Sunday, September 11, 2011

Catch and Release

Less than a week into our trip, and we're already dealing with a potential deathstroke to our mission. Will and Rachel have been captured.

We spent all of yesterday and a lot of the day before trying to find where they'd been taken. It happened while we were scouting alternate routes to the group we were on our way to see. Will and Rachel went out together, as none of us goes anywhere alone, and it took a while to realize they'd been caught. One of them might be dead or severely injured. We found a liberal splash of blood at the scene of their capture.

There was a fight, to be sure. We knew they were taken because their bodies weren't there, and zombies tend to leave pretty obvious messes. Plus, in the day and a half since, we've located where they're being kept. Mason is watching the place as I type this. Through the scope of a high-powered rifle.

We've tried communicating with the people inside the small fortress we're watching, but so far we haven't had any luck. At least we know why the area has been stripped of materials so thoroughly. This place is impregnable.

Two large apartment buildings make up most of its living space. They're four stories tall and made of cinder block. Each floor looks like it has four apartments, good size ones. There's a wall fifteen feet tall at its lowest point surrounding the whole thing, all told about the area of a football field. I don't know what theses people do for farming, but it isn't inside their wall from what I can see. The wall itself is a hodgepodge of materials from aluminum siding to steel plate and wood. It's all held together by what looks like hardened foam of some kind. Probably the expanding polyurethane stuff used to insulate houses. I used to install that stuff, and the heavier versions of it are as good as cement.

Hmm. I wonder if I could make armor molds with that stuff. I'll have to look into that....

Mason and I are discussing the options with Steve and Becky at the moment. We're going to get Will and Rachel back, dead or alive, but we'd prefer not to have anyone killed. That the people who took them have a permanent residence says good things about them: they aren't averse to cooperative effort, probably aren't bloodthirsty killers, and are unlikely to be cannibals. I won't rule any of that out, but signs are mostly positive.

We don't have a lot of choices. Becky is offering to walk to their gate and knock. We'll spend the next little while trying to come up with pretty much any alternative to that. I don't have high hopes. Yelling at them from the safety of the trees isn't working, and I don't think they've got electricity at all, so the internet isn't an option.

Damn it.

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