On Death's Doorstep

[bloodsrain]

Mason moved behind Davey, keeping watch of the nearby doors for the sign of any of the infected. "It's quite." Mason said, his eyes darting around the room. "I was suspecting more would be here, they must be deeper in the facility or on the upper levels." he muttered, checking some of the patient beds. "The stench in here is horrid, then again, you would expect that from a lab full of decaying bodies."

The squeaking and the occasional shadow from down the hall was the biggest of his concerns, the thought of how many could be down there was enough to make him shake in his boots. The horrors of infected mutations and experimentation was something they were most likely going to have to deal with. "We could check all the rooms, though im not sure what you are going to find other than basic medicine."

[lukuz13]

July 7th, 2022 Thursday. Huntington, West Virginia

-As Jake and Phil reacted with speed, that left their friend, Alex, standing in the wake of the fearsome undead. Jake's fire managed a nice hit, blasting a hole in the skinless abomination's body as it stumbled into his target. Sadly, that did not stop it's next move. It's claws immediately dug into Alex's ripe open throat, and, like it was grabbing the root of some stubborn weed, ripped the jugular from the man in a frenzied roar of gory violence. Blood absolutely showered the creature, making it's already reddish body even darker read, as it pinned Alex to the floor and began to viciously tear off the man's flesh as quickly as it possibly could. Four arms, each grabbing at his flesh and tearing it away, some bits of flesh finding it's crooked jaws, others simply falling to the floor. The fountain of blood did not stop, however, and it did well in distracting the monster long enough for Jake or Phil to get a good bead on the thing.

-Harrison followed Davey's example much the same, pulling open a few cabinets as they made their way into the floor. He turned to Davey midway
"So...any idea what we're looking for? I mean, I know we wanted to come here to look for proof or...a cure or something but...what would that be, exactly?" He tried to work out of his friend, stepping past a patient that had apparently been shot in bed, closer to the sound, raising his gun, just in case.

As the men made their way deeper into the floor, Harrison opened up a room and gasped at the sight. He paused, turning back and waving over the others.
"Well at least we know where some of that noise is from..."
Inside was what appeared to be an aged infected, an old rotten corpse, thrashing violently against restraints apparently set in by whoever was tending to her ages ago. The restraints groaned under the thin bony arms, but evidence of flesh being cut into along the wrists was obvious, though the bone refused to give way. "Jesus Christ..." He groaned, holding a hand over his mouth at the sight.

[graybeardhalt]

As soon as the beast and Alex hit the floor, Jake began to line up his shot. The first blow was enough for him to see that the boy wasn’t going to make it, and his expression hardened to a stone mask. A limb flew up into his line of sight, but as soon as the spray of blood thinned, Jake unloaded every last bullet his magazine was holding into the thing’s head. The first shot slammed into its skull, but all it seemed to do was piss it off even more. It looked up from its prey and let out a gurgling roar, blood pouring from its mouth as it bared its teeth. It shifted an inch towards Jake before the second shot hit, just a hair away from the first, forcing its head to jerk backwards and knocking it slightly off balance. The third shot landed not even a second later and sent the beast flying backwards at least a foot, its body sprawling onto the ground, its cries still being forced through the mouthful of blood of both its prey and its own. Jake quickly stood up, running over to the beast and planting his foot on its throat. As soon as his boot connected, all 4 claws rushed up, trying to stab at any flesh they could find, but Jake’s pistol roared one last time and the infected fell limp, more blood pouring out of its body than should have been physically possible.

Jake didn’t even wait a breath before unloading the magazine on top of the corpse, loading in a new one, and holstering the pistol all in one fluid, practiced motion. His face still showing no emotion whatsoever, he walked over to Alex’s corpse and began looting. It was difficult, due to all the blood and gore, but he managed to salvage the things of worth. He piled everything just outside of the blood pool that was beginning to form, tossing the things that were either too soaked to spend time repairing, or just useless to begin with. By the end, he had an M16 carbine that was only semi-soaked, an extra glock, a crowbar, a completely drenched backpack, a hatchet, a couple of food cans, and a neat little stack of different ammos. Giving the corpse one final pat down, he quickly stepped over to the pile and began packing everything he could into the soaked backpack. Annoyed that the carbine and crowbar were too big, he grabbed the former, shouted out to Phil, and tossed it to him, making sure that he actually caught it. He then grabbed the bag, threw it over his own shoulder and stood back up. “You’re on deadweight duty now, unless you’d rather leave him. Wouldn’t blame you. Though I’m surprised we haven’t heard-“ at that exact moment, a howl echoed from outside. Followed by another. And another. “Shit, there they are. Either pick him up, or leave him. I’ll see if the back’s open.”

Without waiting for an answer, he quickly turned back towards the kitchen and ran in, fishing his flashlight from the side of his pack as he went. After a second of darting around, the beam of light fell on another gruesome sight. A corpse, one that had been there for a while it looked like, fully decked out in SWAT gear, and was lying next to a stove. It looked like all the creature had been able to do was rip out his throat, because everything else looked untouched. After a moment of hesitation, Jake groaned and gave into his looter instinct, dropping his new bag and running over to the corpse. After only a few seconds, he had stripped off the tactical vest, grabbed the pistol strapped to the corpse’s hip, all the clips that he could find, and the M5 lying across his lap. The roars were closer now. A little too close for comfort. He stuffed the tac vest and ammo into the reddened bag, strapped the crowbar to his own pack, picked up the M5 and called out to Phil to join him. That incredibly stupid idea had cost them precious seconds, but at least the back door wasn’t locked. “Jesus fuck, come on!” was all Jake managed to yell before charging the door, kicking it open and running out at full speed.

[ohlook]

Lucy went quiet for a short while, digesting her own thoughts and Brian's outburst both. This...might not have been the best time. Each time we rise, I bring us down. Typical. Speaking came unsteadily, like raising a hand against the waves - in this case, his. Easily it could, would snap. "Look at me," she began, walking over to face him directly, tipping his chin up to hers with a single slender finger. Slick with tears on what clean patches remained; she wouldn't let be the final crumbling. "Look at me," she repeated, firmer, feeling as though she was talking to a paper bag.

"If I'm going to go off by myself, that's my choice - fucking nihilism if you want to call it that." She felt like laughing at the absurdity of the situation. An antisocial, mildly unhinged mechanic with a deathwish, comforting an older man at the end of the world! And just after explaining her intent, striving to bring him back to his normality, no irony intended...what a joke.
"But you're different. Not me. You...fit well with other people, let them believe they can get through things together."
She became conscious of the tent flap rustling and hesitated, though opting to continue nonetheless. Who cares what they thought? They'd be dead soon anyway.
"So live. Get whatever you can out of things while they last. The rest of us...we're already lost, struggling on that same old doorstep before it comes crashing down. The same needn't be said for you lot - don't join us if you don't need to."

[Fallout'sTooLazyToSignIn]

Lewis looked around the room, trying to determine what the hell had happened in here. He scanned every inch, and soon saw a surgical supply table with a various assortment of tools covered in dried blood, and even a few anesthetics. In the corner he noticed the body of a doctor sitting, slouched over with dried blood covering the wall next to his head. Lewis assumed he must've shot himself, though he didn't see a gun near the man's hand. Maybe someone found this room before they did and took it? He didn't want to think about it too much.

Not seeing anything else noteworthy, Lewis turned to the others, a worried look on his face, "I'm thinking they were torturing this guy. These people might be a lot more fucked up than we thought." He then turned to the person strapped down, unsheathing his machete as he walked over to them. He stood in front of the zombie, watching its thrashing become more and more violent the closer he was, "Shame these things can't talk," was all he said before delivering a quick, powerful slash that decapitated the zombie.

[ballerscuba]

"I don't know," Davey responded to Harrison. "But, we're heading in the right direction. I know that much right now. Looks to me like they turned before they were strapped down. That means that they have medical information on them. While that doesn't mean they have a cure, it does mean they have something, even if it just means an easier way to kill them." Davey was suddenly reminded of dandruff shampoo, though he could not remember why that was important. He finished searching through a few rooms, plucking what few medical supplies were still salvageable.

That's when he heard the clang of Lewis slashing at the zombie. He walked over to see what Lewis had done. "A shame they can't talk?" he said. "Yeah, allowing them to communicate would really help us in the long run. Maybe we could let them form a cult and then they'll all kill themselves in hopes of reaching paradise. Or maybe, it's better that we keep them as silent as we can, considering that we don't know what waits in the bowels of this place. I'd rather not give anything the knowledge that we're headed their way. Maybe find a quieter way to kill him next time."

Davey headed over to Mason. "Where was your desk? Further down? How much worse than this does it get down there?"

[sleix]

Desperately trying to prevent himself from vomiting, Phil gagged rather violently. It was something quite more horrific seeing a person die that wasn't already rotten and shambling, he thought he was use to death by now, but he was merely accustomed to seeing something less than human be killed. What sounded like a thousand hands thundered on the walls, each one bringing the polyphony closer to its climax, there was no time to mourn a death which was insignificant at the present moment.

Phil dropped the crowbar and the rifle and hauled the boy, in a fireman's lift, onto his shoulders. He hastily grabbed the objects, struggling to hold them in one hand; Phil turned to see the makeshift barricades splinter and the first wave of infected pour through. "Jesus fuck, come on!" Jake's voice called from the back room. He sprinted as fast as his fatigue and sprained leg would allow, leaving the growls and moans of the horde behind as he ran out the back door into the empty void of the street.

[bloodsrain]

Mason nodded. "It's a bit further down the way, this whole level is mostly just patient work, taking samples of blood and DNA. This area here is where the less infected patients were held, further down this corridor were the more severe cases. Except for that, I have no idea how much further this goes down, my best guess would be a level or two, but I never went down there." He said, gripping his head at the sight of the place. "It's amazing how bad things got, and so quickly as well. I would have never imagined..."

He turned to the moaning zombie. "Best not silence him, we don't know what could happen if we killed it. They might notice the sudden cut off of noise, it would be best that we keep things the norm as much as possible. The more attention we get, the more likely we are going to be facing some of the more advanced infected." As he looked down at the man though, he swore he could see some familiarity in the man, obviously he looked more paler and disfigured, but he could definitely see this was one of the former patients he was working with. Though the man seemed to be in great agony, if they could even feel true pain anymore, he felt sympathy for it. Snapping out of it, he looked at Harrison and Lewis, motioning them to follow him further through the facility."I recommend grabbing one of the surgical masks laying around, I imagine the stench down there is going to be worse than the usual. Even a little filtration I am sure will help out."