Urban Dead: United We Stand

[Pcm979]

3rd July, 2005

Dave Mclean slumbered peacefully under the latest edition of the Malton Courier, his nose brushing the day's half-completed crossword. The brass NecroTech symbol, an N and T set at committee-approved exciting angles, glinted on the desk in front of him.

Suddenly there was a growl from in front of him, and the newspaper was ripped away from his face ferociously. He shot to his feet and let out a yelp-

Michael Freeman stood in front of him, laughing his head off.

"You should've seen your face!" Crowed Mike, taking his glasses off and wiping his eyes. "That was priceless."

"You... You dick!" Dave slumped back into his chair. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

"Ah, but that wouldn't matter, hey? I'd just take you out back and shoot you full of our miracle cure." Mike pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and grinned.

Dave shuddered. "No thank you. I'm quite happy on this end of the needle."

"Speaking of that," Mike waved his hand towards a heavy door at the back of the room, "It's our turn in the freezer."

Dave shivered, not just from the memory of the cold, but stood up and stretched, then headed for the door.

"Oh, Dave? Try 'Aphorism.'" Called Mike from behind him.

"What?" He turned back.

Mike tapped the crossword. "Eight letter word for rule."

Dave shook his head. "Dick." He repeated, but grinned despite himself.

[Pcm979]

"Your resignation will be accepted, Lieutenant."

"So that's how it's going to be, then?"

"Damn it, Petro, what were you expecting? You started a bloody riot! Ten men in the hospital!"

"I respectfully submit that fourteen people do not constitute a 'riot'. I've been to riots- they're much more populous."

"Are you expecting to charm your way out of this?"

The precinct commander fixed Petro with a steely glare. "For the past year, you have grown more and more erratic. At first allowances were made, due to your past performance. That was obviously a mistake."

"Obviously," Petro replied bitterly.

"Be petulant all you wish, this is the end of the matter. The final concession we will make is to allow you to resign and thereby access your accrued pension and benefits. In my opinion, that's entirely too generous and sends the wrong message to the rest of the men and women in this precinct."

"Fuck off, then. I won't quit, and you can fire me. There, one last service to the City of Malton," He pivoted on his heel, stalking for the door.

"One last thing," the precinct commander said. "Now will you get help?"

Petro whirled. "I don't need your help. My life's not your problem anymore."

-----------------------------

Stupid, stupid, STUPID!

Pride had always been his downfall. He slammed the locker shut angrily, denting the metal so badly it failed to latch and swung back out. He slammed it again. He should've quit months ago. The hell of it was that they were right, had been right all along. He was out of control, and getting worse.

He took things too personally. He was too intense. He really needed some serious couch time with a shrink. He'd heard it all. He'd heard it from his friends and co-workers, his superiors, his ex-wives.

Fuck that. Shrinks were for crybabies who jacked off over pictures of their mothers.

Nobody spoke to him on the way out. Nobody met his gaze. He took one last look around the Precinct Fourteen Emergency Services Station. It'd been his home for seven years now, more home to him than any place he'd rented.

Fuck Malton anyway. He was going to get the hell out of this town, and find a new line of work. And he wasn't going to give them their damned axe back, either.

[Pcm979]

'The freezer', as it was known to the building's occupants, was long, dark, and bitterly cold. Steam poured from vents set at predetermined intervals along the ceiling, dimming the flourescent lights to a vague half-darkness.

Mike and Dave wrapped themselves in their labcoats and shivered, pulling on surgical masks and rubber gloves. They pulled a trolley from the wall, already laden down with a black body bag, and placed certain instruments on it. Dave consulted a clipboard.

"So, who do we have today?" Mike's voice was muffled as he pushed the trolley down the room.

"One Elizabeth Meyers, 32. Died of injuries sustained in a car crash. The airbags didn't deploy, it seems."

"Damn. She fresh?"

"As a daisy. Only conked it this morning."

"I'd say 'good', but I'm not a heartless bastard." They reached the end of the room. A low operating table was placed in the centre, various machines ready to be hooked up to the patient, even if it was a tad late. Mike wheeled the trolley next to it and started dictating into a small recorder, detailing the date and time, surgeons in attendance, identity and state of the subject and so forth. Dave unzipped the body bag and began attaching the instruments to the corpse.

Mike glanced over at Dave, who gave a thumbs up.

"Alright. Beginning procedure at 3.37 PM, the 3rd of July 2005 AD. Subject's identity has been verified via D.N.A. test. Injecting subject with formula 28.3... Now."

If they'd done it once, they'd done it a thousand times. Inject the formula, then... Wait. Monitor the instruments, note any tissue reconstruction taking place. They'd only had a few successes so far, and nothing that could be called a human being had resulted. They were a long way from curing death, but it was a start.

Today, however, was not a normal day. On normal days, the corpses don't reach up and rip your face off.

Dave pinwheeled to the floor, blood streaming from his face. The body shuddered and fell off the table, landing on top of him. Then the screaming started.

And then the lights went out.

No, not a normal day at all.

[Pcm979]

Petro squinted out the window as he drove. What the hell were all those helicopters doing circling around? Those weren't civilian or civil service units, they were military...

He should've been paying more attention to his driving. He looked back just in time to see the SUV looming in front of his windshield.

He'd always had great reflexes. That speed of reaction gave enough time for his foot to move from the accelerator to cover the brake, and no more. The impact smashed the front end of his car, sending it spinning across the road. A chain reaction of wrecks set off in the fast-moving, tightly packed freeway traffic. He moved in slow motion, head turning to the right in time to see the passenger door smash in, further pinballing him around the road. The airbags all decided this was the ideal time to go off, bursting out of the sidewalls and dashboard.

He hated goddamned airbags with a passion. He'd never asked to have the stupid little bombs installed in his vehicles. But in this instance, they functioned precisely as advertised. The world tilted and whirled as his car rolled once, then finally came to a stop in the center median.

For a long moment, he just leaned against the doorframe, gasping for breath. Already, the sequence of events had jumbled itself up, the sheer horrifying suddenness of the entire affair having jolted his brain fiercely.

He collected himself, and started checking himself over with the long experience of one who has been in quite a few scrapes and situations that resulted in unpleasant injuries. Fingers and toes, good. Arms, legs, good. He risked a look down- no metal protruding from his torso. His chest was numb where the seatbelt had caught him, only to be expected. He'd have some fierce bruises tomorrow.

But, amazingly enough, he otherwise seemed to have come through unharmed. He knew he'd rolled at least once, and in his career he'd seen corpses come from far less dramatic accidents.

He looked out at the road, where traffic had come to a dead stop with all lanes blocked by wrecked vehicles.

Good god. He'd really gone and made a mess of things this time. Fumbling for the seatbelt catch, he released it it and tried to open the door. Predictably enough, it was jammed closed. He looked around and spotted the aluminum coffee thermos on the floor and grabbed it, then smashed out the window.

As he started to climb out, shooting pains traveled the length of his body. He might not have a scratch on him, but he felt like he'd been run through a rock polisher. Instead of exiting gracefully, he ended up flopping sideways to the ground.

"Hey, are you alright?" a voice inquired from out of his field of vision. He stared at the dirt in front of his nose, a procession of strange black creatures running about willy-nilly. It took him a second to make the mental connection, aided by the sudden stinging sensation on his cheek.

"FUCK!" he yelled, leaping to his feet. Of course, he'd land face first on a goddamned anthill. That was just how the day was going.

"Guess that answers that question," the other man said.

He nodded. "Yeah. Lemme... lemme get to my car," he said, staggering over and reaching inside to extract the keys before moving to the trunk. It was jammed as well. He heard a scream from behind, and turned to see that one of the wrecked cars was going up in flames.

"Open, you motherfucker!" he screamed, kicking the trunk savagely, once, twice, three times. Suddenly it popped open. He grabbed the first-aid kit and the axe, then turned to see...

A man hanging from a line under a fast-moving, low-flying helicopter.

Suddenly another helicopter surged up in front of it, also flown by a panic-stricken pilot. There was an enormous crash as they slammed into each other.

He stood, frozen, as the helicopters collided. The man next to him started screaming for people to get down. The helicopters slammed into the ground, fragments of rotor lashing out into the wreckage on the freeway. He didn't see the fragment of metal whirling from the wreckage that struck him in the face, knocking him into painful darkness.

[Pcm979]

Mike ran. He didn't stop running until he couldn't hear the screaming any more, until the moaning was silenced.

Then he burst out onto the street, and the screaming started all over again.

[Caz]

( Paul! I demand more! -poke- )

[Hedgecore]

(seconded!)

[Pcm979]

The crash scene was spectacular and horrific in equal measures. A semitrailer lay on it's side, at least five cars crumpled along its length. Its cargo, several hundred bottles of Coca-Cola, fizzed on the ground like a bizzare bubbling pool of oxygen-starved blood.

The star attractions, however, were the crash victims. With bestial fury and strength, they ripped themselves out of their vehicles and flopped to the ground, wounds visibly knitting closed and broken bones snapping into place with sickly cracks. People who had survived the crash were set upon by their deceased drivers and passengers, ripped apart as they screamed and banged impotently on broken doors.

Mike could only stand there, mouth open, as the Zombies set upon their would-be rescuers, batting firemen's axes aside to rip their throats out and dragging doctors and medics to their doom.

With a steady thump, a military helicopter appeared over their heads and disgorged a series of camoflauged troopers, who immediately opened fire into the melee with bullets and grenades.

[Pcm979]

The soldiers were disciplined and efficient, but each time a Zombie (because that was the only way to describe them, dear god Zombies, the living fucking dead) was knocked down, a chunk missing from its head or a limb snapped in two, it simply staggered back to its feet- or whatever portions of its limbs it had remaining- and continued forward.

The soldiers began to fall back, buying time for the emergency services and civillians to escape. A steady thwup-thwup-thwup could be heard in the distance, and a soldier grabbed Mike's shoulder.

"Sir, you have to get out of here!"

Mike didn't hear him. Dr. Freeman wasn't in at the moment, could you leave a message?

The soldier cursed and slung his rifle over his shoulder, manhandling Mike around the corner. Then he looked up and froze.

"Dear God, they wouldn't- Run, sir! Get the fuck out of here!"

He broke into a run, dragging the deadweight doctor after him, as the helicopter gunship began raining missiles into the crash zone.

[Josh]

Zimmerman thanked the small favors that the red-haired man was rather on the scrawny side as he towed him back to his car and deposited him in the passenger seat. Something entirely abnormal was going on, as evidenced by the military gunships that were suddenly shooting up downtown.

He didn't know precisely what, yet, but things were obviously going to hell. He didn't even know if the man was going to survive, his face was a bloody mess, but he was still breathing, and if the world was falling apart, he might be a handy man to have around...

[Josh]

Freddy Melvin Marshall had really picked a bad time to pass through Malton. He had been staying over at the base while enroute back to the states. He'd just been in the process of decompressing and starting to relax when everything went straight to hell.

Behind him and the civvy, the gunships were busy plastering the area. No time to think about that, they had to get away now!

[Pcm979]

Mike managed another block before he got an absolutely massive stitch. A few years ago, he could've kept going, but he'd been steadily falling out of shape ever since graduating. He stumbled after the Yank, the explosions and dust behind him driving him on despite the pain.

Then they reached another crossing, where another pileup was turning into a cannibalistic buffet. The military had yet to arrive, and the shambling horde turned towards them almost as one.

[Josh]

FM yanked the civvy away. This was like a bad horror movie. Shoved the man through a door into a pub, then looked around for something to block up the entrance with.

[Pcm979]

Mike's brain started to work again, and he saw that the pub was full of people, panicked people, trying the payphone, their mobiles, anything to get help. Nothing was working, so Mike surmised that the city's grid must have gone down. That would explain all the crashes, but the... The Zombies? He mindlessly helped the American tip a table over and drag it against the door, but it didn't look like it would hold for long; The crowd of Undead was getting larger by the minute, being drawn to the gaggle of creatures scraping at the doors.

"The roof!" Yelled Mike, self-preservation instincts kicking in despite himself. "We've got to get to the roof!"

[Josh]

FM looked back at him, realizing he was right. They couldn't hold in the pub, not against those creatures.

He bolted for the stairway. "Come on!" he shouted.

[Pcm979]

From behind them, there was a gigantic crash followed by screams as the monsters broke through and set upon the publicans, the latter's numbers making them easy prey as they pressed against each other in an attempt to all escape at once. The bartender pulled an old, break-open shotgun out from beneath the counter and opened fire, the noise almost splitting Mike's head in the confined space.

The second floor was cramped, the building built centuries ago using inferior techniques. There were about four doors, but they all led to bedrooms.

A clattering came from the stairwell. Mike grabbed the first thing that came to hand- a long stick hanging from the wall- and held it absurdly. Then he realised what it was.

"There's a loft. Where's the loft?" He stared at the ceiling, looking for the telltale indentation...

[Josh]

It took a moment for him to translate 'loft' to 'attic', and he joined in the search.

"There!" he announced, pointing, then grabbing a table to climb up and reach for the lever.

[Pcm979]

As FM dragged the roof hatch open, Mike quickly ransacked the bathroom and came out clutching the emergency First Aid kit. He came out beaming, and...

Face to face with a dead person. He yelped and reflexively smashed it with the heavy case, sending it sprawling. "Get out! Get out!" He yelled at his unnamed benefactor, running down the hallway.

[Josh]

FM didn't leave people behind. That was his credo, and right now, the nameless civvy was now his unit. He jumped down, looking around for a weapon, and snagged a broom.

When in Rome...

He launched down the hallway.

[Pcm979]

Mike saw the military man charging towards them and ducked at the last moment, swinging the First Aid Kit to connect with the monster's knees as the American swung the broom.

[Ace Pace]

"Okey Bruce, what do we have for today?' Ace was tired, 1st operation of the day and he didn't even have time to relax after the crazy drive through Malton.

"Emergency triple bypass before lunch," he said cheerfully. "Sodding chip addiction, arteries go bye-bye."

"Who the fuck slated this on my plate? Nevermind, they enjoy dropping all the hard ones on me" Ace was visably slower then usual, he didn't like driving in traffic and he definetly didn't like getting fastballs lobbed at him at this time of the day.

"I can primary on it," Bruce offered solicitously.

"Allright, do we have anything new today?" Ace was looking around, resource department allways threw the new gizmos into his room, he had a habit of making them work.

"New bonesaw!" he said cheerfully, patting it affectionately.

"You're kidding..you arn't? Wow, You take primary, I gotta try this baby out." Ace gazed down at their subject, taking him in, not overly obese, in his 40s, he looked just about ready for a mid life crises of an entirely differant source.

"I knew a new toy would get you pepped right up," he said, stepping back. "Your patient, then."

Ace checked out the saw, top of the line, titanium, the shiniest stuff. It even had a built in battery for use in the field. Even more amazing was the fact they seemed to have properly configured it. "Here goes nothing..." Ace hit the power switch and the saw purred. "Wow...."

Just then, the ominous beeping began to accelerate. It was obvious that things were going very awry with the patient.

"Lets do it" Ace looked down and aimed, chest open, just waiting for a few cuts to bring the target area into clear line of operation. "What do we know about his medical history?"

Bruce rattled off the history, or lack thereof. No previous evidence of cardiac defects, just high cholestoral counts as a consistant problem cropping up on year physicals. Until now.

"Allright, going in." Ace sobered and got serious, saw was going in...touched the bone...went in abit and suddenly the saw went crazy. "I hit Metal, What the heck?!" Then the power was gone and the saw slid in Ace's hands and an inhuman scream split the air.

"He's going into severe cardiac arrest," Bruce said calmly. "We're losing him."

Lights were flickering as emergency powered came on. "Stabilise him." Ace was dealing with a massive saw that suddenly was attracted to anything magnetised. With a screech it ripped his toolkit into two, Ace hit the power switch and hoped for quiet. What he got was an electric spark that made him drop the saw. Over the patient.

Fortunately, the man was totally unconscious and therefore oblivious to the power saw running rampant in his upper torso. Gore and viscera exploded everywhere, showering the room, painting the walls.

Ace was in shock, being covered with blood and a few veins. He quietly went to a chair, got out a pad and started making notes. "We are so fired.'

Bruce stared, gape-jawed. "Yes, yes we are."

Finnaly the power saw hit something and shut down. Power was back, sort of. Ace walked up to the patient without ever knowing his name. "Uh...okey, I just noted his death. Well...what the hell did he die of?" Ace flipped his personal recorder. "I think we just witnessed the most fucked up product launch in the history of this hospital....yes...we did.....think we can save him? Is he dead? I assume he is....then why is he moving?"

Bruce stepped over. "Post-mortem tremors. Generally, powersaw to the chest, through to the spine, death," he said. His words were given lie a second later when the patient lunged from the bed, grabbing his shoulders, jabbing the saw into his sternum and muffling his scream.

"what?" It came out in a whisper that was barely recorder. Ace was no longer just standing, in an instant, instinct and memory triumphed over training. Ace grabbed a part of the heavy toolkit and swung with all his weight, throwing the zombie to the floor. "RUN!" Ace ducked down to extract the saw, and ran, vowing not to look back untill he heard Bruce.

Bruce gasped and scampered after him. Something was wrong with his chest, something broken. He could feel it.

He heard Bruce alright. He heard Bruce scream as the patient grabbed his leg and twisted with inhuman strength, shattering bone. He heard Bruce scream again as he was dragged back the... it couldn't be human.

Ace was transfixed, watching this titanic struggle, Bruce wasn't a paperweight like Ace, but neither could he hold up to the...patient was the wrong for it. Expatient would do for now. Ace hit the fire alarm for general alarm, hit the one known as the "Freak button" that alerted the police to fights in hospitals and for good mesure hit the rarely used Quarentine alarm. He knew it wasn't working, he wasn't hearing doors smacking shut. All he heard was Bruce give a last scream and drop.

There were more screams coming from all over the hospital, though. He could hear wailing from across the wards. Whatever this was, it wasn't localized to that room.

Watching the zombie begin...feasting on Bruce...there was no other way to describe it. Ace puked, took out his headmounted flashlight and started running, running straight into Research. Big door named Research. Slowly his mind made the connections and Ace ran inside. One door, one door connecting the Research of Extreamly dangerous substances to the rest of the world. And he was on the right side of it. He locked it, nothing except a tank could breach it, there was food inside for years, it had been designed this way.

Safe. The word peaked into his head. He tried thinking about it. Yes, in a way he was safe. Safe to live with 30 tons of the most dangerous biological substances known to mankind. He walked over to a desk and before he knew it he was out.

[Josh]

The broom snapped, and he didn't hesitate for a second, jabbing the splintered end into the zombie's back as it tried to get up.

"FUCKING DIE!" he shouted angrily.

[Pcm979]

"I don't think that's gonna happen." Mike muttered, scrambling to his feet and dragging the military man towards the roof hatch as the Zombie wriggled on the ground, reaching for the stick in it's back.

Then three more turned the corner. "Come the fuck on!" Mike yelled.

[Josh]

He bounced to his feet and followed, vaulting to the table with a single leap. "You first," he insisted, hoisting Mike up bodily toward the exit.

[Pcm979]

He bounced to his feet and followed, vaulting to the table with a single leap. "You first," he insisted, hoisting Mike up bodily toward the exit.

Mike threw the First Aid Kit through the hole and scrambled up, turning around to help the American up after him.

He jumped upward, one hand grabbing Mike's hand, the other grasping the lip of the hatchway. He swung his feet up as a zombie grasped for his ankles.

Mike grabbed the man's hand and rolled onto his back, using his entire body as leverage to pull him through the hatch. As the Zombie's hand appeared he kicked at it viciously until it let go.

He slammed the hatch shut, shaking his head. "Always like this around here?" he asked, relieved to be alive after all that crazy shit.

"Oh, you should be here on Sundays." Mike managed from the floor, a little post-tension giggle slipping past his lips.

He snickered at that, snickers that built up into a full-fledged guffaw. Finally, he groaned and sat up. "I left a nice fucking safe war zone for this..."

Mike clambered to his hands and knees and shimmied over to the FAK, mechanically flipping it open and checking the contents. Nothing seemed damaged. "Got anything to see to?" He asked, the professional side of his mind quietly hijacking his body while the rest of him gibbered incoherently.

He shook his head. "No, I'm fine. Nothing new, anyway."

"Good." He said, and slumped to the floor again. There was a moaning and shuffling audible from below, and the occasional distant scream.

He stayed there a moment longer, then got up and looked over the edge of the roof, grimacing. "No more helicopters inbound," he said after a pause. "They're not dropping any more troops in."

Mike swayed to his feet and got to the edge of the roof in time to hurl his lunch down to the pavement. He wiped his mouth and looked up. "'Zat good? Or bad?" He was starting to look ragged, shock probably setting in.

"I don't know," he said, shrugging. "Whatever. We have to stay alive long enough for the cavalry to show." He was being unusually talkative, a sign of just how shocked he was by the current state of affairs.

Mike gave him a strange look. "I thought you were the cavalry." He slumped against the edge of the roof and drew his labcoat around his shoulders, shivering.

"I was just passing through," he admitted with a shrug.