In Ackland Mall
It’s been a very scary week or so. Each day was a challange — hiding from the hordes and ferals, trying to find supplies, finding a safe place to rest. Everytime I woke up, I considered myself lucky. I’ve seen more zombies break through more barricades in the past two weeks than in the entire time I’ve been in Malton.
A few days ago, I found myself — almost by accidents — in Havercroft, near the Ackland Mall. I never made it over to Lerwill Heights. At the time, the Mall was completely deserted — not a single survivor to be found anywhere. There were a couple isolated zombies staggering around.
I hid in a building closeby, planning on searching for ammo in the gun shop the next day. That’s when I realized there were small pockets of survivors all around the Ackland area, which is why I decided to stay in the area.
I moved from building to building for a couple days — breakins were still common, and I saw serveral survivors get mauled and dragged out into the streets. It could have been be any of those times, but luck was with me.
Eventually, enough survivors gathered in the area, and we went into Ackland. We’ve been very busy — clearing out all the zombies, building the barricades, setting up generators and radios, finding more supplies.
It’s still not safe. There are regularly several dozens zombies outside, attacking the barricades in fits and starts. It takes a lot work from the survivors to keep the barricades up. Mostly, we succeed. Sometimes, we don’t. Zeds get through infrequently, and we have to clean the place up again. We’ve lost a few suvivors due to breakins.
Still, there are probably a couple hundred of us here now, and the crowd seems to be growing. The ‘cades are becoming more stable with having more folks around to pitch and keep and eye on them.
Slowly, very slowly, a bit of normalcy is returning to the Malton after the giants hordes swept through and destroyed everything. Ha. What is “normal” in Malton, anyway?
Back among the living, finally.
The zombies overtook me — again. I must have been among the undead for weeks this time. I got revived in Pimbank. I found a small group of survivors in a nearby building. They spared a couple first aid kits and fixed me up. They told me that a giant surge of zombies had recently overrun almost all of Malton. They are, in fact, still rampaging in other parts of the city right now, although the larger groups have left the Pimbank area.
They left behind a completely demolished city, suburb by suburb. There are almost no human surviors at all — Just a few lucky (or unlucky?) ones remain to pick up the pieces. And the buildings are completely ransacked — no generators, no radios, no barricades, doors left open to the elements, etc. There is no safe haven. If you stay alive overnight, it’s just as much luck as it is preparation.
I can’t pick up any signals on my hand-held radio, either It’s eerily silent.
The group told me they are heading east, over to Lerwill Heights suburb. The few remaining survivors in Malton seem to be gathering in the souteast quadrant of the city. Might as well start rebuilding there.
Most of them went ahead without me, but gave me a rendevous location. I had to rest more before I left.
I almost ran out of luck that same day. I woke up and saw that the flimsy barricades we had setup were gone, and zombies had broken through — mauling survivors inside the building.
I had no bullets and very little energy left — the only thing I could do was run, so I ran. East.
From building to building I crept. I avoided the zombies I saw — and there were lots of them, out on the street and inside most of the buildings. I saw lone, isolated survivors — like myself — getting overpowered by zombies in several buildings.
There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t save them. I may not be able to save myself.
At the moment, I’m hiding in a building in Shore Hills, probably a days travel from the rendevous point. All I can do is hope luck is with me.
Ridleybank Tagging
Today, I took a break from my regular patrols and went deep into Ridleybank, dogdging and ignoring all the zeds I passed until I made it to Moggridge Place Police Station all the way on the other side of Ridleybank.
I tagged the outside of the station with a warning to zeds in the area:
Ridleybank is for survivors! Zeds get out!
A symbolic gesture, I know, but it still felt good. There was a single zombie outside the station that I plugged with a shotgun shell and a few bullets. I didn’t finish him off, though. Too bad. I was in such a hurry to get back to Stanbury Village that I didn’t think to look inside the building.
In my journey toward and from Moggridge, I noticed small groups of survivors in a number of buildings in the souteast corner. Could we be gaining a foothold in Ridleybank?
Tomorrow, I’ll go back on my regular patrol.
Been in Nichols Mall, scouting out Ridleybank
It’s been a couple weeks since I last wrote. I’ve been busy during that time. I made it across the middle of town to Nichols Mall in Stanbury Village. There isn’t as many people here as were in the Caiger or Ackland malls, but it’s a hardy bunch.
Nichols is very close to the zombie stronghold of Ridleybank. I may be foolish, but I’ve been making some sporadic forays into Ridleybank and have managed to take out a few zeds on their own turf.
In the meantime, I’ve learned a lot more about Malton. I figured out how to operate the radio transmitters. I’m pretty good a spraying grafitti messages to other survivors. I can build barricades with Malton’s best.
I’ve also been hired by a company called Necrotech. They seem to be shady bunch, and I’m not sure how much I should be trusting them, but they sure do seem interested in the zombie menace.
These are the guys that somehow know to revive zombies — that is, turn them back into humans. It’s a bizzare thing to see. You’ve got to inject a zombie with a big vial of some flourescent green liquid. This kills the zombie, just as if I had blew thier brains out with a shotgun, but they eventually wake up as a human, fully restored to life.
They tell me that even I was revived at least once, back when I first showed up in Malton.
I’m not very comfortable with that thought: Me, a zombie.
In any case, they have some nice gadgets and sensors for me to play with, so it’s either a good thing or a devil’s bargain. I’m not sure which it is just yet.
Lastly, I did something I never thought I would do. I was forced to kill another survivor inside the mall this evening. It turns out that not all revived zombies are glad to be humans again. It’s completely beyond my understanding, but some small percentage of people prefer to be in the undead world. Some of these people will kill themselves by jumping out office buildings.
Others will hide among survivors for a while, gathering information numbers and movements and various tactics before reporting back to a zombie horde somewhere and voluntarily offering themselves up for zombie consumption, and then becoming a zombie again. (Exactly how smart are these zombie hordes??)
These are the zombie spies. I killed one of them tonight in the Nichols Mall and dumped his lifeless body out on the street. Everyone present seemed to understand.
I’m not sure how long I plan to stay here. Nichols seems to have lots of supplies, but it’s a little nervewracking being so close Ridleybank, even if I do choose to cross that border myself. I don’t think I want to be here long-term.
I may stay here a short while before heading further east. There are twenty malls in Malton, and I’ve been to three so far. Listening to radio broadcasts on various frequencies, it seems like there are survivor outposts in almost every mall. Maybe I’ll visit them all eventually. The closest mall from here is Hildebrand Mall in the Roftwood suburb, which borders Stanbury Village immediately to the east.
Zombie killing in Barrville
I spent two days on the edge of Havercroft, venturing over into the Barrville during the day. I killed four zombies in two days before I started running low on ammo. I'm starting to get better at using the shotgun, and I'm getting really good with my pistol.
But it's still not safe over there in Barrville. I made my way back to Ackland Mall to search for more supplies again. At this point, I'm almost fully stocked again. I'm going to head west again tomorrow, after one more day of resting.
Still in Ackland Mall area
I’m still in the Ackland area. I’m holed up in the Mall right now. Yesterday I went out on a sort of patrol, just heading south east. My path was completely clear of zombies. I made it all the way down to Shore Hills before I crossed my first zombie. This one was wearing a flak jacket, and it blocked a lot of bullet damage. I came close to killing it, but didn’t manage to get the final blow before I had to pull back.
Over night I hid in a hospital — Maria General Hospital, I think. While I rested, one lone zombie managed to break the barracades and get in. Luckily, another survivor was able to dispatch the zombie and re-barricade the entrance. (I still haven’t quite figured out how to make a good barricade.) I couldn’t help wonder if it was the same zombie I shot at a few blocks away. Did it know where I was? How would it now?
The next morning, I went back to the same spot, but there was no zombie, but there was small group just north, gathered around the Mules Monument. I literally emptied all my remaining bullets into the group, finishing off one, and damaged another pretty badly.
Out of ammo, I headed back to Ackland. I’ve been here ever since, resting and searching the gun shop for more ammo. Either I’m getting luckier, or better at searching, but I’m finding stashes of pistol clips and shotgun shells all over the place now. I’m carrying more ammo now than I ever have before.
Radio chatter and mall conversations seem to indicate that the zombie menace has been dealth with in the Ackland area. My experience reinforces that — I had to walk six full blocks to see even a single zombie. Reports of occasional break-ins still come through, though, so you can never be too careful.
Different people are either going to or coming from the Barrville area — due east of the mall. Some people are escaping the zombie menace, others are joining the fight against the zombie hordes.
Others report that Lumber Mall is under seige. Too bad, that’s in Penny Heights, way on the other side of Malton. It would take me a few days — at least — to get over there safely.
The next mall nearest to Ackland, other than Caiger, is Nichols Mall in Stanbury Village. That’s dangerously close to the Ridleybank suburb, an area known to be completely overrun by zombies. It’d be a dangerous trek to get from here to there. Are there even any survivors over in Nichols?
Made it to Ackland Mall
I made it Ackland Mall. So far, this place seems a lot safer than Caiger Mall was — at least safer from other survivors. I've been here a couple days so far and haven't seen any survivors killing each other.
The area is still a mess. Survivors only retook the mall a few days before I got here, so there is a lot of cleaning up and organizing to do. As people come into and out of the mall, I hear that there is still a fair amount of zombie activity in the area.
I used up nearly all of my supplies just getting here, so I've been rummaging around the various stores to replenish my stocks before I head back out. Especially the gun shop. I've always got the axe handy to help me out in a pinch, but you can't beat a shotgun blast when going up against a zombie horde.
Near Ackland Mall
It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve last written. So much has happened in that time.
I stayed a couple nights in Caiger Mall. There I saw survivors killing each other. It was pretty shocking.
When I first got to the mall, I was so relieved. There were hundreds of survivors milling about, and it seemed so civilized and orderly. I managed to clean myself up and get a change of clothes. I was thinking that I could stay there for a while, that there was saftey in numbers. With enough people and all the supplies in the mall, we could fight off any zombe horde that tried to get in, and wait it out in relative comfort until the zombie menace is finally dealth with.
Then, I saw survivors killing each other. It was horrible, terrifying. I learned that the zombie infestation has driven many of the survivors crazy. Some survivors even help the zomibies find others survivors to feed on. The rest of us — the true survivors — have no choice but to put them down, if we want to survive ourselves.
After a couple days in Caiger, and after seeing a number of survivors killed and dumped into the streets, I really didn’t feel safe in the mall anymore.
I wondered around down. Hiding and resting in various buildings, looking for supplies, and killing a few isolated zombies I came across. I walked all around Chudleyton and much of Darvall Heights and only saw a few zombies. At the time, the area seemed safe.
I was able to listen in on a lot of chatter over the radio. Most of the malls are broadcasting on a dedicated station. After leaving Caiger, I started listening to broadcasts coming from Ackland Mall further south, on 27.50 MHz. Ackland Mall is in Havercroft, which until recently had been completely overrun by zombies. But that changed.
Several organized groups of survivors banded together, went into Havercroft and cleaned up the zombie mess. They made Ackland Mall safe for survivors again.
I heard most of the drama unfold over the radio. It was pretty exciting.
Some survivors are trying to get organized around Ackland Mall, to keep it permanently free of zombies. It would good to have a safe mall so close to the center of town.
But I haven’t just sat an listened to the radio. I’ve killed a few zombies myself. I’ve gotten pretty good at using a pistol, a shotgun and axes, and I’m now able to get past most of the barricades that people set up.
At the moment, I’m a few blocks away from Ackland Mall. I was going to head over there today, but I ran into a zombie, and luck was not with me. I used up all my shotguns shells, all my flare guns, and every bullet I had, and didn’t manage to bring him down. If not for my trust fire axe, he might have gotten me.
Finally, the axe finished him off. But at the end of it, I didn’t have enough strength to make it to the mall. It’s pretty nerve-wracking, because I saw a horde of about 20 zombies a few blocks away from my location just before I ducked into a building. I don’t think they saw me. I hope not.
Building up supplies
I'm still at the Kenefie Lane Police Dept. I spent all day listening to radio transmissions coming in from all over the city. There's a lot more activity going on than I see myself. Many, many other survivors must be out there, well hidden. That is a thought I find somewhat reassuring: We are surviving even in a a city overrun by zombie hordes.
There's a Caiger Mall nearby. I'm going to try to get over there soon, if it's not too barricaded.
I also spent a much of my time searching the police station and I've made some good finds. A radio, another pistol, even a couple shotguns. And lots of clips and shells.
Once I get all rested, I'm going to venture out. The station is safe enough, and there are lots of other people here with me, but I'm tired of hiding day after day like I have been doing. Tomorrow, I'm going to go look around. And, if I see a zombie — this time I'm prepared.
Bullets! Finally!
I went north and tried to get into the Kenefie Lane Police Dept again — this time I got in. Finally. The station is set up pretty nice, too: Generator, lights, radio transmitter. There's a good number of people in here, too.
Being here, this is probably the most relaxed I've been since I came to Malton.
I also found a few good supplies: A couple pistol clips of bullets and a flare gun. Once I find a few more clips and rest up some more, I think I'll be ready to defend myself. I won't always be on the run. This is a good place to rest.
