James sent back,

"Yeah, it might at that."

Following the 'trail' James landed a building next to Hawk, then jumped down to the street and laid into them.


(If and when James gets surrounded he'll jump to a different location and start over. When half his pool is gone, or Dan gives the signal, he'll leap several buildings away.)

Jules nodded slowly, picking up the shroud. It was easier this way - it didn't seem so immediate and personal. This wasn't necessarily her son. It could be anything. Ben could still be ok, if only in her heart for a moment, he could be alright somewhere else. It allowed her to stand up and hold the bundle with reverence, but not mindless loss. "Let's go. I need to get a gun in my hands and take out a few monsters."

Morgan takes her around the waist gently and takes to the air again heading back to the caravan. "Don't worry, there will be plenty of time for that. We are on our way to an armory to see what kind of firepower we can get our hands on. I promise we'll get you a gun and lots of ammo. We'll bury Ben later when we can do it with the proper ceremony."

Once they get back to the group Morgan shows Jules where she can put her bundle and put his own sniper rifle into her hands with it's ammo. "Use this for now. We'll get your own soon, but don't use it unless we are under attack, we are trying to create a diversion now to draw the Zombies away from this location."

"C'mon you dea-head sons of bitches come try your luck with a member of the USMC!" Zombies fall as his battle rifle barks, heads splattered with gore after each retort. There was seemingly no end to them, and down below his partner in this endeavor was going toe to toe with them.

"This is almost boring" he yells down to James. He shrugs and contiues killing, hoping this is enough to buy the others the time they need.

The diversion seemed to be working. Zombies were truly mindless, drawn to the sound of gunfire and screams like moths to a flame. And just as easily snuffed out.

James found the zombie-killing easy work; after all, these things couldn't hurt him, really, they moved slowly, and they were weak. When he felt himself begin to run low on juice, which happened surprisingly quickly, he jumped away to another rooftop. There was a single zombie there, and there was no fear of any more climbing out of the building, because the door was actually crushed beneath a news helicoptor. The zombie trudged toward James and without thinking he took an arm off.

The zombie bled.

It's surprising what someone can get used to, James reflected as he fought. As usual the zoms were wearing clothes, they might have been people. It sort of looked like James was murdering the homeless. James tried to not think that these creatures had been people at some time... or that if a cure could be found, maybe they could be people again sometime in the future except for that fact that James was killing them.

The black 'dagger' flickered into and out of existence. James stabbed it into a Zom's head and left it in as 'it' fell. The fiery blade flickered then went out and he made a new one and attacked a different zombie. Or maybe he was calling back the original blade. Somehow there were always more important things to do than to study this, or maybe he just didn't want to know. On some level it bothered him that this mass murder didn't bother him any more.

Despite whatever Violet had done to him to extend his Stamina, he still had limits and he was starting to reach them. As usual there was no end of zombies and it was getting clear he'd need to retreat. Come to think of it he wanted to leap out before Hawk did his thing anyway.

If he was going to run away, as a practical matter he'd rather lay out on a roof and sun himself than hide in some locked room. Up there he could see them coming and run to fight another day.

James said into his mike,

"Hawk, James here. I'm getting tired, this is the part where I hang out on a roof top."

James had picked a likely building long ago, he leaped to it's top without a problem and found what was left of a news helicopter blocking the exit/entrance and one zombie. Easy as pie.
James paused in surprise, this wasn't right. Zoms don't... James realized what he'd done and yelled,

"Oh, SHIT!" James attempts to grab the bleeding arm and apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding.

James sent over the radio,

"James here. I'm on a roof top. Hawk, get over here. I found a survivor but he surprised me and I took his arm off thinking he was a zombie."

"Shit." was Dan's response to James' call. There was a huge knot of zombies beneathe him so he unhooked the tank and let it drop even as he flew higher. He looked down in time to see it land one one of the zombies, not fattally, but it did knock it down. He drew a bead with his rifle and fired a short three round burst. The tank exploded as so many others had and flattened everything within a thirty foot radius.

When none of the zombies were moving he made his way to Where James was, staying in the air just in case but looking over the injured man.

"What the hell happened?"

(((OOC does this guy look like a zombie or does he look human?))

Setting Ben's body down is still hard, but Jules is getting used to the pain. It touched her strangely, weakly, when it should have been a pounding fist. Jules didn't mind: she wasn't a mother anymore and emotions wouldn't help, not right now. For a second, that thought - I'm not a mother anymore - hurt, but she ignored it with another thought. I'm a hunter, now.

Eyes bright with so many negative emotions, Jules checked the rifle, reloaded it, and readied herself. She barely glanced at the people around her - she had other things to worry about.

James&Dan

The guy groaned, but not really in a zombie-ish way, more the way you'd expect someone who just got their arm chopped off to sound. He looks pretty fucking dirty, his shirt torn in several places, his hair cut jaggedly, and the dirt and dried blood staining his face and body serve to camouflage his age for a certain extent. But up close, it's clear he is not a zombie. For one thing, he looks like he might be going into shock.

Maybe he's just surprised. Hey, it could happen.

Priest

Those damn tires finally got changed, and the group wheeled back through the wreckage of the city to reclaim their vehicles, and no mutant zombies or crazy survivors bothered them all the way back. Of course, the regular zombies were quite bad enough, and fairly swarmed the vehicle, which was forced to go slowly due to the sheer amount of congestion. A few rounds of fire put down those zombies that got a little too cozy.

"Fox come in! we've got a survivor, hurt pretty bad, do you have anyone onsite with real medical training and a serious firstaid kit??"

He looks to James "Get your belt off and get it around what's left of his arm, you need to make a tourniquette and then we'll need something to staunch the flow of blood."

Priest's voice comes across the network.
"Leo here is a surgeon and we have a medical kit in the truck. Plus we might be able to find something medical here in the warehouse."

He then calls Leo over and briefs her on the situation. She doesn't look happy, but she knows the situation must be dire to bring a dying human in for medical attention.

Dan listens the the reply. "Is she affraid of heights?"

He turns to James. "Im gonna go get the medic, you stay put we'll sort it out in a bit." He took off towards the convoy and emptied one of his last magazines clearing out the Zombies.

It was truly a sight for those unaccustomed to seeing a man fliying above with a battlerifle mowing down zombies. He called Priest. "Where's my doctor?"

Violet was glad that the convoy got moving again. She put down the headset and shuffled through her hair making sure she looked good. She wanted to get away from here as fast as possible. Her gaze wandered over the remains of civilisation and with disgust she watched as the zombs closed in. Why did I volunteer to come along?, she asked herself. It's not like I can do anything about the Zs. I wished James was here..., Violet was getting selfish again.

And no one cares if I can help - I even offered to help but they're all too busy with their own stuff. This was the dumbest idea ever, I'll never do this again!

"She's not going to love them, but she's solid."

Priest looked over to Leo and asked,
"You are solid with this, right?"
She curtly nodded.



"Leo here, sir," said a woman standing next to Priest. She had a med kit with her and looked decidely unhappy.
"You are going to stay with me while I work on this person right? I don't want them turning all Zombie on me. I'm not that kind of salvager."

Meanwhile Sarah and Rhonda look at Violet then at each other. They can't really understand her stress. Sure, today had been annoying, with the trucks losing their tires, but not really all that dangerous. They had a half dozen speicals with them. How bad could it be. Rhonda reached out and brushed Violet's arm.

As Dan slung his rifle and wrapped his arms around Leo's waist he nodded. "I know this is forward but it's alot safer than you hanging from my arms. put your feet on top of mine and we'll get out of here." She complied quickly hearing the urgency in his voice and he lifts back into the air and rockets over to where James and the wounded man are.

In transit he does his best to reassure her. "I'll protect you. That's the job of the Marines Ma'am."

He set down on the building about two yards away from the wounded, quickly allowing her to get off his feet and go to work as he swung his rifle back into combat position and reloaded it with a fresh magazine.

James, this is Leo. Tell her what happened quickly, and help her in any way you can. I'll cover you two."

A little stunned by what he'd done, James didn't realize what Hawk was doing until he was three seconds gone. Applying pressure to the arm before it ended, James yelled fruitlessly,

"No, take him to her... oh never mind."

Taking care to not touch the open wound, James knew very well where his hands had been, he took off his belt, looped it above the injury, and tied it.

James said,

"After I lept up here he walked towards me without saying anything. I was expecting a zom or two so I took his arm off with this..." James extends his black fiery knife.

"I doubt the zoms can make it here. I think he crashed that 'copter on the door and was just stuck here. He might have a stash here, we should probably see what's behind that door afterwards. And this copter might be from that base, we should check that too."

"Alright you help the doc, I'll do a quick recon of things."

Dan moves off and begins searching the wreckage of the copter.

(((OOC any rolls you want me to make? Relevant stats are Perception 5, Investigation/awareness 4)))

The guy's bleeding slowly sputtered to a slow drain, his eyes glazing over as he passed into a blurry half-awake state.

The copter is very bare. There's a cardboard box containing dry and canned foods, and a rifle near the pilot's seat. After some searching he also finds a toolbox stashed in the back, but it's mostly empty. And it's pretty obvious why this guy went down...a dead man was slumped in the copilot's seat, one hole through his cheek and another through his head.

Focussed more on the man than what Dan was doing, James called out,

"Any hope that copter is from those military guy's base? Or other clue where he's from?"

"I don't think so. Looks to be a civilian helicopter. There's only a few bare survival needs. He takes up the Rifle and walks back over to them.

"He gonna make it?"

Violet didn't seem to notice at first as she was obviously caught up with her own thoughts. The gentle touch slowly crept through her like a warm wave that brought her back to reality. Blinking a few times she stared at Rhonda and then smiled at her. Even though Rhonda hadn't said anything Violet felt her worry and lack of understanding.

"I'm alright, I'm just a little...", she sighed and looked briefly away before her eyes met Rhondas' again. "I don't like this whole thing here and I feel more comfortable if James is around. I can't do much anyways and even if no one cares.", she shrugged and reached for Rhonda's arm. "I just want to get back to the base."

After a short moment she added, "I'd like to invite you to my place once we get back, would you mind?"

James gives a guilty wince and said,

"Maybe. But I'd been doing hand to hand with Zoms right before this. Even if he lives I might have infected him."

"...Good Grief! If he'd just said something..."

The guy faded out. As near James could tell, he'd probably live...if he wasn't infected. Nasty thing to wake up to, though, in either case.

It had looked impossible...but surprisingly, there were actually fewer ambient zombies now than before. Perhaps they'd temporarily decimated this part of the city's population. It would be some time before they regained really significant numbers, either through noticing commotion and trecking forward or simply drifting in aimlessly.

James let go of the guy's arm, gingerly at first to see if it started bleeding then he stepped back when it didn't. Looking over the edge he commented,

"Nice work, a bit messy but that's what we wanted. I'm seriously tired, guess we could wait here but what we should do it head back to the others."

"He is... we're going to have to move him sooner or later. Hawk, I think you're transport. How many people can you take at once?"

"I think I can manage all of you, so long as we don't get attacked."

"You need to hold onto the guy and me while I hold onto you. Leo, hold onto my neck from behind and try not to choke me if you can."

Once everyone is positioned correctly, Dan lifts from the rooftop and rejoins the convoy, now showing some signs of exertion himself. "If we've got what we need Fox I say we get the hell out now. The Zoms are thinning out, now's our chance."