Reluctantly, you follow the man. Roger stops you. "You sure this is the wisest choice?"


Conway chimes in. "Yeah, these guys seem a little...'on edge'." You nod. "I know this is dumb, but they have the firepower, and outnumber us two to one. We don't have another option."


Slowly, your group follows the strange folk over to an empty parking lot. A group of dumpsters have been arranged in a defensive wall. Corpses litter the area. You can see piles of trash from discarded food, as well as several empty cans and bottles. Dirty mattresses propped against the dumpsters presumably serve as beds.


"Welcome!" yells the man. The few people that were waiting at the camp stand up. They stare emotionlessly into your eyes. "Sit down," says the man, gesturing to a spot on the ground. "Oh," you say, "You want us to...join you?"


Uncomfortable, you and your group sit amongst the filthy survivors. "So, now that you're part of us, you have to pass initiation," says the man. You sit up. "Hold up," says Roger. "We aren't joining you. That was never up for arguing." The man sticks out a pouty lip, and walks over to where Roger sits. Roger rises, and meets the man. 


"Yes," says the man. "You will be joining us for dinner."


Suddenly, Roger pulls a gun from his belt and shoots the man in the head, killing him. Horrified, the remaining members of the other group fish around for their guns, and begin to fire aimlessly. You group stands up defensively, and you realize you don't have a weapon of your own. As gunshots ring around you, you hide under a dumpster. The other group quickly loses track of your people. You stay hidden under the dumpster, while the garbage group searches out your people. You see a pair of feet coming over to your dumpster.

You stay Put

Despite your fear, you stay put. The pair of feet walks up to you, and you hear the top of the dumpster being opened. Then, it closes, and you hear a dissatisfied, "Nobody over here."


The people struggle to find any of your group, you scattered pretty quickly. As you hide, you make eye contact with Ozzy, who's hidden under an adjacent dumpster. You see fear in his eyes. He's slowly pulling a small gun out of his pocket, and holding eye contact with you.


"Well, well, well. Come out when you're ready, hooligans," the man who led you here says. The other group sits down in the middle of the parking lot, and begins to eat. 


Ozzy slowly makes his way out from under the dumpster, out of sight of the others. You do the same. You sit behind the dumpster and think over your next move.

You stay behind the dumpster

You stay behind the dumpster, and out of sight. To reveal yourself now would be suicide.


After waiting for a few minutes, you peek out from behind the dumpster. The other group shows no signs of moving soon. Ozzy has crawled past the dumpsters and in the direction of the helicopter. When he sees you, he waves for you to follow him. You get down on all fours and crawl after him, staying behind the dumpsters.


When you get far enough away, you see that the others have already escaped. "Took you long enough," says Roger. "I wanted to make sure it was safe, you say. Roger shrugs.


"Okay," Ozzy whispers. "Let's leave while the Garbage Pail Kids are still having dinner." You follow the others back to the helicopter.


"None of their gunfire hit anything too important. We'll make it back, but it won't look pretty," Ozzy declares. The others breathe a sigh of relief. "What about the windows?" Matthias asks. "We just won't be able to go as far up in the air, and if we get shot at again, we're toast, but we should be fine," Ozzy answers.


You board the helicopter, and start to lift off. During the entire thing, you're afraid the other group will come running back, guns in hand. Fortunately, they never do.


"Okay, as previously stated," Ozzy says, "We'll be a few miles short of our target. Don't get too comfortable."

You gas

You're on edge the rest of the ride, but nothing else goes wrong.


"What do you reckon happened to those people?" Roger asks. "The apocalypse can have a serious effect on some people," says Matthias. "They might've been homeless people, or mental patients, or something like that."


Finally, Ozzy brings the helicopter to a stop on the ground. "Here we are," he says. Everyone gets out of the helicopter, and starts the trek over to the fuel stores. "Let's hope there's any left for us," mutters Roger.


Along the way, you notice the bodies of zed scattered around. All of them were victim to a gunshot in the head. "Someone came through here," says Conway, "And they were goin' for it." You hope that whoever this was, they weren't searching for fuel. "Come on," says Matthias. "If there's competition, we have to beat them to the outpost."


It doesn't really matter how fast you ran. When you arrive at the outpost, it's obvious nobody has been through here. The area is packed with the dead. "You've gotta be kidding me," says Roger. The fuel stores are visible, but the whole outpost is surrounded by a chain-link fence. There are no visible gates or entry points, but a large hole in one side of the fence explains how the zombies got in. 


"Should we run and gun 'em?" asks Conway. "That depends," you answer, "...on how much firepower we have."


"If it comes down to it, we might have to find another way through this," says Roger.

You create a distraction

"We don't have the guns for this," you say.


"I have an idea," says Matthias. "If we could make more holes in the fence, and lure the dead out of the way....we'd have no issue getting what we need." 


Conway volunteers to make some noise and distract the hordes. The rest of you split up around the fence. You are given a large knife to cut the fence. "Okay," says Roger. "We're all clear, correct? Cut through the fence, and as soon as there's enough room for the dead to make it out, you back away. Once we're all clear, I give the whistle, and Conway does his thing."


You go to work hacking through the fence. A few zombies take notice, and push up against the fence. "Stay back," you whisper. Clink. The first fence loop breaks open. One of the zombies forces a hand through the hole. You kill it, and keep going. Clink. Clink. Clink.


Soon, you have a sizable hole. You step back to see if the zombies can fit. It's a struggle, but eventually one of them forces its way through the hole. You decide you're done, and back up.


You wait a few minutes for Conway, but the gunfire never comes. Roger looks around in bewilderment. "What's going on? He should've-"


Roger is cut off by the fence collapsing. The pressure of all the corpses shoving up against it caused the supports to snap. The pile of zombies struggle to their feet, and give chase. "Fall back!" yells Roger, and the team scatters.

You run

You blindly scramble through the forest, not thinking enough to follow someone else or even pay attention to what direction you're running in. You point yourself towards the helicopter, since you assume that's where the others are going.


You can easily outrun the horde, that's no problem. Once you're far enough away, your biggest concern becomes finding the others. You scan the forest in search of familiar faces, but find none. In panic, you continue towards the helicopter. The horde of zed has made its way further out, and a few eager corpses have already made it pretty far out.


You hear yelling from a few yards away, and see Roger running in the direction of the helicopter. You run up to follow, and call his name. He looks around, spots you, and waves you over. 


"Come on!" he shouts. "Back to the helicopter!" A few moments later, you hear gunshots nearby. The others. 


"Should we go back?" you ask. Roger doesn't answer, he's dead set on making it back to the helicopter. You hesitate, before following him. The zombies have advanced further, and you doubt you'd be able to come back safely if you turned around now.


As you make your way to the helicopter, you see the garbage people, the ones that shot at the helicopter, approaching in the distance. They must have heard the gunfire and realized their prisoners got free.


"Well....crap. This is a problem," says Roger, his voice wavering. You look behind you; the zombies haven't caught up to you yet, but if you keep wasting time, they will. You might be able to make it back to the helicopter before interacting with the garbage people to get a gun or something.

You look For Your Friends

You resolve not to let the others die, and turn around.


"What are you doing?"" yells Roger, but you pay no attention. You maneuver around the first few zombies, and back into the woods. You call out names while searching for movement among the trees.


"Matthias!" you yell, scanning the broken fence. "Conway? Ozzy?" you don't see anything, except advancing hordes of the dead. Suddenly, gunfire erupts from a few yards away. You see Conway firing at a pack of zombies with the signal gun.


Conway spots you, and breaks into a run. He's pointing at something behind you, but you're so focused on him that you don't notice the zombie right behind you. You narrowly avoid the monster's jaws, and push it to the ground. By then, Conway has caught up to you. 


"Come on," you say. "To the helicopter." Both of you take off. On the way, you ask where Ozzy is. 


"I think he made it out before I did. He should be at the helicopter right now," Conway answers. "As for Matthias, I don't kn-" 


Conway suddenly stops as a bullet hits him squarely between the eyes. You freeze with fear, and turn to see the garbage people standing before you. The leader steps out.


"Thought you could run away, huh?" he taunts, and pops another shell into his shotgun.


 

"Here's what we do to runaways around here."


 

Bang!