[Austin and Sylvia]
The power gives out, courtesy of the missiles, rockets, or maybe the minigun.
Sylvia squeaks and fumbles around for Austin. Nonononononono.
“Shhhhhh calm down!!” Austin grabs Sylvia.
Sylvia flinches, but then realizes it is Austin and calms down. Austin takes out a flashlight and turns it on, then goes to find the headlamps he had in his backpack. He puts one on and switches it on. He hands his flashlight to Sylvia.
“Are you sure we should risk going to the lobby now?” Sylvia asks, taking the flashlight shakily.
“If zombies are pouring up the stairs, it’d be much better to stop them on a lower floor than wait for them to come up here. You ready to leave?” Austin asks.
“Yeah...Alright then,” Sylvia reluctantly puts on her jacket and satchel, “I’m ready now. I’m going to get the staff really quick though.”
“Sure.” Austin checks over his gear. From his protective jacket, to his protected jeans, his boots, and the equipment strapped onto himself, he was as ready as he could get to fight for his life. Walking to the closet, he grabs their hammer and hangs that on his jacket as well. This could crack a skull or two, and maybe smash open doors as well.
“Do you think blunt force or a sharp edge would be more effective?” Sylvia questions.
“Blunt force would be best to defend yourself and push a zombie back, but a staff would be kind of hard to swing in these close quarters. And a killing blow would take a lot of strength. But a knife would take some strength to kill with too, and you’d have to get close to use it.
“Or… we can compromise by sticking a knife on one of the ends of this staff,” Sylvia notes.
“That would work. As long as we can attach it securely. Do you wanna tape it, glue it, tie it down?”
“All of the above. It wouldn’t do if it came off during the middle of a fight, you know?”
“Haha true. It could get really thick though. The best would be if we could separate the handle from the blade and carve a slot for the blade to fit.”
“How would we carve a neat slot in the wood?” Sylvia flails.
“Sigh. We have knives. We can just carve the end until it’s mostly flat. We could also sharpen one end and just use the wood as a point. But that’s not as good as an actual knife...” Austin sighs and starts carving down one end of the staff, using a cleaver to slice slivers of wood off the end. The tip naturally starts forming a slanted point, so Austin starts carving down the other end. Of course, this isn’t how you’re supposed to carve things.
“This isn’t working... you’re going to have to settle for a pointy stick.” Austin remarks. Making a wooden spear was considerably easier. Although rough, it was literally just a pointy stick, and he doubted Sylvia would be killing much stuff anyways.
“That’s fine. At least this way I can stab and whack things.”
“Try not to break the tip. It’s not exactly sturdy.” Austin advises, looking at his own craftsmanship dubiously.
“Alright.”
“Well, let’s go. Before we leave, we should hide our valuables.”
After hiding their non-perishables and water, they were ready to leave. Austin draws his trench knife and holds it in a back-handed grip. While he’d never stabbed anyone before, he’d borrowed an army knife wielding manual from a friend and watched enough movies to know how to use a knife.
A peek out into the hallways revealed... absolutely nothing. No one was outside, and he couldn’t hear anything that might be cause for alarm. “Should be safe” Austin whispers, beckoning for Sylvia to follow. He pockets his own set of keys.
“Best to tread lightly, I don’t want anything to know we’re here, human or not human,” Sylvia whispers, “I’ll be on the lookout for anything, sounds included.
Austin nods and advances softly down the hallway in a sort of boxing stance, his left arm held protectively in front of his right, which wielded the trench knife. The darkness was unsettling, but he figured it would inconvenience everyone else as much as him. The pair advance down the hallway to the stairs without incident. They hear a panicked clamour as they descend the stairs.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea...” Austin wasn’t feeling as confident without the power on.
“Now you tell me. But we should see if there are others, that way we’d be safer instead of waiting for the zombies to overrun the entire building. Although I’d be up for huddling in the apartment for the next 10 years, except we probably wouldn’t survive that long.”
“If there’s too many of them down there, we can always sprint back up the stairs I guess...”
“We could, but that’s assuming zombies aren’t going to surround us from behind. We don’t know everyone who lives here, there could be people infected with the virus and just holing up in their room, quarantined and stuff.”
“Then I’ll just... kill them I guess.” Killing the enemy was a solution to every emergency.
“We have several options from here: 1) Go try to find others and team up with them, even though I don’t trust them anyways. 2) Hole up in the apartment until morning so we can actually see, but risk having a zombie horde right outside of our door. 3) Investigate the lobby, which would give us the most information and the chance to set up barricades. But of course, this has a high chance of us encountering zombies, and the highest risk in general. 4) Go around, knocking on other people’s doors to gather supplies, maybe team up with them, and obtain information. Although a surprise zombie may pop out of one of the rooms. 5) Stand out here like idiots until a zombie eats us,” Sylvia lists off while vigilantly watching the surroundings.
“Alright yeah true. The lobby is needlessly risky, and it’s just too dark right now. We should go door to door on this floor gathering supplies, clearing the floor of zombies, and build a barricade to prevent anything from coming up. And then do the same with the floors above us.” Austin agrees. They go back up to their floor and start on the first door to their right. Wary of any unexpected attacks, Austin tries the door handle slowly.
Locked.
Austin knocks firmly, ears straining to listen for footsteps, groans, any telltale signs of living or dead occupants. He grips his knife firmly, leaning up against the wall adjacent to the doorframe. There was a chance a crazy guy was inside, prepared to shoot the moment he heard anything.
Sylvia sidles besides Austin and keeps watching and listening for anything that might indicate danger. The extreme paranoia and fear of zombies was almost making her dizzy. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Relax. You need to stay sharp.
((GM, if the door is metal, they’ll stand right behind it ready to do the stabby, since no need to fear someone shooting through a metal door?))
vanovick