Campaign: Mad Science

Chapter 2: Special Chase

They acted quickly with the newfound information. They had all spent no more than five minutes packing their things and getting ready to move out, much to Ashley and Parrot's annoyance. The biker was exhausted, and didn't like the idea of having to run off chasing after people who may very well shoot them instead of talking it out peacefully. He reluctantly went along in the end after Rags had convinced the little witch to come along. She wasn't happy about leaving her stockpile of sweet sugar behind, so they compromised by stuffing as many boxes of the stuff as they could into the little girl's backpack, and emptied a final box into her deep pockets.

"There, happy now? We need to move." Rags said, kneeling down to talk to the little girl.

"Oh fine! We can go find the people then." Parrot said, a little grouchy until she popped a sugar cube into her mouth.

The smoker nodded and turned to the others, "You guys ready?"

"Ready as we can be." Ashley grumbled, "Damn I'm tired…"

"We'll find a place to rest soon enough. Now come on!" Matt pushed him on. He decided to take point; he rushed out of the safe room's backdoor, heading into an alleyway.

Looking around, he formulated a quick plan, "Alright, I'll take to the rooftops. I'll take Parrot with me since I can carry her, and it'll be nice to have a set of eyes up there to help."

The little witch bounced on her heels in excitement, waiting for the change to fly high on Matt's shoulder again.

"Good. Ashley, Rags, you two probably can't handle the rooftops like I can. So the two of you should stick to the streets, preferably in the shadows so they don't see you for now. We gotta do this carefully."

Reluctantly, the other two nodded at this. "Alright. We've got the plan, let's go."

Matt quickly leaned down and picked up Parrot, placing her on his shoulder that she seemed to like to much. He felt around and noticed a fire escape on the back of the building. Crouching down, he took aim and leapt with all his might, landing on a fire escape. Taking aim once more, he bounded off again, landing on a nearby rooftop and out of sight of the other two.

Once on the rooftop, he walked to the edge and sniffed. Gunpowder. The air below was thick with it, and the scent of iron was heavy. Blood, he figured. The survivors were alive and kicking, hard. "Parrot, what do you see down there?"

Leaning forward on her perch, Parrot took a look at the scene below and began to describe it, "Well… lotsa zombies lying everywheres. They're not moving either. Lots of bullets on the ground too. Kinda moves like a trail."

"Which way does it lead?"

"That way." The little witch said before pointing in the direction the bodies led.

The hunter nodded and began his chase, leaping from rooftop to rooftop as fast as his enhanced legs could carry him.

After the hunter bounded to the rooftops, Rags and Ashley turned to look at one another. They knew each other a little bit from talking in the clothing shop, but without the other two around, things felt a little awkward.

"Right… guess we should head out. Right? We gotta find those people." Rags said to Ashley with uncertainty.

"Yeah… Yeah. Dammit, I really wish they'd have waited or something…" He sighed, "Let's see. There's bullet casings everywhere. They're armed heavily by the looks of it. The trail goes that way, easy to follow." Ashley said as he viewed the scene.

The smoker nodded in agreement, "Yeah, seems like it does. I guess we'll follow the trail until we hear gunshots or something."

The biker nodded in return, and the two made their way down the street, sticking to the near empty sidewalks for the most part. The path of bodies stopped occasionally, but it was easy for the two to pick up the trail again.

As they walked, Rags decided to try to break the ice, "So, those're some pretty interesting tattoos you have there. Hard to read them though."

"Yeah. I can't remember what they used to mean. Has to do with motorcycles, and I had my registration on me when I 'woke up'. So, seems I used to be a big fan of bikes. Might still be if I find one working enough to appreciate."

"That sounds like it could be fun. I have no idea what I used to do. I've been counting a lot of things though, since those zombies half an hour ago. Counting quick, but not sure what that tells me."

"Eh, it can have its uses, I'm sure." The charger said, before a pregnant pause filled the air. He spoke again, "You know, I've been curious, I figured ya got your name from those rags you wear on your face."

The bandaged smoker nodded to him before he continued, "What's with them?"

"I…" Rags sighed a moment before collecting his story, "When I woke up, I had these horrible… things, attached to my face. Nerveless sacs of flesh just dangling there. It was horrific. When I saw myself in the mirror, something just snapped, and I felt the need to kill the monster I had become. Instead, I did the next best thing. I heated up my butcher knife and performed a self operation. Hurt like a bastard."

The large biker looked somewhat astonished, "Dayum… Hacking off part of yer face like that… Wait, how'd it hurt? You said they were nerveless."

"I tried to wimp out and cut the nerveless parts, but it just grew back twice as big. I had to cut a tiny bit of my normal face to make sure it didn't grow back. My left eye barely works now."

"Shit man… You got a pair the size of my head. I don't think I could've done something that hardcore."

Ashley gave Rags a look of respect, and then clapped him on the back with his little hand. The smoker stumbled a bit and then smirked, "Thanks, man."

They both quickly turn their attention to a nearby alleyway as they heard a strange gurgling sound. They quickly nodded to each other and made for the sound, thinking it could be potentially a survivor, and possibly injured at that. Upon turning in to the alleyway, they saw a fat, disgusting man with horrible sores covering his exposed flesh. He moved down the alleyway at a surprising speed, seeming to be in a rush to get somewhere.

Ashley turned his head to Rags, "I have a gut feelin' we should follow this thing. We might end up closer to the people we want to find."

The smoker nodded, "Right, let's go then, shall we?"

Together, they set off after the strange, bloated man.

Matt could tell he was getting ever closer. The sound of gunfire was echoing in his ears now, just barely getting past the squeals Parrot made as he leapt from roof to roof.

"Parrot, quiet down now. I need you to be my eyes for a minute. I can hear the gunshots clearly, but I can't make much else out. What do you see?" The hunter asked quickly.

"There's people, a few of them, and they're shooting the bad zombie guys!" The little witch said as she pointed excitedly towards the battle.

He allowed himself a slight smile at knowing he was close to his goal, but he knew he had to play it safe. The two of them were still zombies in appearance, at least, he was. Parrot's coat did wonders for hiding her mutations, and made her look rather normal, if a little silly. The hunter continued along the rooftops, quickly gained on the people below, and now gained a mostly clear sense of what was going on.

There were three people still alive below; he could smell their very life wafting from their bodies. One woman and two men, he figured, from the way the vibrations bounced off of their forms. He discovered that while he and the others didn't attract the zombies' attention without physical contact, the survivors seemed to piss them off just by being nearby. It brought to light a few things for him.

"Ewww… what's that thingy?" Parrot whined as she pointed to something.

An obese, sore covered zombie was making its way out of an alley in front of the path of the survivors. The odour assaulted Matt's senses; never before had he smelled something so utterly putrid in his life. It only got worse as the zombie vomited all over one of the men below.

"Boomer!" Cried out the woman as she shot the offending zombie, causing it to explode in a fountain of gore.

The normal zombies began pouring out of nowhere, running after the man who was covered in slime as he shot at them blindly, all the while trying to wipe himself off. Very similar to what happened to Ashley, the hunter noted.

A choking, hacking sound came from his left. For a second he thought that Rags had forgotten to take a puff, but as he felt for the smoker, he noticed a few differences. The newcomer didn't have quite the same smell as his friend did, and it had horrible fleshy sacs hanging from its face. A moment later, the new zombie shot out its tongue, wrapping it around the woman below.

"Smoker's got Cheryl!" Yelled at one of the men as he opened fire with his assault rifle. It did not take long for the smoker to die, releasing a horrid cloud of foul smoke.

"He went poof!" Commented the little girl on his shoulder.

"Shh… Keep quiet. We need to watch this for now…" Matt said, scolding her lightly.

Parrot quickly made a small squeak, covered her mouth with both coat-covered hands, and watched on at the happenings below.

Rags and Ashley has taken to the shadows as best they could when the boomer, as they now knew it to be called, exploded violently. Thankfully, the horde provided enough of a distraction for them to go unnoticed even with the biker's large stature. They had done a little to help by killing a few of the zombies who were rushing down their alleyway, the smoker using his butcher knife and the charger using his arm, but it didn't seem to make much of an impact in the level of danger.

They had found that the greatest danger came from the abnormal ones, the boomer and smoker as they were called. They found themselves lucky that the special ones didn't seem to pay them any mind at all, as demonstrated by a hooded one that snuck up on them.

Rags had jumped slightly in fright as he saw it beside them, crouched onto the ground and perfectly silent. Before he or his friend had a chance to react, it leapt forth with ferocious screech that hurt their ears, and landed on the male at the rear of the survivor trio.

They watched as it began to claw at him, but it was quickly shot dead by one of his companions. The man, as large and tough as he looked, still needed to be helped up by the other guy in the group, a heavily scarred individual.

"Get your ass up, Ted!" The scarred man said.

Ted took the man's hand and used it to get up onto his feet, "Thanks, man. God damned hunters…" He growled before moving on with the rest of the group.

From the shadows, Ashley spoke as he watched on, "Well, seems you an' Matt aren't the only ones like… what you are. If they've named them, means they must show up a lot. Wonder if there's more like me…"

"Who knows? Anyway, let's keep watch. See if we can find an opportunity to follow, or even introduce ourselves."

"I'd rather not. They seem really trigger happy, and while I can't blame them for that, I'd prefer not to get shot. We should wait until they find a calm spot to rest, and then work from there."

As if to grant his wish, he heard the girl, Cheryl, her name was, yell something to her companions as she turned the corner on the street, "Safe house ahead! We're gunna make it!"

"Finally! After something set off that alarm, I thought we were screwed!" Said the scarred man.

"Bah, suck it up. You've been through worse." Spoke up Ted.

"So? Doesn't mean I have to like having to skip breakfast to run from a bunch of damn zombies."

Their bickering continued as they turned the corner, giving Rags and Ashley a good opening to walk out into the street. As they did so, Matt landed beside them, Parrot clutching at his hood while on his shoulder, with an audible thud.

"This is good, they've found another place to be safe, as the name suggests. We could let them calm down and approach them carefully. Sounds good?" Spoke the hunter after landing.

The others nodded, and they all began to make their way to the corner of the street.

"I'll be glad when I can stop and sit for a while." Ashley complained.

"You'll get your chance once they get inside. We'll have to wait up for them to calm down. You'll see, you'll get your break." Rags said reassuringly, patting the perturbed charge on the big arm.

The biker's response was cut short by a thunderous roar and a chorus from the survivors, "TANK!"

The quartet quickly pressed themselves up against a wall near the corner. Rags was closest to the edge, and peered around the corner carefully as Matt uses his senses to observe the scene. The smoker began to relay the information in a panic.

"Holy shit! That thing is huge. They're--- They're shooting at it like mad but it doesn't seem to care."

A moment later, Rags, Ashley, and Parrot, who hopped off Matt's shoulder, walked around the corner to get a better look at the event, and to maybe help. The hunter decided to stay hidden, but brought himself low to the ground, pressing his ear to the ground curiously as he heard a strange rumbling.

The Tank was a vicious creature, smashing everything in sight, even the road it stood on. The trio of survivors had managed to make their way around the beast, but not without injury. Cheryl was nursing her right arm after she had taken a hit from a flying chunk of rock, but she continued to shoot with her machine gun in one hand. They were running towards the safe house, but there was a crashed transport truck in the way. It spanned the road, having been caught in some kind of fissure, possibly a gas line burst or a collapsed sewer. They didn't even have time to think about climbing it as they approached before the Tank screwed them over.

The monster of a zombie had decided to grip into a fracture in the pavement about twenty feet behind them. As it lifted, it pulled out a large slab of asphalt and the bits of piping underneath it. As it tugged hard on the piping, attempting to dislodge it so it could throw the projectile, it tore away the tubes that were helping to support and already damaged road. The churning under the surface of the road made it all finally give way, causing the survivors to fall down through the newly made hole and into the sewers. However, much to the Tank's dismay, the truck that had been lodged in the road tipped and slid down further, completely blocking off the hole.

Curses rang from Rags and Ashley, but Matt quickly hushed them, "Quiet! I knew something was up. I heard the ground cracking a bit, and that crashed gave me a lot to see. There's a huge underground network down there. And… yes! They're alive; I can hear all three of them moving."

"You can really hear all that?" Parrot asked in awe.

"Yeah but… dammit. They're moving away now. Shit, away from us, and that Tank thing is moving towards the one thing between it and them."

"Argh! Dammit! Alright, I don't care. I'm sick and tired of running right now. I say we go kill that thing to give them a chance, and then hope we see them another time. We'll use the safe house they were gunna use." Ranted Ashley, who was fed up with the circumstances.

With a sigh, Matt continued to listen, "Alright. Let's hurry. That cave in let me feel a lot but now most of the vibrations are gone. I doubt I'd be able to find them now anyway, unless we found a way into the sewers. Especially if they go further down. The pavement and concrete is too thick to carry the sound of footsteps."

He grabbed his shotgun from his pack and made sure it was loaded. He was down to fifty-three spare shells, and he had to make them count. Ashley grabbed his helicopter blade and pistol, and together, they made they're way to the Tank quickly, but not before getting Rags to take Parrot to a hiding spot.

Matt was the first to take charge. He knew that it could cause a lot of trouble, but he wanted to give the people in the sewers a chance, and he wanted some peace for a while. He leapt forward, landing behind the Tank as it smashed into the truck, thrust his shotgun to within an inch of the monster's spine, and opened fire. He figured the close range would add a punch, and while it did leave a gaping, bloody wound, he only managed to fire off three rounds before the zombie decided to try and dispatch of the annoyance.

Ashley ran forward, leaving Rags and Parrot behind, and readied his pistol. He watched as the Tank took a swing at his hunter friend, only for the half-zombie to leap away, getting off another shot before doing so. The biker brought up his pistol, moving forward at a slow pace, and began to unload his clip. The monster didn't seem to mind at first, but by the fourteenth round he finally had its attention. He rushed directly at the roaring zombie, running faster than he thought he could manage and drove his helicopter blade forward. The super zombie didn't even see it coming as the semi-sharp object was thrust into its chest and came out through the other side.

Rags watched on from his nearby hiding place, behind a wrecked car, with the little witch girl. Truth be told, he was utterly terrified of the giant monster zombie that had turned its attention to his friends. A horde of zombies that went down easily and weren't targeting him he could handle. A second horde a short time later that wasn't targeted at him while he had a gun, he could handle. A giant zombie that seemed immune to all forms of pain and bullets that was unnervingly strong, he could not. He clutched to his automatic weapon like a protective blanket, but far too shaken to actually shoot. It wasn't until he saw Ashley skewer the hulking monstrosity through the chest did he regain his wits. He saw the Tank begin to stumble, flailing around sluggishly, and in its motions managed to strike the charger who stabbed it, sending him flying several feet back. He knew he had to act fast so that they could all walk out of this alive.

Parrot stood just behind Rags, but unlike him, she wasn't frightened, she was worried. She didn't want anything bad to happen to her friends. She had put her backpack on the ground and was rummaging through it rapidly. The little witch saw her smoker friend poke around from the car and open fire on the stumbling monster. She wanted to help them out, but she knew she couldn't fight like they could. That didn't stop her from wanting to try, though. Digging deeper past the first-aid kit and sugar she had, she found the pistol the adults had given her and drew it from the bag. She had seen how Ashley used his, but she figured she'd need both of her hands, as the gun seemed giant to her. She poked her head up from the cover of the car, the side opposite to the adult she was hiding with, and took him aim with both hands. She closed one eye, stuck out her tongue in concentration, and aimed at the Tank's head. Her raincoat-covered claw slowly squeezed the trigger.

Rags was reloading and Matt was helping Ashley to his feet. They were about to retaliate against the somehow still living Tank when a shot rang out. The single bullet came from seemingly nowhere beside the smoker and, by a feat of pure luck, crashed into the monster zombie's forehead, causing it to stumble back. A small shriek of fright echoed out after the shot, and while the hunter and smoker of the group turned to the little witch, the charger took action. He moved forward, grabbed the handle of his blade that was protruding from the hulking zombie, and pulled and thrashed it out of his foe, leaving behind horrible wounds.

A moment later, the Tank finally bled out, and collapsed on the ground.

Rags and Parrot soon joined the other two in the middle of the street. Ashley was panting heavily, as was Matt, but their attention was on the little girl holding the pistol in her hands.

Shyly, she extended her hands, the gun laying in her open palms right next to a tiny bit of metal, "I'm sorry, I broke it…" She said before sulking like only a child could.

From what they gathered, when she pulled the trigger and fired, it startled her and caused her hand to clench too tightly, and she ended up severing the trigger.

Matt sighed, "As glad as I am for the help, I really…" He halted his words when he felt her lip quivering, and he sighed again, "I really just want to say; Thanks, Parrot."

He gave her a smile and patted her head, and she physically brightened up by straightening her back and smiling wide.

"I had a feeling she'd break the gun if she used it." Rags commented, much to the little witch's dismay.

"Ah, it's alright. I'll fix it after a good nights sleep." Ashley said, trying to brighten the mood, "Now come on! I'm tired and there's a safe house right there."

"Yeah, we'll worry about those three tomorrow… I felt that they went that way," the hunter said, pointing vaguely towards the safe house, "and if we keep going that way, we'll be sure to find them. As long as they make it…"

"They'll be fine, now get your asses moving, c'mon!" Crowed the biker as he put his blade back, and reloaded his pistol.

They all nodded in agreement, Parrot took her place on Matt's shoulder as usual, and together they walked to the safe house, intent on resting for the night.

A/N: Sorry for the wait! Things have been hectic, but here you go, another chapter complete. Next chapter will be a bit more docile, but just as important. Stay tuned for Chapter 3: Grim Repose. Reviews are very much appreciated and help me write faster.