Nightshift 42: Bill's Hardware

[ruthless_hunter]

[from here]Lockdown kicked the door to the hardware store down and barged in. There was already a zombie in here, a big one, who the bounty hunter guessed was the owner of the store. There were also two other zombies with him, so Lockdown was already outnumbered. But that had never stopped the bounty hunter

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[arc_wrench]

Oh, he should have expected this. Well, at least there were weapons here. Legitimate, if primitive weapons. He immediately dashed for an axe as well, glad to have something sharp he could use against these meatbags. "Statement: Aft is here, as is the rest of me. Now, to kill some meatbags!" The beginnings of a crazy grin were spreading across his face.

[damned_monsters]

Normally, Perry, the proprietor of the hardware store, would have been a large, genial man with a smile on his face and an amusing anecdote for everyone. Of course, this night was anything but.

His round belly seemed to move as a separate entity from the rest of him, flesh moving under the torn, ragged clothes in a way that suggested it might easily detatch from the rest of his body. The sheer size of the zombie kept him moving slowly, but there was a second, slimmer one also approaching the pair of them.

[Jen NPCing by request]

[ruthless_hunter]

Lockdown tightened his hands on the axe handle and lunged at the thin zombie, swinging his axe, aiming for its neck to decapitate it, wanting to take out the thin one before focusing on the big, chunky one.

Elation began to course through the bounty hunter. He thought fighting those dog monsters last night had been exhilarating. Sure these enemies were slower and quite possibly stupider, but a thrill was a thrill. The axe wasn't quite the same as his chainsaw, but this was no time to be picky.

[arc_wrench]

Ooh, that was disgusting. All the more reason to kill it! HK ran towards the bigger meatbag, trying to circle around the thing and aim for the neck, taking a hard swing.

He now had a smile to match the rest of his axe murderer look. Now that he had a weapon, there was no reason to be scared. Just overjoyed at the chance to kill things!

[damned_monsters]

Blood and flesh came pouring from the neck of the larger zombie, but its head seemed to be attached still, if only by a thin piece of sinewy tissue. It turned on HK, baring its teeth and slowly lumbering toward him.

The thinner zombie was taken down rather easily, but a second one took its place, groaning low as it stepped forward.

[ruthless_hunter]

Lockdown noticed the big zombie turn to HK threateningly. Oh no, he wasn't gonna let anything happen to HK before he had a chance to finally execute his plans.

Leaving the other thin zombie for now, the bounty hunter ran towards the big zombie, hacking at its body in order to distract it, before aiming a roundhouse kick at its head, hoping the force of the kick would snap that last little bit of flesh keeping it attached to the body.

Once Lockdown had spun all the way around, he planted his feet, axe raised, prepared to fight once more, in case the big zombie was still functioning or the small zombie came at them.

[arc_wrench]

HK had seen a lot of necks cut open during his career, but never one so... chunkily, if that was even a word. This wasn't exactly a good time to spend a millisecond to access his dictionary file.

Not when there was killing to be done! HK dodged around Lockdown and the large zombie, heading for the currently unattended one that needed to be separated from it's head. He charged in, swinging hard as his pathetic little human meatbag muscles could manage.

[damned_monsters]

The larger zombie's head spewed blood that spattered across the tile of the hardware store, pooling at the edge of one of the shelves, as it flew and hit the wall with a loud, sickening crunch. The body fell to the ground with a thud that shook the ground for a moment.

The smaller zombie fell easily after that, its head neatly separating from the rest of its body and impaling itself on a rake. There were telltale groans in the background indicating that the store wasn't entirely free of zombies, but their numbers had dwindled for the moment.

[ruthless_hunter]

Lockdown grinned sadistically as the zombie's head flew off. Sure, he was now covered in blood, but he'd worry about that later.

Stepping around the bodies, and getting the soles of his feet-armor covered in blood, the bounty hunter made his way to a rack of belts, putting one around his waist and putting anything that looked useful into the pockets and loops.

"Grab a belt and take what you can, quickly," Lockdown told HK, stuffing a couple of screwdrivers into his belt.

[arc_wrench]

"Affirmative: I will!" He nearly giggled looking at the zombie head on the rake. That memory was definitely being saved. He grabbed a belt, finding a small folding knife and sticking it in the belt, along with... What was it called. It was a pointy thing. Oh well. It looked good for stabbing meatbags with.

[ruthless_hunter]

Lockdown stuffed a few more things into his belt, including a wrench, pliers, several nails, a hammer, a folding knife, and some sort of battery-operated drill, which fit nicely into a holster on one side of the belt. The bounty hunter also grabbed himself some work gloves and put them on as well as some goggles he found. Would help keep blood out of his eyes, at any rate.

Once he felt he had enough, Lockdown turned to the other robot, "Any ideas about where to go from here?"

[arc_wrench]

As much as HK liked the idea of taking every weapon he could, one of his advantages over the meatbags here was speed. Too much weight and the trade off between power and efficiency would be unacceptable. He grabbed a hammer and a short length of plastic pipe, experimentally testing the weight in his left hand. It would make a decent item to block with, especially because the meatbags were essentially humans and not all that strong.

"Statement: Possibly somewhere with limited access points. These meatbags seem entirely single-minded about attacking everything they deem edible, thus in the open their numbers will eventually become a problem."

[ruthless_hunter]

Lockdown nodded in agreement, and quickly began thinking of places, all while reminding himself that more zombies were coming and they didn't have much time. He was well aware of how weighed down he was now, but if he had to, he could drop the belt.

He thought about suggesting a park, when a better idea came to him. Back at the grocer's he'd seen a plaque for a "doctor's office", and had noticed that it was on top of the store. Perhaps that would be a prime location.

"There's an office on top of the grocery store," Lockdown suggested. "Maybe we should head for that."

[arc_wrench]

"Affirmative: That sounds like a defensible position," HK replied, starting to head for the door. And the zombies coming in through the door. More to kill! He happily chopped his way through any that got too much in his way, noting with glee how easily their heads separated from their bodies. As he reached the doorway, he experimentally smashed one across the head with the length of pipe, finding to his great satisfaction that the thing's skull crunched upon impact. These rotting things made for such easy targets!

[Back out to here]