Play@YSDC

Z-Day - 8:05 PM Mountain Time - SaveMart Convenience Store, 2 miles south of Ogallala, Nebraska
On the roof-
Almost everyone was gathered at the eastern end of the roof, at the rear of the convenience store. Kathryn McCoy stood alertly with her pistol gripped in her right hand, covering the accountant Harvey Bennish as he started to climb the ladder up to the roof, leaving behind the corpse of Bruno Sturgis. Kathryn's left arm still ached from the shrapnel wound she had taken during her rescue, and her psychological wounds still bothered her as well, though they had been soothed with the help of Emily Montrose, the psychiatrist from Chicago with a radio talk show. She had been the one who had brought Harvey to his senses, and she and her daughter Lauren stood near each other. Kyle Perkins, the farmer's son who had become an orphan only hours ago, was bandaging Joey Milano's gunshot wound. The mob boss had been shot in the back of the leg by the late Richard Saxon, who had immediately been gunned down by his protector Alfredo Bocelli and another of their companions, Duncan Jergens. Duncan had taken a bullet to the chest, and he was still trying to remove it and stop the bleeding.

Ho Nguyen, the owner of the store, was watching the new arrivals carefully. He had given Duncan the chest wound for shooting his employee Marcus Williams in the leg. Luckily, that wound wasn't bad at all, and Emily had managed to patch him up easily enough. Helen Stafford, his other employee, stood with her new friend Cynthia Louise, both of them carrying shotguns. Cynthia had arrived with Richard and Victor Gonzalez, another escaped convict who knew the bunch that had recently showed up.

The only person at the front of the roof was Victor's old prison buddy, Hector Salazar, who was still freaking out. "They're coming!" he cried as he ran around in a panic.

The patter of rain continued to fall on the roof and everyone on it. It was coming down harder now, leaking through the hole Marcus had made in the roof earlier and making the floor of the storage room below awash with water.

"This drizzle starts to bug me!" Kat retorts as she looks at the frantic Hector. "We´d better get down below again and sit this storm out. Or we all end up cold and tired. We can watch the entrances with a decent count of arms. I´m in favour of going back down, and I need to tend to my arm again. I guess we´ll have a better chance of fixing Duncan´s wound too, if we get cover. The point of being up here was to take down the zombies from a distance. Now that seems hard to accomplish. Better to reinforce the back door and stay away from windows. We might be able to get the barricade ready in the front too. Come on, every second counts here! Who´s in favour of cover and a dry place?" She doesn´t wait for a reply, "Alfredo, could you be so kind and pull the ladder up, so we can use it to descend the hole? No need to leave a way up for the dead heads... If we later need to evacuate, we´ll use the zip line." She watches the back of the store, through the rain gusts and the darkening evening for any disturbance of the battering rain.

Marcus stood by the ladder ready to help Harvey topside as quickly as possible. Last thing he wanted was the man to freeze up again right there on the ladder half-way up. "Don't look back, mister... just keep climbin'," Marcus said to the man. "Might be wantin' to climb a little faster."

The big black man held his hand out for Harvey. "Take mah hand," he said encouragingly.

Victor gentley shut Richard's eyes and said, "Thanks buddy for what you did for me." He then stood up and said, "Kat's right. We will achive nothing by being wet, cold, and tired up here. Down below we can do shifts with those who are not working grabbing some shut eye."

"Kat's right." Emily said. "We'll get hypothermia if we stay out here all night. I suggest 3 hour watches of......" she glanes around to see who all has a rifle..."three. The rest of us can rest up, so we can take over when a watch is over."

Ho Nguyen nods. Yeah, I agree. We go down, someone say up to watch. He points at Joey. Not you though or your men, I don't trust you.

On the roof-
Harvey reached the top of the ladder and gripped Marcus by the hand, allowing the man to pull him onto the roof. "Thanks," he said, adjusting his glasses. "I thought I was done for."

"Just stick with us, Harv," said Alfredo, hoisting up the ladder. "You'll be fine." He leaned it against the inside edge of the hole in the roof, providing a way down to the storage room. "I agree, we should get inside."

Joey nodded. "Yes, let's get below." He glanced over to Duncan. "How are you holding up?"

"A little better," he grunted. He managed to extract the bullet and at least stop the bleeding.

"I can stand watch," said Kyle, standing tall. "I don't mind a little water. Lauren, you and your mom should get inside where it's safe."

Hector continued to run around in panic.

OOC,Decide who is staying on the roof and who is going down, and which order you want to go down in. If there is a dispute over who should go first, the NPCs will defer to [b]Ho[/b]'s wishes. Nobody else can try to bring [b]Hector[/b] out of his temporary insanity, as [b]Emily[/b] already tried and failed in Chapter 4. It will just have to finish running its course.

Victor eyed the criminals he knew and said, "If your all going down then go ahead..I am not about to turn my back on you."

"Thanks, Kyle" Emily said and gave him a hug. "We'll send someone up to relieve you in a bit. Here, take this helmet so you can communicate with all of us down stairs." She handed Kyle the helmet she had been wearing and then moved towards the ladder to see Lauren down, before heading down herself.

"I´ll get down and secure the room for you guys!"
Kat will be the first to descend as she stated the purpose of going down. When down, she will cover the entrance from the front of the door, letting the others get down without being worried of being attacked.

Marcus says, "I'll stay up here for the first watch with Kyle." He hoisted up his rifle and started peering into the darkness, shining his flashlight forward from the barrel so he could be ready to shoot what he sees.

In the storeroom-
Kathryn reached the bottom of the ladder, splashing through the puddle and moving to the door. The hallway outside the storage room was clear too.

On the roof-
"I already got a helmet," said Kyle, tapping the one on his head. "Kathryn gave it to me."

Lauren hugged Kyle too. "Be careful, Kyle," she said. Then she moved to the ladder and started down it.

Duncan set to work cleaning his wound and stitching it up. He did it with masterful expertise.

Victor said, "Someone needs to keep an eye on the ladies. I will make it my job then." He moved to the ladder and began to climb down it.

"Oh, right..." Emily said wit ha smile to Kyle as he pointed out the helmet he already has. "We'll keep this one, then, so we can communicate."
Emily headed down the ladder to be with her daughter.

OOC,This update encompasses three minutes. Some players haven't posted, so I've gone ahead and updated anyway, assuming their characters do nothing. It's not generally a good idea to just stand there, so please post between updates if you can. Even if you don't want to do anything, you should post describing your inaction so I don't end up waiting unnecessarily.

On the roof-
As Lauren climbed down the ladder, Hector stopped running around and caught his breath. He trotted back over to the rear of the roof while Victor and Emily descended.

"Sorry, boss," said Hector as he approached Joey, his head low.

Joey put a hand on his shoulder. "Just make sure you keep it together next time," he said. "How are you doing, Duncan?"

"Much better," he said. "I'll take a look at your leg once I've finished sewing up my wound and we get downstairs."

Alfredo made sure his rifle was fully loaded as he peered out into the darkness. Joey swapped out his Glock's magazine for a full one.

OOC,Everyone still on the roof, roll Spot Hidden at 1/5 skill. If you have a flashlight (which only [b]Marcus[/b] does out of those who did not go down), this roll is at 2/5 skill instead. The base skill is 25% if it's not on your character sheet.

In the storeroom-
Lauren reached the bottom of the ladder and walked over to Kathryn at the door. "Hi," she said. "Scuse me, I gotta use the bathroom." She moved past her, into the short hall, and into the employees' bathroom on the other side, shutting the door after her. Victor reached the bottom of the ladder, followed by Emily.

Ho Nguyen turns to Marcus. You see anything you yell for me. I keep eye on them. He points in Joey's general direction. He than climbs down the ladder.

Kat goes through the hallway and to the front room and halts by the counter, listeningfor any disturbance in the barricaded room. The only noise she hears is the one of scrambling feet against the rungs of the ladder. She keeps the 9mm raised, just in case.

Emily follows her daughter to the rest room, pistol in hand. She stands outside the door and says jokingly: "Don't plug the toilet"

Spot Hidden - failed,[url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2260889/](2/5ths of Spot Hidden of 53 = 21.2%) (1d100=63)[/url]

Marcus nodded to Ho, "Will do, boss." He looked out into the dismally dark and stormy surrounding, wondering from where their next attack would be coming. He decided to keep his eyes mostly looking in the direction where the last bunch came from. "Don't see nothin' yet," he commented to Kyle.

Victor said, "Okay lets check the baraccades down here and then we need to grab some shut eye and maybe some food."