Campaign: Mad Science

Chapter 1: Dead Streets

The streets were filled with the dead, completely unmoving. For blocks they walked, conversing amongst themselves, speaking of anything they may have remembered, and of what they were to do. The common infected began to make appearances in the streets once more as they walked further into the city; showing how truly devastated the population of this once thriving town was.

They had come to the unanimous agreement that they were in Philadelphia, once they had seen a few signs with the name on them, and were making their way downtown. The four had little memories of the geography, so they were simply going where the roads took them.

"I am so glad these damn zombies aren't after my hide anymore." Ashley muttered, pistol at the ready in his left hand.

"Me too. It makes things much more peaceful. Anyway, have any of you seen a convenience store yet? We might be able to find food and stuff inside one of them. That is, hoping it hasn't been looted clean." Matt said before pondering a moment, "Any of you feeling hungry?"

Everyone seemed to shake their heads no, and he nodded, "Me too. Though, I don't remember eating anything since I woke up a few hours ago. Parrot did, so she has an excuse, but I wonder about the rest of us…"

"Hey, man, don't sweat it. We might've eaten or something before we woke up. I mean, I was locked in my bathroom with a whole tonne of food, and who knows what you guys were doing. We'll be fine." Rags said, slapping Matt on the back.

"Maybe, we'll have to see I guess."

"I want some more sugar…" Parrot mumbled, putting her raincoat covered hand to her lips, remembering the taste.

"What? Why? You ate a whole bag of sugar two hours ago!" The hunter said, looking at her incredulously.

"I know, but it was good!"

"An entire bag of sugar?" Both Rags and Ashley asked in unison.

"Er… yeah. She found a bag of sugar in your kitchen, Rags, and by the time I got to her, she had shovelled most of it down her throat already. Polished the bag off a few seconds after that." Matt explained.

Rags seemed slightly stunned, and Ashley spoke up, "A whole bag? I really don't think that's healthy there…"

"I'm fine! But I do want more…" She whined as she patted her tummy absently.

"Huh… still. You'll rot yer teeth out like that. Careful with the sweets intake." Ashley warned the little girl.

"Oh fine…" She said as she started to pout under her hood, kicking her legs a bit as she rode on Matt's shoulder.

The men laughed slightly at the little girl's huffing; taking what amusement they could get in this desolate wasteland.

"So… any idea what the plan is?" Rags asked.

"The plan?" Matt asked in response.

"Yeah, the plan. Like… what're we gunna do with ourselves? What if the whole world is like this? What if we do find living people and they turn us away? Or try to kill us because of what we are? What if we run out of food, or I run out of smokes? I need them to talk. I like being able to talk."

The other two men gave pause at the more serious questions, mulling over what they were about to say. Parrot didn't seem to care much, her mind currently focused on getting some more sweet sugar, her child mentality not entirely grasping the severity of the situation. Matt was the first to formulate his thoughts.

"Well… We can always try, you know? I say we search for some food first, and then search for hotspots or something to find actual people who could tell us what's going on. I, personally, would love to find out what the hell happened here, and to us."

"I can agree to that. But if anybody starts shooting at me and doesn't stop after I ask them nicely, I won't be afraid to shoot back." The large man said, tightening his grip on his gun.

"Then I'll leave it to you to deal with hostile people. I don't think I could bring myself to shoot a sentient person. Zombies are one thing, but actual people…"

The three men seemed to quiet up and gain sombre expressions on their faces, thinking of future actions and the consequences they may have to face. So much so were they lost in their thoughts that not one of them noticed when Parrot hopped off of Matt's shoulder and ran off down the street. She was a short distance down the street when Rags noticed her little escapade.

"Hey! Where're you going?"

He got no response from the scampering little witch.

"Oy! Stop! Dammit…"

Not wanting her to run off and get herself hurt, he removed his cigarette from his mouth and shot out his tongue.

"Eep! Lemme go! Noooo!" Parrot wailed as she was being dragged backwards, Rags' tongue around her waist, her arms flailing about in protest.

Upon bringing her close, he scooped her up in his arms, all the while she was struggling for freedom. "None of that now, can't run off without at least telling the adults why."

Ashley and Matt seemed to simply watch on in amusement at the exchange, earlier thoughts of facing decisions temporarily forgotten. They were both a little put off when Rags had shot out his tongue, but they were steadily getting used to each other's mutations, so they didn't think much of it as he dragged Parrot back to them kicking and screaming.

"But… But…" Parrot whined, pointing to a building down the street, "I smelled something really good over there! I wanna go see it! Maybe eat it…"

Rags couldn't help but laugh at the little girl's seemingly one track mind, and the other two soon joined in. Parrot huffed as she felt like she was being laughed at again, and she really wanted to go to where the nice smell was.

After a good laugh, Matt took an experimental sniff in the air. His powerful nose picked up on a few scents in the area, mostly burning cars and decaying corpses. However, there was a sweet underlying smell wafting from the direction Parrot had been pointing too, the smell of cooked meat.

"Hey, she's right. Smells like food, I think." Matt said to the group.

"Food? Hey, maybe we should check it out?" Ashley asked.

The others nodded, and Parrot clapped happily, as she was getting what she wanted.

Taking Parrot back from Rags and putting the little girl back on his shoulder where she liked, Matt decided to take point, and walked towards the building. As they drew closer, the foul smell of rotting meat overpowered the smell of cooked meat and assaulted the hunter's sensitive nose.

"Ugh… what kind of place is this? It stinks!"

"Can't ya read, Ma--- Oh, wait, you can't, right. Sorry. Its sign says Janice's Meats, looks like a butcher shop." Ashley said to the blind hunter.

As Matt was clenching his nose, listening to Ashley explain something, and Parrot bouncing anxiously, Rags decided to try the door. He pulled the handle and was met with disappointment as he found the door was locked tight.

"Well damn… door's locked, folks. Windows are intact too. How're we gunna get in?" He said, turning to the other three.

It didn't take Ashley long to come up with a solution, "Easy, like this."

He pulled back his big arm as he moved to stand in front of one of the larger windows meant for customers to peek into the store. With a resounding smash, he punched the glass, shattering it to pieces instantly.

"Hah! This arm is gre---" He said before getting cut off by a shrill security alarm.

Matt clasped his hands over his ears, "Oh, gods! Someone turn that off! It hurts!"

"I will!" Cried out Parrot as she hopped off his shoulder and ran into the store, wanting to help out.

As she did this, Matt made a large leap away from the store, leaving the three behind, and landed on a nearby streetlight. Being farther away from the noise now, his head was clearing, and he heard a new sound. A rising crescendo of horrid howls, which meant only one thing. He grabbed his shotgun from the side of his backpack, and yelled to the group, hoping they'd hear him.

"They're coming! The zombies are coming!"

He pumped his shotgun, and waited to pounce the first zombie that entered the range of his senses.

"Shit…" Rags said, as he looked to Matt waving on the streetlight.

"What? I can't hear shit all!" Ashley said, digging in his ear with his little finger.

"Matt's got his gun out! I think he hears something we don't!" The smoking smoker yelled to the biker.

"Dammit!" He said before readying his pistol and turning to the butcher shop and yelling, "Parrot! Hurry up with that alarm! It driving us nuts and something's coming!"

Her response was drowned out the ringing of the alarm, and the biker only managed to hear a small noise that he knew came from the little girl inside. He drew his helicopter blade from between his makeshift backpack, and stood guard at the door.

"Rags, you head out closer to Matt, I'll stay here and stop anything that might come close to me. You don't look too suited for getting up close and personal, so you should keep yer distance. If it's those zombies again, you'll do well being out of the way of their stampede."

Rags nodded to Ashley, "Yeah, that's true. You'd better be ready for this. I'll see what I can do to help."

Rags drew his gun and switched off the safety. He looked around for a good vantage point, and saw a nearby fire escape ladder on the other side of the street near Matt. Thinking fast, he ran over, climbed the ladder, and took a look at things from his higher vantage point. The butcher shop was located at the top of a T intersection; smack dab in the middle, and down all the roads, Rags could see the horde approaching fast. He readied his gun, placing the butt against his shoulder, looked down the sight with his one good eye, and placed his finger on the trigger. Just like how the gun expert of a biker had showed him earlier after they left the clothing store. The smoker was now ready for them.

Matt, crouching atop his streetlight, started to screen out the sound of the screeching alarm that was assaulting his ears, and focused on the oncoming horde. Their countless footfalls assaulted his senses as he tried to piece them together, trying to search for an individual. In the end, he couldn't. There were simply far too many of them creating far too much noise at once; he knew he had to get closer to be able to fight these things properly. He chose the group coming down the middle of the T intersection, and with a powerful leap, the hunter soared at them, landing on one of the front-runners, crushing its bones, killing it.

Ashley stood guard at the door, watching as the zombies rushed towards him. He saw Matt and Rags shooting periodically, fighting the zombies in their own way. With lots of ammo, the other two could handle a lot of zombies all at once like this, but their ammo supply was small. He knew this is where he came in. The others may have their roles to play, and while he didn't outright know what they were, he knew precisely what his role was. Fighting. He was the only one who could deal out a lot of damage while not wasting ammunition. He knew he was the fastest at doing this too, having the biggest weapon and the most experience in fighting, even if he didn't remember much of it. The biker knew now that his parts to play would be times like these. Bringing up his copter blade, the charger watched as the horde approached him, and with a mighty swing, began to strike them down.

Parrot was inside the butcher shop, and severely annoyed. The noise was driving her nuts, and plugging her ears didn't help at all. She was following the noise, trying to find its source, and her search brought her up to a shelf. She could see that a small red panel, like a fire alarm, was making the noise up on the wall, and she decided she needed to break it. However, the panel was far too high to reach, but she did see that there was a ventilation panel right next too it. She found a second vent just above the shelf, which now brings her here, looking for a place to climb. She shook the shelf, making sure it wouldn't fall on her. The shelf seemed stable and securely attached to the wall. Swallowing hard, the little witch began her climb, trying to do her part to help the adults out by getting rid of the noise that hurt their ears.

The smoker continued to open fire on the incoming horde. He generally aimed for the head, but he wasn't a crack shot. The large number of enemies compensated for this, however, as almost every bullet he fired struck one zombie or another. He emptied his first clip, and began to replace it with a second. He still wasn't adept at the motions, so he had to take his time to reload properly, and remove his eye from the battlefield. The smoker returned his gaze to the streets, and began a quick count. He found that the counting came extremely easy to him, even with the hectic movements. Two-hundred and six moving zombies was his total after a few moments. There didn't seem to be anymore coming from the roads, and he assumed that there simply were no more than this in the area. Rags readied his weapon again, and began to fire into the thickest crowd.

The hunter was shoving shells into his shotgun mid-air as he leapt out of the way of the horde of zombies. They had started to hit him when he got in their way, so he resorted to pushing them down for a quick reprieve and a chance to get away. He had quickly expended the eight rounds in his weapon, firing every which way into the mass of zombies, but he could still feel many more. He managed to reload three shells before landing on and crushing a running infected, he seemed to have a knack for that, always landing on something moving. He fired his shells at the oncoming infected, slaying several in a splash of blood. Matt had decided, due to the cumbersome manner of reloading his shotgun, to take out his police baton for close combat, making excessive use of his leaping whenever the infected turned their attention to him.

The large charger fought his hardest against his second wave of zombies that day. His blade and gun has been doing a good job of keeping the infected away from the store, but he was beginning to lose ground. He could see that the mob had stopped gaining in number, however, the ringing was still ever present, giving him a massive headache. The biker was covered in scratches once more, but nothing he couldn't shrug off at the end of the day. What was taxing him most was raw fatigue. His large arm was growing sore and tired from overuse, and his little arm was suffering from the kickback of his pistol. After he had run bullets out of bullets moments before, he made a mental note to figure out a way to reload it one handed. He would do that later, however. Right now, Ashley felt like he could use a nap.

The little witch was crawling through the small vent on her hands and knees, her small size making the trip easier. The ringing was even worse for her now as the noise echoed through the vents, driving her to move as fast as she could. She finally arrived at her destination, the vent beside the alarm, and pulled her long sleeve down to reveal her claws. As she had done to the previous grating, she sliced the thin metal between her and her target, cutting a sizeable hole for her to squeeze through. She poked her body halfway out of the vent, one hand keeping her balanced, the other baring its claws and ready to strike. She found the little red box that was making the noise on the wall beside her and brought her hand back before swinging hard at the offending device. She repeated her stabs over and over again, the sound distorting heavily for a few moments before dying completely. Parrot sighed happily at the silence that followed.

The three outside were relieved as well when the noise finally died, but it was quickly overshadowed by shock as all of the infected, save the one Ashley was holding by the scruff of its neck, had stopped dead in their tracks. Some began to sit, others leaning against nearby walls, and the remaining simply shuffled around aimlessly.

The biker quickly disposed of the infected in hand by smashing its head on the wall before speaking up, "Uh… why'd they stop?"

"I… have no idea." Matt replied, walking around the remaining infected and towards Ashley.

"They stopped at the exact moment the alarm stopped… that's far too coincidental for these mindless things," Rags said as he started climbing down the fire escape, "there has got to be some kind of relation."

"These bastards sure like running at weird things…" Ashley commented.

"Yeah, seems like…" The hunter said, scratching the back of his head.

They stopped their pondering when a little distressed voice call out, making them turn towards the shop, "Help! I can't get down!"

The others gave strange looks into the butcher shop, and together they went inside. Parrot seemed to be getting a knack for making them laugh, even after a dire situation like the one they had faced. The sight before them was a testament to her ability.

Parrot had apparently fallen out of the vent after she had stabbed the alarm into silence and got her coat stuck on the edge of the grating. She was now hanging, legs kicking wildly as she tugged on the stuck part of her coat, trying to free herself from her predicament.

Due to his exhaustion, Ashley was the first to stop laughing at Parrot, who was squawking unintelligibly in protest to the laughing and wanting to get down. He walked over and helped the poor girl, grabbing her waist and torso with his massive right hand, and lifted her up off of the vent before setting her down on the ground.

"Thank you, Ashley." The little witch said, hugging his leg affectionately.

"Welcome, squirt. Now, I think we should probably search this place for anything we can find."

Parrot huffed and let go of Ashley after he called her a squirt, but got to looking for things with the others soon enough. She opened a door that was leading to the scent she caught earlier, snuck inside, closed the door behind her, and began to secretly enjoy it.

The others found more fruitful in their searches. Rags had found a set of quality butcher knives that looked large, sharp, and deadly. Matt had found a meat locker filled with rotten meats, the source of the smell from before he assumed. He did eventually find a small refrigerator and was happy to find some portable foodstuffs within. Ashley had found things of different usefulness, including a set of zip ties, a blade sharpener, and a toolbox.

After fifteen minutes of digging around, the three met back at the front counter. Matt was busy sorting out the food into piles depending on when the food would expire, Rags was setting out the knives he thought they could use, and Ashley was looking contemplative.

"I think I can work with these… Yeah, work real well." The biker said, before rubbing his eyes, "but first, I want some of that food, and a nap."

The other two nodded, and Matt spoke up, handing Ashley an orange and apple as he did so, "Here, have some of this fruit, it'll go bad first out of the bunch so we should eat it now."

Rags looked around a moment as Ashley began to eat, "Uh… I think we're missing Parrot. Where'd she go?" The smoker said.

Matt felt around, and soon enough he located the little girl, "I know where she is. Behind that door," he said, pointing to a door leading to somewhere, "and she's… eating something?"

They all turned curiously to the door, and with Rags taking point, walked towards it. Upon opening it, they saw something that they found incredibly interesting.

The room that Parrot sat in was almost bare, save a few things on the shelves, including a few boxes of sugar cubes, one of which the little girl was helping herself too. The thing that stood out the most, besides their companion, however, was the bright red, heavy steel door with a symbol of a house with a plus sign in the middle painted on. Knowing that the little witch was safe, and quite content at doing what she was doing, the three men walked to the door.

"While a big metal door could be interesting, I can't seem to see why, if you know what I mean. Mind filling me in?" Matt asked, unable to tell anything other than it was a big heavy door.

"It's red with a weird drawing on it. Really out of place looking for a butcher shop." Ashley answered, "Think you could tell what's inside?"

"Yeah, a bunch of stuff… chairs I think. No one inside though. Can't tell too much else, the walls are too thick."

"Let's take a peek, shall we?" Rags said, reaching out and turning the knob on the door.

He gave a solid push, but the door wouldn't budge. He felt something shake on the other side, but before he could formulate a theory on what was stopping him, Matt spoke up.

"It's barricaded. I felt a whole bunch of tables and maybe a mattress when you pushed it."

"Huh… Ashley, I think this might be your department." Rags said, turning to the biker in question.

The charger sighed, "Yeah, yeah. Step aside."

The smoker did as he was told, and Ashley got to work. He turned the knob with his little hand, and with his big arm, he pushed the door open slowly. The makeshift barricade collapsed, causing the objects it was composed of to clatter to the ground. Being the one to open the door, he was the first to get a glimpse inside.

The room had a couch and a pile of sleeping bags in one corner. It was mostly in disarray, with objects loosely thrown about. The walls were scrawled with countless messages left by people who were long gone. A portable stove with a frying pan on it was plugged into an outlet in the corner, still turned on, and currently burning some meat. People were here very recently, and they seemed to have left in a big hurry. On the other side of the room was a second door, red like the first, but wide open.

"Boys and girls, I think we've just found our first signs of life."

And there you have it, the first chapter of the first campaign. Will they finally find someone to tell them what's going on? Stay tuned to find out.