Real Date: December 19, 2011
In-Game Date: December 2, 2011
In-Game Date: December 2, 2011
Session Title: Semi Smash Part Deux at the WalMart!
1. RV location
2. More Zombies in the parking lot
3. Recon at Country Inn
4. Zombie in vehicle
5. Firing position for Zombies at rear entrance
6. Meeting room Zombie battle
7. Service bay Zombie battle
8. WalMart parking lot Zombie semi smash
9. New entrance to WalMart
Colton and Greg began the morning with an all-around scan of the area from various top floor rooms of the Fairfield Inn to make sure no unwanted guests had moved into the area. The coast looking clear, the two decided it was time to fetch Chet's .308 which was said to be stored in the RV. They carefully moved to the RV with Chet's keys in hand. As expected, the rifle was found under the couch in the back along with several rounds of ammunition.
After creeping back across the parking lot and back to the hotel, it was decided that they should stock the RV with supplies in case an emergency escape was ever required. Despite some minor resistance from the hotel manager, Greg and Colton convinced him that they were not going to abandon him and the others - at least not without telling them first. Agreeing, but still unsure of the plan, the manager helped load food supplies enough for a couple weeks (for 4 people) into the RV.
Colton's attention then turned to the locked gun case he previously found in the Cracker Barrel's parking lot. After immediately breaking a hacksaw blade on the hardened plastic case, he turned to the hatchet which the case still resisted. Not being able to take it anymore, Greg jumped in with a tire iron and helped to pry the case open without further issue. Falling out of the case and onto the floor was a nice looking 9mm handgun. No ammo was found in the case accompanying the weapon.
In preparation for the trip to WalMart, the idea to do some recon on the roof of the five story Country Inn across the parking lot came up. Once again, a few Zombies were spotted in the Cracker Barrel's north lot. These were quite oblivious to Colton's crossbow shots as each of them fell one after another without realizing they were even under attack. Making there way over to the hotel without further issue, Colton and Greg entered cautiously keeping an eye out for the crazy guy that was left in the basement. Other than a few rats scurrying around in the breakfast area, nothing was seen or heard and the pair made their way to the roof. Two small groups of Zombies could be seen up the road to the northwest as well as to the southeast. In addition, a much larger group of 40-60 seemed to be slowly moving northwest through the WalMart parking lot. A few stragglers could also be seen along the road and scattered around the parking lot.
Also spotted from the roof was a car dealership to the south. Wanting to clear the way when traveling to WalMart, the two decided to sweep the parking lot and see what was happening inside the dealership. First, a quick scan through the windows of the vehicles was done. Nothing of interest was seen in most of them, but one held what looked to be a corpse in the driver seat. Tapping lightly on the glass resulted in the not totally unexpected result of the corpse jolting into motion and vigorously attempting to break out of the vehicle. With a quick motion from Greg, the driver's window was broken out with a tire iron followed by a dead-on shot from Colton's crossbow putting the Zombie to rest.
Continuing the vehicle scan, the two moved around the west side of the building and spotted a dozen Zombies shambling outside a pair of doors leading into the building. Storing their gear behind some parked cars, Colton took aim with his crossbow from about 50 feet way and took down a Zombie. The rest seemed to be oblivious and this pattern followed for half of the Zombies before they finally caught the scent of human flesh and rushed towards the two. Falling back to their gear, Colton and Greg prepared their melee weapons and finished off the pursuing Zombies.
About that time, Kim and Chet caught up to the dynamic duo bringing the party up to full strength. Talk of heading directly to WalMart came up, but since they were so close to the dealership, they figured they might as well check out the interior.
The front glass was smashed in so entry was easy. All was initially quiet until the group approached the double doors of a large meeting room. Shuffling could be heard beyond the already partially opened doors. Peeking in, at least a couple dozen shapes could be seen breaking the slits of light which made its way through the cracks of the boarded up windows. Moving into position, Kim headed for a side door so her axe swing would not be impeded by other party members. Colton and Greg took up flanking positions on the double doors while Chet stayed a couple paces back readying his 9mm handgun. Colton started things off with a crossbow shot which took one of them down. The somewhat crowded group of Zombies immediately noticed the attack and rushed out of the doors. Chet cracked off five shots with most of them finding their marks. Colton and Greg began hacking at the onrush of Zombies which could not be kept contained in the room. Kim attracted the attention of several Zombies as well as she started making slow but steady progress hacking with her axe. Several Zombies gave the group some close calls as their teeth were shattered with hatchet, knife, and pistol grip. Chet was able to squeeze off several more rounds emptying his clip, switched to a combat knife, and joined the rest of his group in close combat. A few blundered defense attempts by the group kept everyone on edge, but the party was able to finish off the last of the Zombies leaving the room dead silent with nothing moving except the dust settling though the sun rays.
Searching around the room produced nothing but a door, opposite the double doors, which was boarded up from the other side. Kim, seemingly exhausted from the recent melee, had some difficulty hacking through the wood planks with her axe so Colton stepped in and attempted to kick them down. After scraping his leg and nearly hurting himself worse, he stepped back and let Greg have a try at the door. Without much effort, the already loosened boards gave way and revealed a silent office. Six corpses could be seen laying around the room along with several empty water cooler containers, snack food bags, and empty food cans. Greg surmised that this group likely died of dehydration about a week prior as there was no sign of other trauma nor of Zombification.
The stench was awful, but searching through the office revealed several useful items including a semi-automatic shotgun, .357 revolver, and a partially disassembled 9mm handgun. Chet inspected the handgun and found it was missing a piece and therefore would not be usable. Fortunately it was the same model as his and could be used for spare parts. Modest amounts of ammo were also found among this, the location of the final stand of the prior inhabitants. Another boarded up door opposite the previous was the next focus in the room. Removing the boards went much easier this time and the group once again peeked through the door. This time an even larger number of Zombies was revealed which took quick notice of the flashlights breaking the darkness. They quickly rushed out the door nearly overrunning the party.
Another grueling melee ensued and several more close calls were threatened by the ravenous Zombies, but the group once again prevailed and laid dozens more undead to rest. After the ringing of close quarters gunshots cleared, the group was again met with silence. Three service bays, two filled with vehicles, appeared to be well intact. A set of batteries was found wired to a large inverter which was hooked up to a truck with its exhaust safely attached to a tube to vent it outside the shop. The makeshift power supply was hooked into the shop's wiring allowing the group to turn on and use a good portion of the rooms lights and some equipment. Someone, probably one of the previous shop technicians, knew what they were doing with the electrical work.
Searching the shop revealed several previously destroyed Zombies. In the corner was found the body of what appeared to be a non-Zombie in a technician's uniform. Next to his body, some sort of rifle with three empty clips around it was found by Kim. The scope seemed to be broken, but otherwise the rifle was in good shape and Chet identified it as an AR-15. The group stowed it and looked forward to finding some .223 or 5.56 ammo in the near future.
With the search finished, the group found that they now had the means to utilize Chet's repair skills to add some enhancements to the semi. Heading back up to their hotel, they unhitched the flatbed and drove the truck to the empty repair bay. The first modification that was made was to add an ignition button under the dash and rig up an electrical booby trap on the regular key mechanism to thwart any would-be truck thieves. Next, the group scavenged metal parts from the various vehicles in the parking lot and added a cage around the cab to hopefully prevent Zombies from coming into direct contact with the windows and cab in general. With the cage in place, a series of ground metal spikes were welded into place pointed directly out of the front of the vehicle. Lastly, the top of the truck was cut down and some metal rails were added to the extended sleeper portion of the cab. Cutting a hole in the roof allowed for a up to two party members to access the upper gunners nest.
Kim happened to notice a pull-down ladder which lead to the roof which everyone was surprised that they hadn't noticed before. Pulling down the ladder, Kim climbed up and out on top of the roof. In the northeast corner some makeshift sandbags made up a small lookout area. Halfway hidden under some bags, Kim pulled out two ammo canisters which held several hundred rounds of .223 ammunition - perfect for the newly acquired AR-15! After a bit of target practice in the shop area, she felt comfortable enough to carry it as her primary ranged weapon.
After a week's work on the group's new primary assault vehicle, they were finally ready to head to WalMart. Carefully driving through the now familiar parking lots surrounding the hotel, Chet was now at the four lane road ready to cross over into the WalMart parking lot. A few Zombies were spotted scattered among the cars and were heading towards the semi, but the group decided to ignore them and continue to the parking lot. Nudging a couple crashed cars out of the way, Chet managed to pull the semi into the parking lot without much trouble. As they started driving through the lot, Kim and Colton spotted the large group of Zombies that was spotted nearly a week ago from atop the Country Inn. The party had hoped the herd had continued their migration northwest, but they seemed to have stalled out in and around the woods adjacent to the north side of the parking lot.
Giving the engine a rev, Chet moved the semi on a collision course with the bulk of the group of Zombies. Smashing through the group, the impaled bodies of writhing Zombies quickly filled the spikes on the front of the semi. A Zombie began climbing up the back of the semi, but was quickly shot off from the nest above. Chet skillfully guided the semi through several passes around the northwest section of the parking lot and eventually severely crippled or destroyed close to 60 Zombies. Dismounting from the truck, the rest of the group dispatched those who were still slowly crawling towards the still-running semi as well as those trying to free themselves from the spikes.
With the parking lot seemingly clear, the group turned their attention to getting into WalMart. They could see that the security gates were dropped into place along the front windows and entry so they cautiously headed along the north side of the building until they found a loading dock. Peeking in, Greg saw some boxes, but nothing out of the ordinary. Knocking at the door resulted in no answer so the group continued around to the back of the building with Chet driving the semi with all of the group except for Greg who walked a short distance in front. All quiet and secure in the back, the group came around to the south side of the building and saw another loading dock as well as the entrance for vehicle service. Spray painted on a sign near the door was 'Knock three times to enter.'.
Following the instructions, Greg knocked and after a few seconds a chain was heard being removed from the door. The door was pushed open from the inside and the group headed in. "Welcome to WalMart!" a friendly voice greeted the group. Facing them was a young man in a wheelchair and appeared to be a WalMart employee complete with a name tag which read "Hello, my name is: John". John wheeled himself back around the makeshift checkout counter and pointed the group to a set of flashlights and the shopping carts. John explained that he started quite awhile ago as a greeter then advanced to stocking shelves, cashier, and now he is the manager. A bit bewildered and extremely cautious, the group took the flashlights and a cart and headed towards the isles lit only by the diffuse light provided by skylights. The shelves, although, sparsely populated, were all well organized and detailed down to each product's label facing outward easy for the customer to see.
Sporting goods was the first area the group headed for and found some various ammunition still available which they quickly pushed into the cart. Various other useful items were collected from the shelves and the group continued their cautious advance to the food section. Some canned goods and bottled water was added to the supplies and the group thought things were too easy here and something must be up. They discussed checking out the back stock rooms, but with Kim's advice they decided to go back and talk to John to see if he gave them any hints as to what was really going on here.
John, seeing the group approaching, asked if they found everything they were looking for and if they were ready to check out. The question of payment came up and Colton asked if he accepted credit cards. "Of course we do" replied John as he pulled out the manual credit card imprinter and placed it on the counter. The group inquired about additional weapons and John explained that they had some problems with them awhile back so they were hidden and are sold by special order only. Pharmaceuticals came up as well and John pointed the way to the pharmacy and that he would need to see a prescription for any restricted drugs and they could just bring the items to the checkout counter. Greg stated that he was a doctor, but had no documentation backing up his claims. An escalating discussion between Greg and John was abruptly cut short by Kim bringing some of her 'assets' to the discussion table which caught everyone off guard. John was nearly paralyzed by the display and the conversation was quickly short circuited as he quickly wheeled back away from the counter. One reassuring piece of information was gained by this bewildering exchange as Greg got a good look at John's legs and determined that he was definitely not faking his inability to walk as his frail legs revealed.
With that, the group began to discuss their special order and continued to think though the strange events of this unexpected encounter at WalMart.
| Zombie Destruction Totals | ||
| Character | Session | All Time |
| Colton | 43 | 117 |
| Greg | 30 | 89 |
| Chet | 56 | 75 |
| Kim | 25 | 46 |
| Total | 154 | 327 |
Kim needs to pick up the pace here...
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