Interactive Survival Story

Check the other hole again.

 

Shaken, you walk back over to the other barricade, and look through that hole. The same as you saw before, a dark hallway with open shops lining it.





(Try to treat this as if it were real life, not a story. Act like you would if this really happened)

 

Take out your crowbar and go Gordon Freeman on the barricade with the eyes.

 

*Warning, get's a little gory from here on out*

Gathering your courage, you go back to the barricade that was looking at you. You pull out your crowbar, ready to drop it and grab your gun, you begin to pull apart a small part of the wall so you can sneak in.

A short time later, there's a hole big enough for you to crawl through. As you go through the hole, a few drops of blood drip on your face.

You're frozen with fear. Petrified by the fact that in mere moments, you could be dead. You gather enough courage to look up, and you're horrified by the sight. You make out four bodies, all human, nailed to the barricade's backside. Not only nailed there, but it looks as if makeshift spears have been plunged into the barricade itself to hold them up. They are completely mutilated, and obviously not coming back to life any time soon.

When you shot the wall, you must've knocked one the bodies down to stare out the hole.

Decision time. Go all the way through the barricade and check the stores, or retreat and try to forget what you just saw

 

Retreat and try the other barricade.

 

Having the hell scared out of you generally makes you retreat, so you crawl out as fast as you freaking can. Wiping the blood off yourself, you decide to try your luck with the other barricade.

Same thing as before, you pry it with your gun at the ready. Making a hole, you crawl through. No bodies on this side, thank god. Deciding that evil lies a yonder from the North east, you decide to block up the hole you just made. Flicking your lighter for light, you see that you're right next to the sports store, and across the hall is the music store. Down the hall are various odds and ends stores, as well as the Employee Only hallway, which leads to the office and garages.

Choice of action?

 

Sports store...

 

Luckily, whoever made the wall seems to have passed over the sports store in the looting. You enter the store and first things first, grab a Mag-light, some ammo, and a big ol' knife. Now that you have some light, you can explore far easier. You find a mummy bag, a heavier coat, and some camp food, along with a couple Gatorades. You take a look at your watch and see that it's almost 7PM. Now that you've found a supply of food and drink (Limited, but there) and a fairly defensible position with the gate closed, you've got that choice again.

Set up a barricade/wall on the entrance, or stay mobile, or explore some more?

 

Set up a barricade for the night.

 

Using all kinds of things you find in the store, you set up a wall on the entrance of the store. After jumping at it a couple times, you determine it's solid enough. Setting up a veritable minefield, you make 'camp' at the opposite side of the store. This whole process takes you about 2 hours. Now it's 9PM, and you decide to get whatever sleep you can. Wrapping yourself up, you crawl into the bag, hoping you don't freeze to death. You fall righto to sleep, exhausted by your walking, work, and the toll of stress and fear.

The scream wakes you with a start. No bleary-eyed for you, adrenaline crashing into your veins has you on your feet, one hand holding your gun, the other clutching at your knife. Hearing it again, it's obviously inhuman. It has an odd quality to it, almost as if whatever is shrieking has two voices, one low and guttural, the other high and keening. Content that it's not in the store, you check the barricade as well as you can with as little light as possible. Since they're not crashing against it, you gather that they haven't found you yet, and there's no reason to give yourself away. Obviously, you're not gonna get back to sleep anytime soon, so you try to relax as best you can. The time is 3AM. Best you can gather, dawn is still a good 4 hours away, for June anyway. With the snowstorm, it could be far longer. Unfortunately, there's nothing to do but wait.

Waking with a start, you realize that you did in fact fall to sleep. The familiar face of your watch tells you that it's 8AM. At least you survived the night eh?

Suddenly, it hits you. They carry radios in this store!

Do you stay in the store and find and listen to a radio, hide in the store and make not a sound, or go out and try to find more survivors?

 

Stay inside.

 

Find and listen to a radio on a very low volume with the gun ready.

 

You grab a small radio, plug some batteries in, and fiddle with the dial. All you can pick up is static. You're not sure if it's because you can't get reception in the mall, or because there's no one left to broadcast.

You can keep messing with the radio in the store, try getting reception outside or on the roof, or give up on the radio and look for more people.

 

Make a little peephole in the barricade and look outside.

 

Using your knife and a camp poker, you make a small hole in the barricade. All you can see is the music store, but there's no motion in it.

Same choices.

 

Try to get better reception on the roof.

 

You decide to try and make it to the roof to see if you can get a signal. Luckily, you're in the wing of the mall with roof access. You remove a small portion of the wall and slide out. Looking at the skylights, you can actually see a bit of the sky. Light is provided, and it looks like the storm has subsided, though it's still an angry gray.

Carefully and as quietly as you can, you make your way towards the maintenance entrance. Reaching it without problem, you glance down into the garages. You see movement, a low shape crawling slowly across the floor.

Do you shine your light on it, shoot it, get on the roof ASAP and hope it didn't see you, or hightail it back to your sanctuary?

 

Sneak onto the roof.

 

get on the roof ASAP and hope it didn't see you

 

You run to the ladder and climb up it as fast as humanly possible, not even bothering to look if something is following you. Bursting through the hatch on the roof, you bolt the hatch behind you. Catching your breath, you take a look around. The town is white, pristine. There's not a soul outside. You walk around to look off the other side of the mall. What you see hits you like a hammer.

The apartment complex behind the mall, low income families mostly, is nearly destroyed. The walls are crumbling, the window are shattered, there's even smoke coming from a few of the rooms. But what horrifies you the most is that for the most part, the families are still there, albeit a bit....dead. From where you stand you can see about twenty people, pegged to the walls. The blood smears indicate quite a few of them were still alive when it happened. And then you see them.

You can make out some of their features, but they're all looking away from you, thank god. Luckily, none of them look up on the roof. Their skin is a dark scaly brown. Many of them a loping around on all fours, moving faster than most humans would running. They seem to be uneasy around heights however, as none of them ventured above the second floor on the four story complex.

You slowly drop to the floor, ignoring the cold bite of snow, and cautiously crawl backwards. Remembering why you came up here in the first place, you pull out the radio, and turn it's volume to the lowest audible setting. Spinning the dial, you can only pick up three stations. The first is a Mexican music station, apparently set on auto-DJ. The second is a public service announcement. It doesn't say much you already know, aside from a quarantine location. You file that away. If you get out of here alive, that's where you're headed.

The third station is by far the most useful and the most terrifying. It appears to be a looped message. You tune into it towards the end, and wait for it to loop.

"Attention all survivors. This is General Jackson Armstrong of the US Army. This town has been declared a hot zone by the CDC. In accordance with Act 7, part 3 of the pandemic charter, all incurable areas will be sterilized. Any and all unbitten humans should make their way towards the designated quarantine area. Leave anything bitten behind. Friends, family, even your pets. They are a lost cause. Avoid any contact with the infected, no matter how they may act. They are no longer human. Make way to the quarantine area with all haste. This is a looped message."

Having no desire to 'sterilized', you decide it's best to get the hell outta here. Obviously, you're not going to be able to drive off the roof, so that means going back down the hatch. Once you're down there, you've got a few options.

Go into the garage and get a service vehicle. There was that....thing down there, but you don't know what it is.

Sneak out into the parking lot and try to find a vehicle to hotwire. Slight problem, you haven't the faintest idea how to hotwire a car.

Walk


*Last update for tonight, I'm going to bed. Make the right choice folks.*