Weighed down with pop-up tents and portable camping stoves, the survivors exit Towshore. They encounter a group of travelling gypsy folk picking over the dead LARPers littering the car park. Mike enters dogged negotiations with a grizzled gypsy crone. He trades Gary’s spacesuit for a pair of sturdy horses to pull the caravan that Andy and Steve are struggling to push off the Towshore forecourt. The old gypsy woman takes a swig of Special Brew and her eyes begin to glaze over.
“Yew’ll find whut ye’ seek at Merry Hill!” she shrieks, clawing at the air and generally making a scene.
The gypsies finish looting the dead and set off, leaving the survivors to ponder the witch’s prophecy. A mongrel hound that had been trailing behind the convoy lingers near the survivors, looking up at them with hopeful eyes. Adam stares back, picturing how the dog’s ratty coat would complement his fine Doberman-head hat.
While Andy jury-rigs a harness to attach the two horses to the front of the caravan, the rest of the survivors discuss their next move. A consensus is reached to head for Merry Hill and investigate the gypsy woman’s cryptic message, with a brief stop-over at the B&Q megastore outside Oldhill to restock supplies.
The journey to B&Q is uneventful and lulls the group into a false sense of security. Leaving the horses unattended, Doug fires up his chainsaw and cuts through the fire door. The survivors raid the store, encountering two undead security guards in the kitchen showroom. Doug makes short, bloody work of them both with his chainsaw, displaying a reckless disregard for his dwindling fuel supply. While Doug picks bits of skull out of his hair, Adam lays claim to a large wood-cutting axe that requires two hands to heft and Mike finds a metal bin lid that he can use as a shield (+1 Parry). Leaving the building, the survivors discover that their unattended horses have been eaten by a marauding band of transient zombies. Sadly, the partially devoured animals do not rise again as undead beasts of burden to continue pulling the caravan.
Steve jimmies open the door of a B&Q delivery van and the survivors pile into the back.
“Oh no!” Steve cries, reaching for the reassuringly phallic shape of the gear stick and finding it absent, “It’s only a bloody automatic!”
“Did someone say automatic?” Mike asked, clambering over the passenger seat, “Move over!”
With Mike behind the wheel, the van careens along roads choked with abandoned cars. Every time a lonesome zombie wanders out into the path of the van, Mike swerves recklessly in order to hit it.
“Would you stop that?!” Mark roars, as the passengers in the back of the van are tossed around like frogs in a blender.
Suddenly, a female voice begins speaking over the van’s radio, which until now had been emitting nothing but white noise. The newswoman states that the zombie epidemic is being caused by a toxic cloud originating from a chemical plant in Langley. Exposure to the cloud causes average Joe Public to transform into a murderous, flesh-eating ghoul! The broadcast ends abruptly as zombies break into the studio and begin eating the news team.
Reaching the bottom of Mucklow Hill, Mike slams his foot on the brake to avoid crashing into a shiny, red fire-engine obstructing both lanes. Abandoning the B&Q van, the survivors pull the zombie firemen out of the cab and claim the emergency vehicle for their own purpose. The fire-engine carries the survivors to the edge of Merry Hill before running out of fuel and cruising to a gentle halt outside Motherworld. The zombies here have more spring to their step than the shambling creatures the survivors had encountered thus far. Adam speculates this could be because they were exposed to the roving chemical cloud more recently than the specimens in Blackheath.
Andy rigs a timer to activate the fire-engine’s siren once the group have put some distance betwixt it and themselves. Attracted by the noise, the zombies surround the vehicle – leaving a clear path between the survivors and the shopping centre.
To be continued (by someone else)....
