Chapter 3.06 B SALSA TREASURE

Streets of Chicago, IL

Saturday, July 12th

“Sorry about this, Marcus. If you can understand me, get your ass back here ASAP.”

Collin then shoved the end of the cast-iron fence through his buddy’s eye and into the brain, killing the Zombie Marcus had become.

‘Ping’ [0].

Looking around himself, he eyed the other three survivors for a few moments. Stevenson, Burt, and Travis looked pumped up and ready to keep on fighting. The group had just killed everyone outside their squad who had joined and became infected. Two of the Civi’s had been infected, and in turn, infected the others. Marcus had been simply scratched by one of the bastards. He looked down at the Zombies’ corpses and the blue-wispy orbs floating above them. Reaching out, Collin touched the first, then the rest.

Received 7 Cores.

7 Cores total.

Received 7 AP.

107 AP Total.

The infection seemed to grow slowly at the start of the event. Towards the end, the group watched the black lines crawl up and down Marcus’s arm. It had only taken minutes for him to start grunting and then to lunge towards Travis. Stephenson and Collin were on him in an instant, pushing him to the floor and holding his arms in place before Collin could deliver the coups de grâce.

With the four of them remaining, they waited the last forty-two minutes for the event to end. The five veterans had claimed the Oak Forest Retirement Facility, the place they themselves had been put into storage in the real world. The original plan had been to keep the territory going for those who wanted to join them. However, those who had been turned or killed wouldn’t be playing again till tomorrow night, and who knew where they would spawn.

Attention, The Mad Ghosts Group!

Your group has successfully cleaned out their territory and will not be dissolved.

Attention Players!

Congratulations, Region USA.2, for having 21,912 groups left. You’re second behind Region RUS.4.

Outbreak is now live. Those with territories may now begin to upgrade and defend them. Those without a group may join others or remain alone. You have 18 hours left to explore and loot before those who aren’t playing awake as Zombies.

After reading over the two server-wide messages, another alert let Collin know he had a third message to read.

Attention Leader of The Mad Ghosts!

Your group has successfully cleaned out their territory and will be rewarded with a basic weapons cache. As the group leader, you may remove the claim on the territory for no penalty and regain the token to be used elsewhere.

Each day, as the group leader, you may select a hint towards a cache:

Weapons Cache Tactical Cache Outbreak Information Cache

A large pelican case materialized in front of Collin. The small flash drew the attention of the other three. Bending down, Collin opened it to reveal an M4 assault rifle and two Glock handguns. Below the three guns were two mags for each weapon.

Removing one of the Glocks and its clips, Collins stuffed the gun into his back pants and the extra clips into a front pocket. He tossed the other Glock to Travis along with its two spares.

“Stevenson, come grab this M4 and mags. Alright, guys, I have an option for hints to a cache for more weapons or a tactical cache, or a place with Outbreak information. Which one do you think we should go for?” asked Collin.

“Tactical,” both Stevenson and Travis called out.

“Weapon,” Burt said.

“Looks like it’s Tactical. Every group will be going for the information and fight over it. There is no way the devs are going to allow people to finish the game that quickly,” Collin said.

Collin mentally clicked on the second option for the Tactical Cache and was given a small prompt.

Attention: Tactical Cache!

The cache is 5.4 miles from your present location.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that. We need to find a map of the area and a damn circle compass.”

Collin mentally pulled up the information on the territory he had claimed and reclaimed the Territory Token. The four ex-marines gathered what mediocre supplies they could find and began walking towards Cicero, the main street running north and south in Oak Forest, IL. Getting to the road, they started walking north till they came to the intersection of 159th.

“Alright, what does everyone think? West towards Orland? Or North towards Chicago?”

The votes were all in favor of Chicago, so north they went. Collin and Travis kept to the east side of Cicero, while Stephenson and Travis took the west. The two groups systematically searched each building as they headed northbound.

At 151st Street, the players found the maps they wanted inside the southwest corner’s gas station. Each grabbed a bag’s worth of food and water before they began walking northbound again.

The ex-soldiers moved slowly, but always with purpose. The two-man teams leapfrogged from one position to the next through each building, always covering one another’s backs. The group continued north until they came to a small complex of old brick buildings with school buses in a fenced-off yard. Collin called for the others to cross the street, and after a brief discussion, they entered the main building to find keys for the busses.

Not seeing anyone alive or otherwise, the group decided to split up and quickly check for the buses’ keys. They seemed to be in working order. However, none of them had the keys within.

“Alright, it looks like we’re going on a scavenger hunt. Look for keys or anything that we can use to get a bus started.” Collin said.

Collin took the main building and began going through the desks and cabinets on the first floor. Not finding anything of use, he headed up to the second floor and found it mostly empty. As he was looking through the lockers of the last room, he heard shots from outside and then silence. Without bothering to close the locker, Collin ran out of the room and down the stairs taking them three at a time.

He pulled his Glock out as he moved through the back door, sweeping the area. A moment later, Burt came running from around the building he was checking. He nodded to Collin in the direction of what looked to be a maintenance building and then scanned the empty yard. The two crept slowly towards the building when Travis came running out from its side door.

“Zombies! Ten or more on my six!” shouted Travis.

A mere second behind Travis, three Zombies crashed through the door and towards the fleeing man. Three ‘pops’ rang out from Collins left. He glanced back to see Stephenson kneeling on top of a bus. He had nailed all three shots in their heads. As the three Zombies fell to the ground, the others had caught up and were coming through the door.

Travis made it across the concrete yard to Collin and Burt. He whirled around and kneeled next to his two friends. The two begin firing into the crowd of Zombies. Stephenson was taking out the slower ones behind. In seconds every Zombie lay dead in the yard. No one moved for a solid two minutes as the players waited to see if the noise drew others’ attention. When it had become clear they were safe, Collin walked over to the group of corpses with glowing orbs floating above them.

Reaching out to touch the orbs, Collin was greeted with the same two prompts from before.

Received 11 Cores.

18 Cores total.

Received 11 AP.

118 AP Total.

“Looks like Zombies only drop cores and AP for loot, and whoever loots the Zombies gets the Cores and AP. Not sure what we do with the cores though, I didn’t get anything physical from them,” said Collin.

Seconds after Collin collected the rest of the Cores; the Zombies melted into the ground. All that remained behind were their clothes and a backpack. The group checked the pockets of each article of clothing and the backpack. Travis found a set of two keys in the pocket of one of the jeans, and Burt opened the pack to find it filled with bags of cookies and bottled water.

The four split back up and finished exploring the buildings. Travis went to the buses with the two keys and began trying to start each. Thirty minutes later, the group had two running flat-nosed busses and packed each of them with supplies.

“Hey Travis, Burt, help me load these barrels of diesel into the busses,” said Collin.

The players loaded the two barrels on one bus and three on the other. With everyone ready to go, Collin and Stephenson drove the two busses off the lot and began heading north again. They would stop now and again when one of them spotted a building with some type of loot inside. The squad would go in and loot anything not bolted down, loading their prizes into the busses.

By the time they reached the bridge that crossed the Little Calumet River, the group was ready for a break. They pulled into a large empty parking lot and parked the buses next to one another. With his M4, Stephenson climbed through one of the ceiling fire exits and posted up top to keep an eye on the area. Scanning around the area, he spotted something relatively quickly.

“Two contacts inside a small building at our 7 o’clock!” yelled Stephenson.

Collin, Travis, and Burt were out of the bus instantly and moved towards the small building. Looking around the area one last time, Stephenson slid off the roof and down to the ground. He jogged to catch up to the group.

Getting closer to what looked like a small Mexican restaurant, they were surprised when they got a message as they entered that building's parking area.

Attention!

You have entered the MallRatz territory.

“I bet it’s a group of kids,” said Burt with a smirk.

The four ex-marines continued to cross the parking lot. As they drew closer to the restaurant’s door, they noticed all the tables stacked on top of one another in front of the large glass windows. Collin moved up beside the door, knocked twice, then stepped back and waited.

A few moments later, a young blonde haired teen came to the door and unlocked it. Opening it a crack, he began to speak.

“Where did you guys get the busses?”

“Down Cicero about two miles. There are more back there if you want one. Keys are in the back building on the right wall in a small lockbox,” Collin replied.

“Thank you. We’ll do that. What about the gun he has?” the teen asked, pointing to Stephanson’s M4.”

“You guys should have had a small weapon cache appear when the event ended.”

Collin watched as the kid looked a bit surprised by that information. He immediately closed the door and locked it. From what Collin could tell, the teen walked into the back of the restaurant.

“Something isn’t level here, guys,” Collin called out.

Travis ran to the corner of the building and disappeared around it. Stephenson took a few steps back and kneeled, drawing the M4 to his shoulder. Burt cursed and threw his hands into the air, then grabbed a monkey wrench from his belt.

“We need to get me and Marcus a damn gun asap. I hate being the odd man out.”

“Hostage!” the group heard Travis yell from the back.

“Collin shot at the door, the glass shattering to the floor. He placed his back to the side of the wall and trained his gun inside the restaurant. Burt walked up, reached into the door, unlocked the lock, and opened the door. Collin entered first, Stephenson right behind him covering his side. Burt looked at his monkey wrench, twirled it once, and then followed inside.

“Where are your weapons, dammit?! They got guns!” someone shouted from the back area.

“I don’t know where Andrew put them! You idiots shouldn’t have killed him! HELP! BACK HERE!” Collin heard a woman scream.

Collin came around the corner to find the young kid with a kitchen knife to the girl’s throat. An older man was behind him, holding onto another kid. Collin trained the gun on the teen from the door.”

“Back off, dude! We took this territory fair and square,” the teen said.

“Alright, then let those two go, and we leave you be. We don’t need another territory.”

“Yea, I don’t trust you, old man.”

Collin tilted his head slightly at the snide remark.

“Fine. How about a trade? You give us the info this territory received today, and I leave you be.”

“What info?” the teen asked.

“Did you take control over the territory when you killed the previous leader, Andrew?”

He nodded.

“Think about your territory messages and find out what Andrew selected. You tell me that, and I will leave. Sorry, kiddo.” Collin said, looking at the younger woman with the knife to her throat.

Collin noticed the older man walking back towards the rear door with the teen boy still in his grip. The younger one was still looking into space, reading messages.

“Outbreak information is 13.5 miles from the territory. Now please leave.” said the teen.

“Deals a Deal. I will leave now.”

Collin turned around and left the building, the captain’s words only now dawning on the young man. Under no obligation to leave, Stephenson and Burt remained inside. Collin figured any second now; the older one would try to run out the backdoor and into the waiting sights of Travis Glock. Before Collin could even reach the door, he heard the backdoor get kicked open, then a familiar ‘pop,’ followed by a scream and then another ‘pop.’ Sighing to himself, Collin turned around and walked back into the kitchen.

“Hey, I got 25 AP for killing the kid,” said Stephenson.

“I got nothing for that one,” said Travis, walking through the backdoor with the kid who had been held captive.

“Thank you, guys. These fuckers came in here asking to join us. When they found out Andrew was the leader, they hit him over the head with a pipe, and then this fucker took control of the territory,” the older boy said as he kicked the teen’s dead body.

“Well, if you want it, we can give it back to you,” said Collins.

“Could we join you guys instead? I don’t want to deal with something like this again,” the young woman said.

“I go where Paige goes,” the guy said.

“I have no problem with that. What about Andrew and the weapon cache?” asked Collin.

“We don’t really know him. Richard and I ran into him and tagged along. The weapons are in the walk-in freezer under the boxes of salsa.”

Paige showed Collin the pelican case of guns. Inside was the same set of weapons they had gotten. Collin tossed the M4 to Burt and handed Paige and Richard each of the Glocks.

“You know how to use these?” asked Collin.

“Oh yea, we used to play City of Sin all the time,” Richard said.

Collin barked out a Laugh.

“Adrenalin junkies?”

“Something like that. We used to run with a smuggling group,” Paige said.

“Hey, guys. We got ourselves, contraband runners!” Collin yelled out from the freezer.

Stephenson converted the territory to a token and gave it to Collin, who then invited Richard and Paige into The Mad Ghosts.

“What are The Mad Ghosts?” asked Richard.

“They were the Marines stationed here in Chicago before the Chinese War. We were a part of them and are among the few remaining survivors left.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Paige.

“Don’t worry about it. We knew what we were getting into. Alright, let's pack as much as we can into the buses and get some sleep. I don’t want anyone with a debuff during tomorrow’s session.”