(no subject)

[lagilman]

Dawn brought fewer sirens and empty streets, but if you turn your head, there's a flicker of movement in the corner of your eye. They're out there. As soon as their eyes adjust to daylight, they'll be back.

We spent all night fortifying the building -- the first floor's been abandoned, the basement and lobby booby-trapped with windrose's hotfoot powerder she sent me after last year, and a healthy dose of meat tenderizer. Anything that tries to get through will be walking on stumps by the time they hit the stairs, and we have another surprise for them there. Supplies have been shared out, and extra water laid in, just in case. And the kittens are roaming the hallway with the other cats in the building, making for an amusing thicket of tails you have to pass through, like furry sentries. Rumor has it they don't like cats. The feeling seems to be mutual.

I've gotten e-mail updates from Florida and New Mexico -- the warmer-weather states seem to have a more pragmatic view of the outbreaks, and had emergency plans ready. Maybe they have a point -- last year, the far-northern states seemed relatively outbreak-free. I shouold have moved further north, not come south....

If it's like last year, we just have to make it to Saturday. We can do that. If we hold strong, and nobody opens a window for an old friend. Speaking of which, my time to guard the fire escape.

I never heard back from Keith or Terri. I hope they're all right.

Comments

[autojim.livejournal.com]

Just had yet another line of severe storms pass through.

Lightning seems to be attracted to the undead. And the undead seem to be REALLY stupid as far as storm safety practices go.

People learned from last year. The news stations, particularly Channels 4 (downtown Detroit) and 7 (Southfield) are heavily fortified. Okay, 4 had their own reasons, what with being in downtown, but 7 has guard nests with crew-served weapons on the wall surrounding Broadcast House, and they use the weather department's tower cams to direct fire. Captain Dennis, the chopper pilot, has added a chain gun slaved to the FLIR on his JetRanger, and he's been using it to good effect -- he never has said exactly *what* he did in SE Asia, but I think we have a good idea now... Bottom line: they're still on the air and unzombified, and feeding good real-time news to the unzombied populace.

Whodathunk that the Detroit cops, gang-bangers, and thugs would unite without issue to face the common zombie enemy? They may have the local outbreak contained before they ever get to Casa del Crider up in the northern 'burbs. Then all we'll have to worry about is Pontiac, Flint, and random ex-urban zombies.

Reports I'm receiving from Texas and Oklahoma relatives indicate that, like last time, the locals took care of the outbreak before it got much bigger than a few hundred zombies at its peak, and it's just mop-up of stragglers now. I'm sure the NRA "American Rifleman" magazine will have a lot of fresh "Armed Citizen Saves Neighborhood from Zombie Attack" stories from that neck of the woods in a couple months.

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

The Federal buildings in DC thankfully come with their own heavily armed security. The occasional staccato burst of automatic gunfire still makes me jump. I'm just glad that I'm in the basement, but the building is secure, and we can cordon off individual floors if necessary. Sentries on the eighth floor deck and the roof report that things are "controllable," whatever that means.

We've had power outages across the city, and reports of fires in the subway system.

I'm just worried that we won't be able to discern between living summer interns and other government employees, and those not. I find that I'm not so strongly motivated to determine which elected officials might be living. The White House got overrun, but the latest rumor is that Cheney might actually be alive. Now there's irony for ya: I would have sworn he'd been a zombie or an animatronic for years.

OOC: There are actually power outages across the city and reports of a fire in the subway today.

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

Whatever bubble has been protecting our corner of New Haven from thunderstorms for the past several summers seems to have kept the zombies from us as well. We could hear the sirens and the sounds of carnage not too far away, but nothing ended up appearing on our street. Thank the gods for that. I'm kind of afraid to venture downtown, I don't really wanna know what went down over there.

What *is* it with the 13th falling on a Friday, anyway?!?

[equesgal.livejournal.com]

It's those damn Templers.

[lynnenova.livejournal.com]

For god's sake, get out of the city. On the island, we're trapped... like dogs... It's everywhere.

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

I’ve never liked the big clunky brush guard on my truck, but it’s just as well that I’ve been too lazy to unbolt it. We hit three zombies in the block between Rod’s iron-gated compound and the grocery store. The first two bounced out of the way. Julie yelled an obscenity at them through the back window and punctuated it with the riot gun. They stayed down, I think. The wipers just smeared the third one across the windshield. I knew my wipers needed replacement, but I never counted on having to clear zombie-juice off the windows.

We just drove through the supermarket’s sliding doors. They can sue me if we live though this. The truck skidded sideways when we crashed through the produce section. We side-swiped the cereal aisle, so a few boxes of Cap’n Crunch landed in the bed. It’s gross, but the sugar might help us stay alert. I hopped out in the soda aisle and started throwing cases of water into the bed. We live in a desert. Water is life.

Julie was firing steadily: god knows how many monsters were in the store. I think she reloaded twice, but it may have been three times. When she started counting down rounds: eight left, seven, six, I knew it was time to leave. Sure, she had the Colt, but it doesn’t seem to hurt them much. I jumped in and floored it. We made it back, but my truck is never going to be the same. My next one is going to have an even bigger brush guard.