Morrow Project: Vancouver Island (campaign journal)

[JMars71]

Entry #1

My name is John LaBlanc, Morrow Project ID # 8365, part of what was initially a 4 man Recon unit situated some 25 km west of Comox, Vancouver Island, BC. Our unit was placed into cryogenic stasis in 1987, and we were awakened, well ... about two and a half hours ago.

Our unit commander, Alexander Riggs -- a combat veteran and former sgt. in the CAF -- didn't survive the freezing/wakening process. His blood must have crystalized in the sleep-tube. There was nothing we could do for him.

And if only to make matters worse, our bolthole computer ... well, it's supposed to give us our first mission upon reawakening, but, I dunno, it malfunctioined or something. All it spit out was gibberish.

As for the remaining team; there's Percy Prescott II, Nathaniel Pottersson, and myself. Percy is the oldest and most highly educated of us, being aorund 28 years old at our freeze date and holding a PhD in Engineering. As for Nate and myself, we're both in our early 20's -- 22 and 23 years respectively -- and hold Bachelor degrees ... Nate in Zoology and me in Social Anthropology. We received some good combat training from the Project before going under, but none of us have a military background.

Anyway, it took us a good hour to clear the bolthole exit tunnel of debris, and then drive one of our (two) Commando Scouts up and out. At which point we turned on the radio and tried to establsih contact with any other MP teams in the region. No luck. The mountains might be interferring. I dunno.

We took some time out to recon the immediate area, bury Sarge, and camo the mouth of the bolthole tunnel, before deciding that we were going to proceed under our standing orders; to aid in the recovery of civilization in the aftermath of a nuclear war, and according to the nature of our unit, ie. recon. So, we crammed into the Scout -- they're really only built for two -- and are currently making our way toward the Courtaney/Comox area to assess the damage and prevailing conditions. Presumably, Comox, having been an important airforce base, we don't expect to find too much left of it if all went down as expected. Nor will we be wanting to get too close to the crater we expect to find there.

But speaking of prevailing conditions ... well, we were supposed to be awakened within five years following a nuclear holocaust. Who knows when that went down. In fact, things were promising to turn for the better between the Americans and the Soviets when our team went under. But it's strange ... as part of our training we were fully briefed on what to expect in a post-nuclear holocaust world, and while we weren't expecting the blighted landscape of some cheesy B-movie, nature nevertheless seems, well ... skies are clear and there's allot of green and growth ... more-or-less unchanged.

According to Percy, there's about 50 years of wear and tear on the road we're travelling down! Okay.

We had to joke that maybe a nuclear war never even happened, and they just forgot about us, all nesteld away in this wild mountainous terrain at the western extent of "Forbidden Plateau Road". Boo!

But I actually have to admit, I sincerely entertained the notion. Then, about 15 minutes ago, we came across this trio of hunters. They were grossly disfigured -- from a combination of radiation exposure and maybe inbreeding I'd guess -- and a little on the cautious/suspicious side, but not openly hostile. Apparently, there are large communities of them "here and there", and relations between the "Freaks" and us "Prettys" (their terms) aren't so keen.

Frickin' Prescott!! The guy actually made some thoughtless reference to their looks when we were talking to them; which really seemed to get the big one (6'7" BIG) riled up, but other than that things went okay. They seemed to be a little on the slow side -- but not as slow as Prescott! -- and they spoke with a funny accent, but it was, obviously, recognizeably English ... broken, guttoral English anyway. They wouldn't say too much about their settlements, and in fact insisted that they themselves lived out here alone, but they did tell us that their father used to speak of the ruins to the east ... "Courmox er stumfin lik dat".

So, that was about 15 minutes ago. We're still heading eastward along whats left of this winding road. We have to watch our speed 'cause, well, we don't have so much of a road beneath us as a barely discernable swath of open ground that we are able to drive along. And there have been a couple of points where fallen trees have really slowed us down, but we should be out of these mountains and into some more open terrain within the next 1/2 hour.

Entry #2

So it's evening now. We're currently camped out in an old 3 story building on the outskirts of Courtenay ... or what's left of it. The roads are cracked to shit and filled with potholes, while tough weeds and tall grasses have long since sprouted up through the cracks. There's not much as far as homes are concerned ... the occassional fireplace and/or partially intact brick wall ... and here and there are clusters of severely weathered 3 story apartment buildings. Everything's overgrown and in severe disrepair.

Percy stands by his opinion that it's been a good 50 years ...

But yeah, it's been an eventful day ...

Just before emerging from the hills, we came upon a small strip of road with the well-nigh crumbled ruins of a number of houses, as well as an old gas station with a couple ajoining business, sitting along it. The gas station was once two stories, but it's roof had long since collapsed.

But as we were driving up to this place, a woman in tattered leather came racing out of one of the house-ruins waving us down and yelling for help. We stopped a good 25 m off. I got out with my Stoner M23 and remained beside the Scout with Nate mounting the MAG-58 in the turret. Percy had just approach the chick and begun talking to her when the sounds of battle cries, men charging through the underbrush and small calibre arms fire erupted from inside the treeline beside the house. Apparently Nate took two slugs ... one in the shoulder and one dead center in the chest, but like I said, small calibre ... and hey, our MP body armour works like a charm! I even heard a round zing by me only to ping off the Scout's armour!

Anyway, we returned fire into the treeline, Nate really opening up on the MAG, and man, I don't know what these guys were on, but two guys looking like a couple of British punk-rockers come charging out of the trees with, like, .32 calibre, bolt-action rifles! Needless to say perhaps, they didn't last long, but they were really intent. When all was said and done, we found two more dead in the bush, and ... I dunno ... they musta been on something ... to see their buddies get torn apart like that but then charge us nevertheless.

Dumbasses.

As for the woman, she looked like she coulda been one of them, though she swore that she wasn't. We had our doubts about her of course, and Nate even suggested that, maybe, we kill her, but we quickly resolved to just let her go.

So, we continued on, eventually rolling off the remains of Forbidden Plateau Road onto the remains of the Inland Island Highway, and from there on into the outskirts of Courtenay. We headed for the nearest cluster of apartment buildings, and when we got there, Nate grabbed his Uzi and got out with Percy while I mounted the MAG and stayed with the vehicle.

They entered one of the apartment buildings, and within about two minutes, gunfire erupted ... Nate's SMG and Percy's handgun ... multiple shots and bursts. A couple of seconds after that, the two of them came hauling ass out of the apartment, with Percy literally screaming, ie. like a girl, for me too "shoot them!!!"

I'm not sure what the hell was following them. Percy called them "zombies" ... but a buncha of them came shambling out of thje building after them, and, well, after our recent experience with the bandits ... well, I sprayed the entrance down with machine gun fire as the other two piled in the Scout and drove us out of there. As things stand, and on second thought, I'm not so sure they were any kind of threat. Nate and Percy swear the "things" attacked them, but they were fine, albeit shaken up, and it was dark in there. They could have been more of these "Freaks", based on what I could see at a distance and in the flurry of the moment ... maybe they were sick, needy, desparate ... I dunno, I just don't feel right about it ...

Which brings me to where we are now ... in this small, square-based 3 story building. Not sure what it used to be, but only the second floor has any interior walls. Something BIG attacked us when we entered. Man, poor Nate. He's had a rough day. This thing began mauling him. I unloaded an entire magazine from my Stoner into it before it finally dropped. And then it took both Percy and myself to haul it's carcass off of Nate. He's quite bruised and shaken up, but no lacerations, no broken bones.

According to Nate, the thing was in fact a bear, but some grossly mutated version of one; much bigger, and fiercer than the black bear it's probably a descendent of.

As for the rest of the building, I found the remains of an old campfire on the third floor, along with some old, dry human terd, and a couple of rusty old cans. The place looked deserted, other than the mutant bear. So, with only about another hour of sunlight left, we drove the Scout into a nearby copse of trees and bush, camo'd her up, and then hauled our gear into the building and set up camp on the second floor. We tried the radio again, but without the vehicles antenna our range is limited, so nothing there. Percy set up a couple of claymores to guard the Scout, and then a couple of frag-grenade trip wires at the entrance and the bottom of the first flight of stairs.

So, we're feeling secure. Or at least I am; even if we're all abit on the quiet side this evening. It's alot to absorb. I don't even want to think of that date anymore! What could it matter anyway? 5 years or 50 years ... it's all gone just the same. No going home to mom or dad either way. And hey, we're here to do a job, and it looks like that job still needs doing.

Anyway, we're going to head into central Courtenay tomorrow to take a look around. And of course, we'll continue to monitor the radio for what it's been worth thus far. But, you know, I can't stop asking myself, what if we can't reach anyone else? What if something went wrong??? What if we are the only ones??? And if that's the case, "the job" is ... impossible.

Bah! Time to sleep ... or wake up ... whichever ...

Entry #3

We woke up a couple of hours before sunrise. The air was cool and a light mist of rain was falling outside. Over breakfast we discussed our plans for the day ... same as we decided last night. Go figure. Anyway, after breakfast we took some time out to perform a bit of maintainence on our weapons, and then, just as we had finished breaking camp, with the first light of day beginning to brighten the eastern sky, one of the frag-lines was tripped. We grabbed our weapons and headed to the top of the stairs to have a look. A mangled corpse sat blown apart in the entrance way, it's lower extermities absolutely mangled from the frags ... but hardly a drop of blood to be seen for all of that.

Percy started mumbling something about vampires! I couldn't help but to tell him to stuff that Hollywood crap, and as I did two more of those "bio-plague" victims came wandering in through the entrance, moaning, their arms outstretched towards us. Nate raised his uzi about to open up on them, but ... man, I stopped him ... told him they might be sick and need our help before I shouted out a warning for them to stop lest they trip our frag-line at the bottom of the stairs. But ... shit ... they ... they just kept on coming ... with added vigor in their pathetic shambling walk. We retreated back to the top of the stairs and around the corner. At least me and Percy did. I don't know what he was thinking, Nate, I could still hear him yelling at them, ordering them to stop when the wire was tripped. He took a couple pieces of shrapnel to the neck and face. Nate was dead within a minute ... the "bio-plague victims" ... aaah fuck it ... the freakin' ZOMBIES already(!!!) dead along with him.

You could see it between the corpses ... Nate's and the three others. Him a bloody mess, them ... dry old mangled flesh, at least one of which looked like it had been dead for a long while before the shrapnel ever hit it, and barely a drop of blood. What little we found was coagulated. And that would be an understatement.

Man ... this is completely fucked! This isn't the way it's supposed to be! There are supposed to be others!!! Others who know whats going on and direct us!!! Man, and here I am ... 23 frickin years old ... some 50 years following somekind of fuckin nuclear apocoplypse ... fuckin ZOMBIES!!! ... and it's just me! And frickin' Percy!!! What the hell did I get myself into???

Okay. So we dug a hole and buried Nate; leaving him the dignity of his jumpsuit, boots and uzi. Then as we hauled the rest of the gear downstairs, another two freakin' zombies came wandering in ... one of them a grossly disfigured mutate with only one arm, looking like he died at least a month ago, and ... I guess it was once a teenage girl or small woman, burned well nigh black head to toe. The mutated one almost got me, but I scrambled away before grabbing the axe from amongst the rest of the gear, and planting it in the zombie's skull. I felt this anger well up in me when I saw these ones ... anger about Nate. I'm not even sure how Percy took care of the burnt one, but he did. And with that, he brought the Commando Scout around, we loaded our gear up, and then headed out.

It actually wasn't that bad of a day, weather wise. The misting rain stopped, and the clouds opened here and there, now and then, to reveal patches of blue sky and allow the occasional ray of sunshine to cascade down. We made our way through southwestern Courtney, and past the airport before crossing a partially intact bridge further eastward toward Comox. These zombies things could be seen everywhere ... everywhere that buildings still stood. They weren't romaing in huge crowds mind you, and didn't pose any danger to us, but you wouldn't want to stop. If you were to stop you'd have at least 20 coming your way in maybe a minute. Alot of these ones here look pretty ripe. They've been dead quite a while.

Well, you know, that's my "Expert" opinion. They LOOK pretty freakin dead! Except for the entire walking around thing.

From what we scouted of the Courtenay area, nature has taken hold every where, even the roads are difficult to spot out in some places. Of houses, well, there's no sign of anything that was made of wood ... except the partial remains of the skeletal frame, maybe, but mostly the partial remains of brick walls, fire places, and the like. Most concrete structures are still up, cracked, windows blown out, but Percy says that, at a glance, they are looking alright for buildings that haven't had any maintaineence in about 5 or more decades ... and undoubtedly had fires raging around and within them.

On the otherside of the bridge, we travelled through southern Comox where the damage was a little more gratuitious ... with concrete structures having suffered collapsed walls and the like. We noted the partially intact remains of an old hospital as we drove eastward, but as with Courtenay, there were dry old walking corpses lighlty sprinkled across the entire scene. Our dosimetre began to detect slight levels of radiation as we rolled through here, and we eventually came to a point ... I believe the rusted old road-sign read Military Road??? ... where the thing began to go crazy. Clearly, we were getting closer to the old airforce base. So, we got out of there, found some higher ground, put an axe in the head of another zombie, and then took a look eastward. If there ever was an airforce base there ... there isn't anymore. There's not much of anything.

So, we did a bit more general recon as we headed back over to and through Courtenay before deciding we should find a new spot to bunker down in for the night. Percy insisted on the buildings in Courtenay, the airport in particular, and he really pissed me off ... making me have to convince him as I did that a building further out on the outskirts would probably be a better bet; explaining that we didn't want to wake up with a veritable zombie horde at our door and around our vehicle.

So, we took a couple of hours to scout around the outskirts and eventually came to a collection of old aluminum buildings, rusted to hell and clustered fairly close together. We circled it in the vehicle and soon noticed that the relatively small spaces between a number of the buildings had been blocked with all manner of refuse (old logs, old cars, large strips of aluminum, junk, etc) and barbed wire. Anyway, as we came around we pulled up to the entrance of one of the buldings and got out. I took the MAG off of the Commando Scout and gave Percy my Stoner before we headed into the building to have a look around.

It looked completely deserted, but when we exited, Percy said he saw a girl standing in the entrance of another building and went racing over there. Having had enough of his "beliefs", ie. "Zombies, vampires, girls, I was a little slow to react ... entering about 30 seconds behind him ... but I followed to find him on his knees, hands on his head, and with a number of mutate men surrounding him with small calibre, bolt-action rifles. I strayfed the ground with a short burst from the MAG before ordering them all to drop their weapons. They complied in short order.

As it turns out, these buildings make up a community of them grossly disfigured mutates or "Freaks" as they refer to themselves. I have no idea how many, but I managed to smooth things over between us and their representative, Gus is his name, and we offered them a few things out of our trade pack.

I sent Percy out to get the trade pack, and he got out there to find another of the Freaks rifling through the Scout. The Freak pulled a knife on him, but it wasn't anything that a rifle-butt to the face didn't bring an abrupt end to.

But yeah, they were mighty pleased that, one, we were actually talking to them with decency -- apparently they are shunned and even abused and killed by the "Prettys" -- and two, with "the shine", ie. whiskey, and sewing and fishing gear we gave them. We gave them a bit of candy too, to give to their children, but they got kinda quiet when we said that. Mighta been a bad call. Wonder what their fertility rate is like ... their infant mortality rate?

Anyway, they're allowing us to shack up for the night in the first bulding we checked out. We warned them to stay away from the vehicle as "boom" would be set up around it to protect it, and thats the last we've seen of them.

It's early evening now, the sun's down. I dunno what we're going to do tomorrow. Today just felt like ... such a complete waste of time in the final analysis. We still can't raise anyone on the radio, not that we've devoted any real time to it ...

Holy shit! The radio just came to life!!! A man's voice saying that he represents Science Team Vancouver Island and that *they* heard our broadcast yesterday ... I'll get back to ya ...

Entry #4

So it's now our third day since we emerged from our sleeptubes. And as it turns out there is a Vancouver Island Science team that woke up around the same time as us. Their bolthole is situated beneath Malaspina University in Nanaimo. They woke up with about a foot of water in their bolthole, most of their crucial lab equipment ruined, and 3 of their original 12 man team dead in the sleeping tubes, before a few of them donned their bio-gear and decided to venture out for a quick recon. Opening the inner-door to the vehicle port went off without a hitch but when they tried to open the big doors at the end of the exit tunnel, the motor burnt out, leaving the door halfway open with not enough room for their APC, the V150, to get out.

So, as the story went, they ventured out on foot to survey the campus and remaining facilities, and soon found themselves under assault by a horde of what they called "bio-war victims". They lost two more as they retreated back into the bolthole and sealed the inner-entrance, leaving them with 1 war vet, a guy named Jack, 7 PhD's and some crackly voiced kid who sounds like he just hit puberty! Haha

Anyway, the Sci-team had heard some of our initial broadcasts on the MP station, but without their V150's antenna -- and the exit tunnel overrun by "bio-war victims" in their retreat -- their radio didn't have "the balls" to get a response to us. But Jack, he managed to sneak out through the emergency hatch and scout out a radio-tower. He went back and got their comminications expert, some dude named Houdin, and then he rigged some stuff up and, as of early evening last night, we were connected.

They informed us of their situation ... that they were safe in their bolthole for the time being ... and we agreed to help them escape; coming up with a plan where me and Percy would blow through in our Commando Scout, spraying down the area around the tunnel entrance and lobbing a few frag's, until a clear safe zone had been established. Then Percy would steal out of the vehicle and hde in the bush, as I continued to create chaos in the Scout and draw any remaining zombies away from the bolthole. Percy would then give the word to Jack to begin clearing the tunnel on his end, as Percy himself took out any stragglers within the general area around the doors. With that, Perc would set up some C-4 charges ... he's good with exlplosives ... and blow them doors clean open.

So, we were set to head out for Nanaimo at dawn, and really could've used the sleep ... and really didn't want to be driving those "roads" at night with our highbeams on for the world too see ... but, you know, they're our people, so we set out a couple of hours before dawn. About a half dozen zombies had drifted into the area as we slept, but between me and Percy, and then a trio of Freaks who came storming out of the darkness, we took care of them easily enough. The Freaks were kinda choked though, saying it was our gunfire from earlier that drew these ones, and now more still would come ... and then asked how we were going to compensate them as they gestured towards our weapons. Percy was in the process of leveling his gun at THEM with that, but I forced his muzzle down. We ended up giving them Nate's old 9mm handgun -- standard Morrow Project HP-35 -- along with three magazines and 3 frag grenades. Man did they get excited when I said we'd give them some "boom". So, after a crash course in frag use, me and Percy were out of there, receiving a good ol' "y'all calm bake noo y'ear!" on our way out.

So, we got out onto the highway and began heading south. Percy pulled out the nightvision goggles for me, but we took it at an easy 35 kmph anyway. I mean, you can't even call these roads "bad". That is just WAY too much of an understatement. We were on the road for only about ten minutes when I had to slow down even more to swerve around some rusty old car frames that sat on the road. And holy crude, as I snaked my way around the final car there was this loud hissing screeching ... like a cat getting it's tail caught in the door times 100 and then soemthing BIG slammed into the side of the Scout accompanied by the sound of ... I dunno ... nails on armour plate I guess! I hit the freakin pedal and we boogeyed out of there asap. No idea what it was. Probably something like that mutated bear, but we weren't going back to look! It attacked our freakin' VEHICLE!!!

But that wasn't the worst of the trip. 'Cause the wind had been kicking up all night, and it had started to rain pretty good just as we set out, but within the hour, the wind must have picked up to a good 60 kmph and the rain was coming down by the bucket. I had to slow to 15 - 20 kmph 'cause the "potholes" (another understatement) soon got as impossible to spot as the highway itself with all of the rain. There was probably at least an inch of water on it at any given time.

We rolled through a few towns on our way south; morning, such as it was, dawning as we went. All derelict and abandoned at a glance, but by the time we passed by Parksville the weather and road had turned to such complete crap that we were going to pull into some shelter and ride out this "monsoon". Man, I knew Vancouver Island was in a rainforest zone and all, but monsoons???

Anyway, we'd found a decent shelter and were in the process of setting up camp, when we got a call over the radio from the Sci-team. Their bolthole was taking on water something fierce, and they needed us there pronto. So we broke camp and got back out onto the riv ... I mean, back out on the road.

We'd planned on heading through the streets of Nanaimo, but it was flooded to hell, and man, I thought central Courtney and Comox were overrun with zombies! They ain't got nothing on Nanaimo. You wouldn't want to be stuck outside on foot in this place. So, we quickly got back out onto the highway, and with the help of Percy's mapbook we took the easy route to the Malaspina campus. Malaspina ... sounds like somekind of disease. Ebola, saminila, malaspina ... hahaha

So, yeah, we made it to the campus. Did a quick recon of the area, and then set the plan in action. I heard Percy hose down the area with a longburst out of the MAG, followed by three frag detonations, followed by a second longburst, before giving me the ok. I sped about another 200 metres on, running down a trio of walking corpses, before Percy jumped out and into the cover of the surrounding trees. I had a bit of fun in the mud with the Scout, fishing tailing and ploughing through some of the remaining zombies around the bolthole exit tunnel -- Perc did a really good job with those grenades! -- before leading the things away at a much slower speed ... stopping every now and then and pumping off a round or two from my handgun to keep them coming. Couldn't stop for too long though as there weren't just the one's I was drawing away to worry about, but a fair number of others stumbling around too boot!

Anyway, after about 5 minutes I heard Percy give the okay to Jack over our headsets, and I sped off back out to the highway and down it a bit to a safezone to await the outcome. Which is where I am now. Crammed in the Scout, all hatches shut. I'm pretty sure there is a zombie shambling around just outside. You should see these things in the wind and all the rain ... it would almost be comical if they weren't so horrible.

Anyway, Percy had the doors blown open within ten minutes of reaching them, and both he and the Sci-team have boarded their V150 and are en route to my position as I write this. Apparently, the plan is for us to return to our bolthole, grab the other Scout and the rest of our gear, and then head'er down to the University of Victoria. Apparently they have a back-up lab situated beneath the campus there.

Oh, the kid ... his name's Flynn. A cocky little 13 year old who is somekind of computer whiz. Computers ... man, I got my hands full with the Commodore 64! He says he has a Mac with him, that it's portable, about the size of a briefcase, and weighs a mere 14 lbs ... and is actually more a luggable than a "portable" whatever that's supposed to mean. Anyway, I'll believe in his computer when I see proof of it's existence! haha

ENTRY 5

So the team and I hooked up, and began moving back towards Courtenay; Percy with me in the Scout and everyone else in the Sci-teams V150. It continued to pour like "sabretooths and dire wolves" for the extent of our trip, and roughly 10 hours later(!) we pulled into Parksville ... about 25 km south of Courtenay. By that time the rain had at last died down to a drizzle, and we were ready to seek some shelter for the night. We found a decent place in an old 3 story office building or whatever ... which is where I'm writing this from.

Jack reconned the entry and main floor before the rest of us entered with our gear. We then camo'd and rigged both the vehicle and entrances with claymore and frag-trip-wires, before beginning set up camp inside.

We all exchanged introductions over our headsets on the trip up, but this was my first real look at the Sci-team. They're made up of ...

Jack Henderson (combat vet)

Houdin McGregor (communications expert)

Alison Brooks (medical doctor)

Flynn Brooks (teenage computer whiz)

Mark Matthews (physicist)

Grace Thompson (psychologist)

Deena Chung (agriculturalist)

They're all PhD's or the equivalent ... except for Jack of course ... God rest his soul ...

You see, after we started settling in, Jack took Percy and me on a recon of the upper floors. And we had just started our recon of the 2nd floor when Jack, on point, was pounced on by a cougar. I quickly put a hole in the thing with the 12 gauge I grabbed from the Scout, but it got Jack exactly where his jumpsuit/armour wasn't protecting him ... with half of it's bite sinking into his neck and it's foreclaws ... tearing off his face! We called for Alison, and it didn't take her long to get up to us, but ... it had severed the jugular ... Jack bled out right in front of us.

Man ... Nathan withstood a mauling from that bear thing thanks to our jumpsuits. If that freakin cat hadda grabbed Jack ANYWHERE else ...

The thing looked pathetic incidently. Not only soaked to the bone, but as skinny as hell to boot!

It actually got me to thinking about Nate again. I'm the one who told him that those zombie things could be sick people ... which is probably why he remained at the top of the stairs ordering them to standdown while Prescott and I ducked for cover. So, basically, I killed him. I mean, not only that, but he had intially wanted to blast them with his uzi until I said they might be sick people.

Good thing we have a shrink with us. Something tells me I'll be chatting her up later.

Anyway, Percy and me completed the recon of the building. And in the mean time that kid, Flynn, got his Mac up and running, set-up somekinda portable dish, and then managed to "link up" with a satillite Morrow Project has in orbit. He was able to do it. Oh, it's April 16th, 2059 incidently. But yeah, while he was able to link up with the satillite, he couldn't hook up with the Project mainframe. He thinks something happened to it, ie. destroyed or otherwise down, but he and Houdin are "working on something".

But then, if the day hadn't already been "interesting" enough, just as second watch was coming on, some "Freaks" wandered into our building ... tripping the frag-wire. I think there was a 4th but if there was he musta hightailed it. As it was two of the Freaks were killed instantly while a third took some nasty shrapnel to the arm and shoulder.

But the Doc got to him fast and fixed him up pretty good. We finished talking to him in the morning, just a few minutes ago, and tried to explain that we intended him and his people no harm. He said his name was "Karlz" and spoke in the guttoral English of the other Freaks we've encountered. Languages can drift pretty fast ... especially I would think in the isolated, indeed shunned, communities of these "Freaks". I would imagine that the deformaties of some would come with speech impediments, retardation, many may have been driven out of commuiites at early ages, etc.

But yeah, Karlz woulnd't say too much else about any nearby community of his ... can't say I blame him if these Freaks have been giving us the full story. And we didn't really push much. He wanted to know if we were going to release him. There was then some discussion about his injuries and chance for survival, but in the end we decided that, once we got Jack buried and were ready to roll ourselves, we'd hit him with some painkillers, give him his parties weapons back, and then send him on his way with some generous goods out of the trade pack ... bottle of booze, tobacco, fishing gear, sewing kits, and some candy.

And once he goes we'll be continuing on our up to Courtenay, and then onto our bolthole to retrieve the other Scout. Of course, before all that we have some shitty work to do. I mean, we all have basic training ... but we're, you know, a buncha nerds with guns. Jack was the only vet ... the only one that had actually handled these weapons and what not underfire. If we encounter anyone with any real kind of firepower ...

ENTRY 6

So we made it back to our bolthole.

The journey up passed Courtenay was fair enough. We covered alot more ground alot faster with the rains over. I think I spotted an eagle off in the distance ... 3 or 4 zombies off near the skeletal remains of some old house as we approached Courtenay, and then a mere 10 minutes later, about a half dozen Freaks moving west across the highway. We slowed and I waved at them as we passed. They look like they crapped their pants, but they waved back, hesitantly.

We'd cleared Forbidden Plateau Road on our way out the first time, but the recent rain was fairly devastating. Trees were once again strewn acorss the path, so we had to work our ass off for the better part of the day, clearing as we went.

But make it back we did. The bolthole had over a foot of water in it, but otherwise had not been discovered or at least tampered with. We were able to get the Scout started and drive it on out, along with the rest of the supplies. The plan is that Deena will drive one with myself as gunner, Mark will drive the other with Percy as his gunner, while everyone else piles in the V150.

Right now we've set up camp outside of the bolthole. It's late and everyone's tired. Tomorrow we'll begin to make our way down island to Victoria. According to Jack, CFB Esquimalt is there ... or was there. As a significant naval port, it was known to have a nuke pointed at it, so it's probably going to be ugly the closer we get to said naval base, but apparently the UofVic is situatued in a "light damage" zone for the type of nuke believed to have been aimed at it. As the back up science lab is BENEATH the campus, chances are it's in good shape.

ENTRY 7

So it is still evening at the bolthole. I had some time and so thought I'd write down some of the things we learned over the conversation of the past couple of days.

One, while our Recon Team was frozen back in '87, the Sci-Team didn't go under until the end of '91. It turns out that some Soviet named Vladimir Kryuchkov instigated a successful coup in the U.S.S.R. ousting and replacing Gorbachev. Apparently he was a hardliner, old school Soviet, former head of the KGB who had brought the world closer to nuclear war, back in '84, than it had been since the Cuban Missle Crisis. Once he assumed power the "Great Thaw" quickly began to turn into a global meltdown. Memebers of the Sci-Team say things were HOT when they went under -- with an impending conflict between N.A.T.O. and U.S.S.R. forces in the North Atlantic -- and that they might well have been one of the last assets to go under. A nuclear war could conceivably have followed the North Atlantic conflict within weeks, but of course, no one knows how even that conflict went ... only that diplomacy had broken down and the two forces were on a collision course.

The kid added that it all really sucked because they were on the cusp of getting something called the "World Wide Web" up and running, and that an entire next generation of video gaming was in the works. Oh yeah, his computer is real. And he's got some cool sounds on his mixed tape ... the kid. We were each allowed one mixed cassette tape of whatever before going under. The kid played this song, "Funky Cold Madina" ... different from the mix of classic rock and heavy metal I chose, but pretty cool nonetheless.

His mom, Alison, can't get out of here and down to Victoria any faster. She wants to put bot hthe Freaks and the zombies under the microscope as soon as possible. Give each of us an examination, and run some other tests. Toward that end, we are going to swing by that Freak community on our way out of Courtenay ... hopefully get some blood samples from them.

It's good to have found these people ... to have some kind of direction ...

[JMars71]

V.I. Zombies Defined and Explained

So I've spent the past few days looking over various internet resources in search of some pseudoscientific rationale for my MP zombies. I mean, what's the point of having a science team that could look into stuff like this if the cause isn't nailed down to some extent? So, various strains of what I've read have blended together on the back-burner and I think I've hit on it ...

The zombies that have come to populate southern Vancouver Island are the result of a human engineered form of "super-rabies" in conjunction with a parasitic infection. The super-rabies causes those infected to secrete a very peculiar pheromone, which attracts a parasite. This parasite colonizes the central nervous system of the infected, and upon the death of the victim collectively provide the necessary electrical pulse to reanimate the corpse.

The parasite also has the effect of staving off decomposition; such that corpses up to even a year old can look relatively fresh, while the decrepit forms of the first infected can still be found some 6 or 7 decades after the fact.

Super-Rabies Virus

The virus is spread primarily through the bite or chance exchange of bodily fluids. A bite has a 90% chance of causing infection. Those that are successful at fighting off initial exposure are effectively immune and never need to roll vs. infection again.

Infection can also occur if an infected's blood splatter's an open wound (75%), or gets in one's mouth (45%) or eyes (05%). Successful resistance in these cases does NOT imply immunity.

Upon contraction the infected must immediately make a Constitution check. In fact, the "Project Director" should make this and any similar rolls secretly, with players being left to assume whatever they will.

Success means that they will stave off the effects for 1 hour, at which point another check must be made; with each success allowing another hour between checks.

Failure at any point means that the infected will begin to suffer effects with 1 to 10 minutes (d10), with the advancement of symptoms potentially occurring every 1 to 10 minutes as indicated by corresponding Constitution checks. Success staves off advancement for another 1 to 10 minutes.

With every failure within the 1 to 10 minute framework, the infected loses 1 Intelligence point, becoming correspondingly illogical and violence prone. Any stressful situation force the infected to roll a Intelligence check, with failure indicating that they fly into a fit of rage; which itself requires a successful Int. check to pull one's self out of. Check each combat round.

When the infected reaches 0 Intelligence they have entirely snapped with no hope of coming back. This will probably occur sooner as Int. degrades, but again, at this point the person is entirely gone.

The Rage

At any point point in the progress of the super-rabies the effects of Rage are the same, which, beyond homicidal mania, are +2 to Strength and Constitution (does NOT apply to infection checks!) and obliviousness to pain.

The infected are of course fully susceptible to structural damage, blood loss, fatigue, and all of the human frailties ... except pain/fear.

Stats can vary considerably, so, specific PCs or NPCs aside, the PD should prepare generic stats for men, women, children, elderly, plus-sized, and "brickshithouse" body types.

The virus burns out in 23+1 to 10 hours after Int. 0 is reached, killing the host.

Reanimation occurs in 1 to 100 minutes thereafter.

Zombies

Like the infected, zombies come in a variety of different shapes and sizes, though also include those that have suffered various forms of dismemberment, eg. missing arms, legs, severed at the waist, etc.

Beware the toothless zombie!!!

The most poignant difference in zombies is between fresh, ripe, and archaic.

Fresh zombies are the recently zombified, and can easily be mistaken for a hurt or sick person, even up close. Thanks to the parasite they can remain relatively fresh for up to a month. They are the strongest, fastest and most nimble of zombie-kind, but are considerably less formidable than either their rabid or uninfected selves. They suffer a -1 Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity to their base stats.

Ripe zombies might be mistaken for hurt or sick people at a distance or in the dark, and their movement will more closely approximate such than their fresh counter-parts, but with a fair look even an undamaged ripe zombie will be seen for the walking corpse it is ... with clear signs of decomposition evident. They can remain ripe for up to a decade, though half of that is more common. Ripe zombies are -2 Strength and Constitution, and their Dex simply drops to 4 no matter their base Dex.

Archaic zombies are 10+ years old, and it is not at all uncommon to find those that rank amongst the first infected. They are in sorry condition, shriveled, exposed bones, and not likely to be mistaken for a hurt or sick person under any but unusual circumstances. They are -4 Strength and Constitution with a Dex 4.

All zombies are subject to structural damage, eg. a shattered kneecap hobbles them, but are heedless to pain and not subject to shock, fatigue, blood loss, and most other human frailties. However, a headshot to a zombie has the same chance of killing them as it would his living counterpart.

Both the infected and the zombies they become share similar combat tactics; grab or grapple and then bite. I assign the infected a 60% (12 in 20) Accuracy and zombies a 40% (8 in 20).

A grabbed can be broken with a Strength check, adjusted up or down by the difference in Strength between the two, eg. a person with a Str 10 tries to break the grip of a person with a Str 13 ... they must roll 10-3 = a 7 or less.

The grapple is more dangerous than the grab, as the attacker hurls his weight upon the target. This instantaneously increases the the target's weight load by half the zombies weight. If this places places one's weight load within +/- 50 lbs of their max a Dexterity check is forced; failure means the target has fallen to the ground. This check must be made every round that the target remains on their feet but are still trapped in the grapple.

Any lighter and the target is in the grapple but can confidently keep his/her feet. Any heavier, and the target is dragged down. No roll.

Breaking a grapple while on one's feet is the same as grab. On the ground the target suffers a -1 for every 50 lbs the attacker weighs over 100 lbs rounded up.

Head shots

I never came across any rules for a called shot in the MP book. Mind you I haven't given it a fine toothed combing, but -20% (-4 on D20) seems fair

[JMars71]

Entry #8

It's been two days since my last entry. We decided to stay another night at the bolthole ... to stretch our limbs, relax the muscles and just chill.

Flynn wasn't unable to "hijack" the M.P. satellite he'd linked up with, but did manage to take over a bit of it's memory ... from what he called "email". He says it will immediately register to anyone linking up with the satellite, so if anyone does they'll see it, get the message he left, and we'll be able to communicate. Good boy!

We're at that gas station plaza on Forbidden Plateau Road as I write this. You remember, the one we were attacked at on our first day. Well, we were just ambushed again. And by the same gang of "Road Warrior" rejects as before. Except this time there wasn't just 4 of them. As we neared the old gas station, rounding the bend in the path, we noticed what appeared to have once been an old school bus, stripped down to the bare bones and tarped over, parked across the path up ahead some 100 meters.

We knew it was a trap, Percy and I, but ... we didn't know what to do exactly. I had Deena pull my Scout out from the rear and up alongside Percy's, and then we both got out while Deena and Mark manned the MAGs. Percy was going to scan the area with his binoculars and then the two of us we're going to move in, but no sooner had he spotted someone laying on their belly behind the bus then gunfire erupted from out of the trees on either side of the road! Small calibre and nothing our armour couldn't handle, but getting shot at is getting shot at! We returned fire ... BIG time ... and Percy lobbed a couple of grenades. Man, I nearly crapped my pants when he had just pulled the pin on one only to suddenly collapse when a round hit him in the ankle! To his credit though he managed to hold onto the thing and get it gone.

There were at least 8 attackers when all hell broke loose, but there was a lot of movement in the bush, and in the end 4 more were making their way, brazenly, up the road towards us as they fired their small calibre bolt-action rifles. Mind you, it seemed like we were getting the worst of it. I took a shot to the ankel as well. And both Mark and Deena went down hard. I figured they were dead for sure anyway, but as it turned out, Deena just took a graze that knocked her out. As for Mark, he got off "easy" too with only a cracked cheekbone and his ear shot off.

It was actually Houdin that ... I guess he saved us. Spurred on by Alison, and her desire to get to Mark and Deena, he climbed out of the V150, laid down some smoke, and it just seemed like from there the tide began to turn. There was some pretty hideous screeching, ie. in pain, coming from inside the treeline, the movement began to die down, and before long ... things went quiet entirely.

But just before that ... man, I tell you, they almost got the V150. A couple of them had managed to circle in behind us and would've taken it if Flynn hadn't have put two slugs in the face of the first one to look in the entry hatch. Good thing Jack had given him that handgun. Anyway, Flynn took a round to the chest from the second -- yes the kid had standard MP body armour too, fortunately -- but Grace took him down with her SMG. Not a nice tight cluster either. She said she just stuck the gun out of the hatch and let'er rip when she saw Flynn get hit.

A couple of them managed to get away. We heard the bus start up (sounded like crap) and drive away behind the cloud of smoke Houdin had laid down. At a glance I count about 9 or 10 visible on or along the road. And I'd say there are up to as many more dead, or soon to be, hidden in the bush. I know I shot at least 3 in there.

Wow ...

Oh! Looks like we're ready to roll! Later.

[JMars71]

Entry #9

We rolled into Victoria late this afternoon. The navy base clearly took it's hit. Moot I guess considering the fate of Comox, ie. the airforce base protecting it. We didn't scout it out, but the devastation was evident as we rolled in along the remains of the Trans-Canada Highway. Off toward the base and downtown area all we could see were the shattered, skeletal remains of stone buildings and rusty old iron girders. We stuck mostly to the light to moderate damage area as we made our way out to the University of Victoria campus. Concrete structures in this area have faired a little better, but fire damage is evident everywhere. Some houses still stand out in the light damage area where the university is, but most of these look in pretty rough shape at best. Percy says they probably aren't all that safe, structurally, to venture into.

Zombies are pretty thick across the terrain; especially in the heavy damage area, but even out here in the light damage zone you think you've finally spotted a clear swath of ground only for one or two of them to lurch out from around some bushes or some old brick wall. It was the same all the way down from Nanaimo. Every town we rolled through along the way was overrun with the things.

We did see a light bit of smoke raising out of an area with some rusty old aluminum buildings, somewhere around Ladysmith I think it was, but I'd say we're pretty much in no-man's down here.

Anyway, the campus was no different; a nice sprinkling of zombies across the entire scene. The buildings themselves we cracked and weather beaten, but most are still standing. The campus itself sits just inside the predicted "light damage area".

But we pulled up in front of the Medical Sciences Building, where Houdin and Percy got out. They were able to get into the Sci-base via the access door in the sub-basement. They ran into a few zombies along the way, but it's just like in those Romero movies ... shot to the head puts'em down. So, from there they brought the fusion generator online, powered up the facility, and then opened the vehicle port-doors. And as the other's settled in, I took Percy back to the Med-Sci Building where we had left one of the Scouts. A number of zombies had since gathered in the general vicinity, but it was a breeze to blow through them in the vehicle, and then for Percy to jump out and into the other Scout.

However a couple of them did manage to get into the port-doors as we pulled in. But it was a small matter for Percy to grab his sniper rifle and take down the bigger of the two before they got anywhere close to us ... them having to lumber on down about 50 meters of underground ramp. And then the two of us wrestled the smaller of the zombies down and tie it up. It put up more of a fight than I would have expected, so I knocked it's teeth out with the butt of my Stoner then gagged it.

So, Alison now has her sample!

Painkillers really helped make it through the day! My ankle is aching pretty bad. Percy's too.

As for the others, Houdin is donating some blood to put back into Mark, and Alison still has Mark and Deena under observation but things are looking good for both of them.

We are going to take about a week to heal up (Doctor's orders), and get this place sorted and settled. It's big. Personal quarters for 12, kitchen and mess hall, showers, exercise room, rec room, in addition to several labs and a hydroponics area!

Then, it seems like everyone and their mother are going to have "chores" for us recon guys ... scout the campus, scout the base, the hospitals, communication towers, etc, etc.

Maps of Interest

Southern Vancouver Island



Victoria



Victoria: Damage Zones



Univeristy of Victoria Campus



UofVic: Ariel photo