing his throat.

"There's one more still alive. I severed her... its spine, but its head is still alive. You wanna?" he asked, making a stabbing motion.
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
Kelsey walked over and practiced her new found stabbing skills on the rotter that Julie had mentioned. Instead of entering through the side of the head, she tried the back of the skull. It was difficult, but she eventually got the blade to go in. She was amazing that everyone was able to make it look so easy. Then again... they were a lot older.

**********

"I dunno. Isn't Canada just like America's hat at the end of the day anyway?" Randall contemplated out loud.

He picked a gun up off the ground; one that was next to one of the half-eaten officers. It looked like... a pistol of some sort? He was never very good with guns; it looked similar to the ones that Roland and the others had carried back in New York. Must be a pretty reliable gun if it was used by both countries. He ejected the magazine and, sure enough, it was empty. There was a second one on the ground by the other officer-in-training, also empty.

"Got two handguns here. Any idea what they are?" He presented them to Brandon as he came in. "Doesn't seem to be any spare ammo or anything out here. The officers here must have moved it all to the main building."

Randall's eyes fell to an old pamphlet on the ground, half buried underneath a dead rotter. For some reason, he leaned down and carefully dug it out. It was a map of the college! Now that he looked around, there were quite a few of them in here; there must have been a stand or something in here for the new guys before. Either way, it was a stroke of luck; the map had the layout of the entire facility. Most of the rooms looked like they would not be of much help; residence areas, classrooms, a library... but there was one room in the main building that really stuck out to him. Defensive Tactics and Firearms.

"But I think I know exactly where we can find them." Randall couldn't hide the smirk on his face, even if he had wanted to.
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
Brandon inspected the guns Randall handed to him. Along the slide he easily spotted the inscription that told him what he was holding. Popular gun.

"Sig Sauer P229, 9 millimeter. Very nice. They probably had some shotguns here too. Judging by the length of the range they probably had rifles too. That means a good chance of finding appropriate ammunition for our guns, the AR15 and FAL both take 5.56 NATO and the Ruger and Winchester are .308. We also need any .45 ACP we can find, but if they're all packing Sigs than we're not likely to find any, and like Jeff said we're getting low on .22 as well. They may have a variety of non-standard issue ammunition though if they were familiarizing cadets with multiple types of firearms, though I doubt it." Brandon mused out loud, placing the two firearms in his bag.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
"Hoo boy, that's a lot of letters and numbers," Jeff said. "I'm getting some traumatic flashbacks to math class."

He took one final look around this room and the mass of bodies contained. That was enough for him.

"If you know where to go, boss-man, I say lead the way."
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
"I'm with Jeff on that one; I'll just let you worry about the ammunition needs, Brandon." Randall could almost feel a headache coming on from that barrage of technical terms and numbers.

Honestly, Randall was glad to be leaving the shooting range. To echo something Willow had said a few days ago, it felt like a tomb. There were more than a few questions on his mind about it though; why were there officers out here? This was the direction of the parking lot, maybe it was possible they were trying to escape but didn't make it. If that was the case... then what were they running from? What were they going to find inside the college proper? He couldn't help but have a knot in his stomach simply thinking about it.

"According to the map, if we follow the sidewalk we are on now, we should arrive right where they store the guns." Randall pointed towards a pathway that led directly towards the nearest section of the building. "Am I the only person that thinks this feels too easy? Knock on wood, of course."

Well, it does make sense to store the guns near the shooting range. The obvious thought nagged on Randall as soon as he finished speaking.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
"Sometimes things are easy," Jeff said with a shrug. "But what do I know? If you want to turn back, let's turn back. Outside of that, let's just hope it's a gift horse waiting for us and let's keep our eyes away from its mouth."

Jeff realized he was talking a lot. It was something he usually did when he was nervous, or something he did to stave off nerves. Sometimes it was a choice between this and shutting down, like he had done briefly at the rec centre back in Patterson, and then more seriously at the border. In times like those, losing his voice had sent him down a dark path. Now that he had recovered, he worried that if he let himself get too quiet again, he would spiral.

Jesus, and I accused Andre of overcompensation, he thought bitterly, then forced a smile.

"I guess it's onwards," he said, when Randall didn't immediately object to his remarks. "And if we run into any more former New World Order soldiers-in-training, we'll just keep force-feeding them their own medicine."
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"It's the best bet we have to restock, realistically." Randall explained to Jeff as they walked. "After what happened at the border, I don't want to be caught unprepared. Rotters you can take care of with a strike to the head, but humans... for humans you really need bullets. I'm more afraid of them than the rotters now, to be honest."

The walk to the main building was short and uneventful. There were a few rotters wandering around nearby, but none of them were nearby enough to post much of a threat. In fact, most of them didn't even notice, just meandered aimlessly. They passed more dead rotters and broken glass, the rotters weren't enough to remind them that this was a war zone. It didn't take long before they found themselves at a back entrance to the building.

"It looks a little bigger in person." Randall made an off-handed comment.

"That's what she said." Willow slyly followed up.

"Really?" Maxwell protested. "Potty humor at a time like this?"

"Gotta keep the mood light."

"I dunno, that was pretty bad." Glenda teased with a smile.

"What, you too!?" Willow hung her head in shame. "Why do I even try?"

From the distance, Randall had thought it was a smaller building, but now it looked like it was at least two stories. At least from the 2 rows of tall windows, he would guess as much. Even if half of those windows were shattered, resulting in a lot of the glass they stood on now. Overall though, the building was not much to look at; it was a monotone adobe color all around with the occasional insignia of the college; a badge that read "ONTARIO POLICE COLLEGE" above it, with a laurel underneath that read "INTEGRITY. KNOWLEDGE. COURAGE." The only real variation seemed to come from the, at best, unusual shape of the building. There appeared to be a main, oblong shaped center with wings of varying size and shape branching out from it. According to the map, they were at the back end of the building, which housed the Defensive Tactics and Firearms room, the Drill Hall, and some sort of pool and physical recreation center. The map was not only poorly labelled, but covered in rotter blood. He probably should have taken a better map.

"Are we all ready?" Randall asked as he placed his hand on the back door.
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