[Apocalypse Roulette] Alex Cadena Hall: On The Wire

[Lord-Leafar]

Alex's eyes never left the motionless body of Morgan or the struggling body of Rick. His first thought was to argue to keep the dead man restrained, but how could he explain his fears without sounding like a lunatic.


"We are part of a filming crew, and we were working at a movie set when a girl started showing symptoms of some kind of infection, she threw up on the floor and then came back and started biting Rick here, the on-set medic we had came back after treating this girl and started attacking other people as well, everyone started running. Davina could give you an address of the set, I'm afraid I'm not from the city, I'm still not familiar with the streets of the place" He instinctively closed his fists in anxiousness.


His chest rising, his hands twitching, his mouth opening and that dreadful moan coming out, Alex focused in all of this, hoping to not see a single one of this reactions from Morgan's body "We couldn't reach 911, the lines were busy...officer, I know this sounds weird, but...we need to isolate them, I think Rick's got something contagious, it's imperative he doesn't bite anyone, and no one should get close to Morgan's body, I'm sure he got it too, whatever it is..." There, he had almost said it, he didn't voice the entirety of his fears, but that was a start, now he only hoped the cops would listen to his advice.

 

[Fayth]

Amala gives Alex a skeptical look and opens his mouth, but just then, there's a thrashing noise from the bed of the truck. The gun is in Amala's hands before Alex sees him reach for it, and his partner draws just as fast. Morgan is seizing, his assumed-to-be-dead body twitching in the back of the truck.


"Son, I might regret saying this, but I think you may be right," Amala says, swallowing. "Ma'am, I need you to get out of the vehicle. Take anything valuable with you; when our backup comes this'll be a crime scene, and I can't make any guarantees as to when you'll get your truck back."


Davina quickly opens the glove compartment, then calls out, "I've got a handgun in here! I've got a permit-"


"Ma'm, right now I don't care if you've got a permit or not, take the gun and get out of the car." Amala keeps his weapon trained on Morgan, but his eyes flick to Davina when she scrambles out of the car.


A few seconds later, Morgan stops convulsing.

 

[Lord-Leafar]

Alex felt a great relief mixed with concern, on one hand the officers seemed to believe him, but on the other hand this only meant his crazy fears were in fact, real.


As Davina steps out of the car he takes a couple of steps away from the truck, the sight of that handgun of hers adding to the sense of security he felt amongst the police men. When she walks next to him, he whispers quietly to her "That might come useful later" He turned his gaze towards Morgan, waiting for the inevitable scare he would bring to everyone, including himself.

 

[Fayth]

"Shit, I hope not," Davina mutters back, strapping the shoulder holster on. Why she kept a handgun with a shoulder holster in the glovebox of her truck is anyone's guess.


Morgan starts to rise, his movements a jerky, staccato series of twitches that take him from the bottom of the truck's bed to his feet. His head lolls to the side, and his eyes train on the officers. He starts to move slowly toward them, swaying on his feet and letting loose a low gurgling noise. Blood bubbles from his mouth and trails down his chin, splattering down onto the metal of the truck.


"Get down on the ground!" Amala barks, body going rigid, "if you come any closer I will fire!"


Predictably, Morgan doesn't listen. He moves forward, reaching out- and falls out of the truck, hitting the ground with a crunch. The four living people are still and silent. It might be comical in another life, someone coming back to life only to fall out of a truck, but the glistening bone now sticking out of his arm keeps the comedy at bay.


When Morgan starts to drag himself upward again, Amala murmurs, "God help us all," and squeezes off a single shot into Morgan's skull.

 

[Lord-Leafar]

Fuck! Alex took one step back in surprise, the thunder like sound of the gun shot resounding in Alex's head for a few seconds, his eyes locked on Morgan as his head gave way for the bullet, spraying blood and brain bits on the surroundings.


He had seen some good special effects on some of his previous movies, so he expected the wound on Morgan's head would look somewhat familiar, but it wasn't. The blood seemed darker to him, the brain pieces looked unfamiliar, a pale shade of grey smeared with crimson red. But everything was too real now, too real to ignore, how did things ended up like this? "...Zombies, they are fucking zombies, I can't believe it!"


He had broken the silence, once he had spoken the words he felt a little lighter now, as if the words in his throat had been wearing him down, in a way he felt strangely better, but what was he supposed to do now?

 

[Fayth]

Davina shudders, a full-body affair, but doesn't look away. Amala takes a deep breath and holsters his weapon, his partner doing the same.


"I'd like to send you both home, but I don't have a clue how widespread this problem is. I don't know if what's going on at the hospital is the same thing, but if this is spread by gettin' your saliva in someone, it very well could be," Amala crosses his arms over his chest. "Best I can do is ask you to stay here with us. I won't stop you if you want to head somewhere else, though I can't say I recommend it."


"I'm staying here," Davina says immediately, looking at Alex, "I don't know about you, but I feel safer with the police at my back."

 

[Lord-Leafar]

A million ideas and scenarios rushed through his head, what was anyone supposed to do in a situation like this? He had seen the movies of course, but they were hardly a survival guide, he knew that now, but still, a few things did make sense, you needed a way to protect yourself, or a damn good pair of running shoes to get your ass to safety, and...the city, some people would try to leave the city...would it be a good idea, now before the whole population panics? But where would he go? No, he needed to figure what to do here...


"Officer, do you think I could have a weapon? Not necessarily a gun, maybe some baton or tonfa, anything I could use to defend myself? I'm sure we'll meet more of them." He gave a glance at Morgan's dead body.

 

[Fayth]

Amala looks at Alex thoughtfully, then shrugs. "I don't know if we'll be seeing more, but you can carry my baton until we're relieved."

He takes the baton from his belt, and hands it to Alex. Turning to his partner, Amala says, "can you get on the horn and find out what's going on out there?"


The other officer nods and heads toward the patrol cars. He climbs in, leaving one leg hanging out of the car, door open.


"You know how to use that, son?" Amala asks, giving Alex a searching look.

 

[Lord-Leafar]

Alex took the weapon in hands, throwing a few swings into the air, he had some practice with similar weapons, after all he did participate in some low budget martial arts movies once, although he had never tried to bash someone's skull with any weapon before.


"I know enough to not hit myself with it, thanks officer"


He turned to face the patrol car, hoping to hear some reassuring news from the other cop for when he came back.

 

[Fayth]

When the second officer returned, it was with a grim expression. "All the military and law enforcement channels I can find are straight static, except for one coming out of Midway. Says they're Russian Armed Forces, requested help. The civilian ones are still going - all the automated stations are talking like nothing's happening - but the live ones are half oblivious and half panicked. The most coherent station I can find is some stoner-radio guy who's apparently staring out his window and telling everyone what's going on by his building."


"They're all dead?" Amala asked in shock. His partner nodded, and Amala shook his head in disbelief. "What the hell could have happened?"


After a few seconds of processing, Amala straightened his shoulders. "Alright, from what I can see, we've got three options: we stay here and wait, we go back to the station, or we head to Midway." He turned to Alex and Davina. "Hate to say it, but them's the breaks: you're probably safest with us. You got any idea as to what we should do? I'm not sayin' this is a democracy, because Stanford and I have to make the call, but I'm willing to listen to what you got to say."

 

[Lord-Leafar]

Alex felt dizzy for a moment. Dead already? Or at least under so much attack that it made no difference by now, how did this happen so fast?


"I say we go back to your station, get some weapons and whatever supplies we can find there, then head to Midway, we don't know what to expect out there, we should at least be prepared for the worse" He knew he was no police officer, and only hoped that the real cops would pay attention to his advice, nevertheless, he was safer with armed forces capable of fighting back, and Russian Armed Forces? In Chicago? He would be relieved to reach them if they were still alive by the time they got there, safety in numbers after all, or was it the other way around in a zombie epidemic? I hope not.

 

[Fayth]

"That sounds good," Davina agreed.


"It could help to check back and see what's happening there," Stanford said, and Amala nodded.


"Alright, back to the station it is." Amala raised a hand to his chest, speaking into the radio attached there, "this thing on?" His voice echoed from Stanford's radio. "Good. We go slow, keep in regular contact. Stanford, you take the lady, Alex, you come with me."


"What about my truck?" Davina asked.


"We'll be safer in the cruisers. Take the keys with you, but I doubt anybody's going to try stealing a truck with a body in the back." Amala headed toward his car, Stanford doing the same and Davina reluctantly following him.

 

[Lord-Leafar]

Alex followed Amala into the police car, somehow having a plan made for the immediate future made the chaos seem not so overwhelming. At least no one was trying to bite him to death this very moment, better enjoy it while it lasted.

 

[Fayth]

Amala started the car, unlocking the passenger side door. As Alex climbed in, Amala gestured to the expansive mass of technology on the passenger's side. it was so large as to be almost a desk, with enough knobs, buttons, and readouts to make any non-officer a little dizzy.


"Ignore the rest, son, just deal with this part," Amala pointed out a smaller, less complicated-looking part of the mass. "This switch changes between civilian radio, law enforcement, and military channels. We only get the unencrypted military channels; the ones they use to override civilian radio in case of an emergency. It must be real bad that they didn't do it this time, but that's not the point. Point is, we can listen in to those, but can't respond. The law enforcement channels we can talk back on, but it doesn't matter if nobody's on 'em. Your job on our way to the station is to keep flipping through the law enforcement and military channels, try to find somebody out there besides the Russians." Amala put the cruiser in drive, briefly talking into his chest radio to confirm the departure with Stanford. "You got that?"

 

[Lord-Leafar]

"Got it" The task was simple enough, one single switch.


Along the way he would do as told, flipping the switch every once in a while with the hopes of catching a transmission that might be useful, always one eye on the road, if things were as bad as they seemed, it would show on the city sooner or later.


"Why do you think the Russian military is here in Chicago?"