ATZ - An English Adventure. (the first few turns)

Hi all, fair warning this is a really long post!

welcome to the first part of my ATZ campaign set in the South East of England, on the very real Isle of Thanet, which happens to have suffered a very unreal event that has cut it off from the mainland, for more detail check out my previous posts here, here and here.

This Day one is different to the usual “all things zombie” day one campaign game. This one has been specifically designed by me to reflect the emergency services reaction to the effects of the explosion and storm Daenerys. i'm writing this as  a narrative story rather than a traditional batrep, ive done this in the past and really liked the way it turns out, also note in order to maintain flow within the story some turns have been merged if you're thinking that this seems like a hell of a lot is happening in this one turn that's the reason so.....

Immediately following the (un)natural disaster, the people of Thanet are shell shocked and come blinking out into the morning light unaware that their lives have changed forever.  The insidious “Z virus” has been scattered across the newly formed Island somehow, was it the rain? Is it in the water? Who knows, all the local authorities do know is that their communication with the mainland was severely disrupted by the storm as have all the telephone networks including mobile signals. This includes public networks so calls to emergency services from the general populace of Thanet have been severed. Only the emergency network is up and running and so the tasking of ambulances, fire engines and police vehicles is being directed by central control. This joint tasking is part of the new protocols designed to respond to a major incident such as a terrorist attack on the scale of the 7/7 London bombings. The operation is being directed from County HQ in Maidstone (further north in the centre of Kent).  They are monitoring CCTV footage and sending out police patrols and backing them up with the appropriate response such as ambulance or fire. This lack of first hand reporting and local authority control is severely hampering the rescue attempts. Little do they know that this major incident isn't finished with the people of Thanet yet as reports of violent incidents start to increase.

Gobbo and Putters despite having been on a night shift prior to the disaster are still on duty and have been called to an assault in the early hours in Margate town, police are in attendance. The attacker is said to be in the vicinity. The crews job is to get the patient to hospital. The encounter will be considered a success if the patient is delivered to the trauma team waiting at the hospital. What the crew does not know is that the patient was bitten by a zombie. The patient will turn into a zombie on a 4+ on a d6 after 10 plus D6 turns, if the patient turns into a zombie in the back of the ambulance it will attack the attendant which in this case will be Putters.

While the sirens are engaged there will be an additional 2d6 (8d6 in total) used to discover if zombies are present. The sirens will be engaged until the crew have reached the patient they would then be reengaged when transporting the patient to hospital.

You can see the Ambulance enters onto the board at section 7 they have to travel across the top of the board and pick up the patient at the crossroads in section 9. They have to deliver the patient to the ambulance doors at the back of the hospital in section 3 (which for some reason has not come out on the photo).

there are old bill in section 7

poor photo aside you can see the patient by the blood splatters

Andy ‘Gobbo’ Wosa’s eyes darted to the screens briefly to check the sat nav again, frowning as it still showed a blank screen. “Still no signal Putters, lucky we know where Lower Rd is ain't it!” Eyes flickered forward back to the task at hand, he shifted down a gear of the 4.5 tonne vehicle and negotiated the level crossing that brought him into town. “Slow down Gobbo!” Anna ‘Putters’ Parker snapped as the ambulance bounced and rocked over the uneven ground [random event – argument]. Blue light bathed the road ahead, flashing and reflecting off the surrounding buildings in time to the yelp of the sirens. Ahead a pair of towns-folk dived out of the way and reached the safety of the pavement. “Why can't they just wait the extra 2 seconds it would take us to pass by instead of trying desperately to throw themselves under our wheels?” Andy growled. “Maybe if you didn't drive like a lunatic they wouldn't have to throw themselves onto the path!” Anna threw back to the older EMT.

the ambo goes blazing by the civvies!

infected citizens of Thanet gather, attracted by the noise of the sirens

more zombies lurk

Unseen by the crew, bloodshot eyes tracked the progress of the noisy ambulance, the sounds of the “twos” acting like their namesake the Sirens of Greek legend that drew sailors to their deaths with their call. [7 zombies are placed on the board after the ambulance comes onto the table].

More and more infected citizens of Thanet were drawn to the piercing cry of emergency sirens and began to shamble towards the source of the disturbance [5 more zombies are generated by the noise of the ambulance]. The two civilians that had dodged the Gobbo’s erratic driving stood stock still, feeling the oppressive atmosphere somehow become more ominous. With a shiver the large lady, Beatrice drew a large cast iron frying pan from the giant handbag that she had slung over her shoulder. She had fled the hurricane plagued Haiti ten years ago but still remembered her Nanna’s stories about the zombies of the Voodoo religion practiced on the island. Indicating the cricket bat that the man was carrying in his right hand “you any good with that honey?” She asked with an arched eyebrow.  “Cos there is some bad juju going down today.” 

Shaun looked down at the polished willow and hefted it with both hands in a practice swing and pointing at the ill looking people that shuffled and shambled toward them in an unnatural gait, “Kent schoolboys champion 1985 mate” he replied with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. Those eyes were hard, piercing and didn’t stop moving, always assessing and noting the movement all around the odd couple, fifteen years in the British Army and some hairy deployments had left a shadow across Shaun effecting the way he had approached life since he’d demobbed. Instincts that had been suppressed, pushed down and away into the dark corners of his mind in an effort to reintegrate into civvy life came bubbling to the surface as he recognised that the aftermath of the storm had only just begun to show itself [the civilians stand still as they don't activate this turn].

The ambulance flashed by in an instant, heading passed a parked police car and two officers in hi-vis vests who looked as tired as the medics.  Gobbo looked at the speedo and it was touching 50mph, ahead was a series of twisting bends so he feathered the brake while the wheels were still facing forward before powering on the accelerator into the hard left and the harder right, using centrifugal force to push the heavy vehicle to the road and causing Parker to glare at her crew-mate as the Mercedes Sprinter bumped hard up in the air. “What the bloody hell was that.” She shouted at him, trying to be heard over the siren. “Did we hit something?” Looking around and out the window obscuring the near side mirror crucially for a brief second. Andy trying to see in the mirrors and glancing in all directions at once while recovering from the bouncing failed to notice the brief blood slick that trailed after the speeding ambulance. “Must have been some detritus from the storm, a log or something” he said with a shrug [it had actually been a zombie that threw itself at the ambulance and subsequently failed it's attack quite spectacularly, I ruled that as it had appeared from outside LoS of the paramedics there was a chance that they didn't know what they had hit and would carry on, rolling dice they continued in their way, after passing a drive skill of course].

a zombie launches itself at the ambo

and gets splattered

Up ahead were another group of people all running full tilt down the road away from the direction the crew were headed. “That doesn't look good” Parker whispered under her breath, the people looked terrified and were streaming away from the junction connecting Lower Road to the Ramsgate Road where their patient supposedly was.  Glancing down at the Patient Report Form that she was part filling out in preparation of their arrival when it was bound to get extremely frantic, as a consequence she missed the fifth “person” in the group of civvies that had sprung up behind them and was reaching for the closest with a blood soaked hand [a PEF was revealed by the movement of the ambulance and was 4 civilians, the noise of the sirens drew 5 more zeds with one popping up behind the mob].

PEF comes into view

and is revealed as 4 civvies

and a zombie pops up behind them

the ambo pulls up

Gobbo spotted a pair of coppers kneeling by a person lying on the tarmac, the female officer had her hands pressed against the patient’s stomach, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood, while the male was trying and failing to get gauze swabs and dressings out of a first aid kit and dropping them in the floor in his haste. Slewing to a halt just before them, the medics sprang out of the cab, Gobbo donning his gloves while Putters grabbed the first response bag from the back of the truck. All the bickering and banter stopped as the crew slipped into “job mode”. Gobbo moved over to the PC and tried to get a decent handover that would give the medics more idea of the developing situation, while Putters dropped down next to the patient and began to assess her injuries. Putters went through the mnemonic ingrained into her head till it became second nature DRAcBCDE.

D for Danger - was the assailant lurking nearby? Well Gobbo could find that out, put that out of your mind Anna and get on with it, the thoughts whizzed through her head.

R for Response – the girl’s eyes were open and flicking between the medic and the copper, silently pleading with them to help her, to stop the pain, to save her life.

A for Airway – bruising around her throat concerned Putters but she could see that it was patent and hadn't been compromised in the attack.

c for catastrophic haemorrhage – the girl was bleeding badly from the abdomen but there wasn’t a huge puddle of blood underneath, hopefully that meant she still had most of it inside her yet.

B for Breathing, she was gasping for breath, this poor girl. Shallow, ragged and full of fear but the air was going in and out and that, at least for now was a good thing!

C for Circulation, patient hasn't got a radial pulse, damn it! Right there is a carotid pulse so that puts blood pressure around 60-70 systolic.

D for Disability, she’s not talking but her eyes are definitely on me, she’s moving when I want her to – GCS 11 maybe then…

E for expose and examine…..Anna grabbed a pair of tuff-cutts and scissored away the girl’s T-shirt to look at the wound underneath, swearing softly when she saw the damage, “Gobbo, I need the drugs bag and critical care pouch mate, Israeli trauma dressing, when you can please!  Andy jumped to it, ‘when you can please’ meant 'right the hell now' and Israeli trauma dressings could only mean serious mess. Racing around to the side of the truck he flung open the equipment cupboard door, grabbed the small black bag and tore off the tags that meant it was fully loaded, unlocking the drugs cupboard he grabbed the cannulation packs and other emergency meds, added to that he took an extra bag of saline. Rushing back to his crewie's side he handed the drugs bag over to her before looking at the awful jagged wound across the poor patient’s stomach.

It was definitely bite marks he thought to himself seeing the indentations surrounding the edges of the wound where the teeth had torn away at the soft flesh, but it wasn't just one or two it looked like at least a half dozen or more lacerations that covered the girl from right lumbar across her umbilicus and ended by her left iliac fossa. The worst area was around the belly button and she was leaking blood at a pace and with every beat of her heart. Andy shook himself mentally and stepped outside of his feelings briefly while he worked out what was needed. The copper was still pressing down on the worst area, Putters was looking for IV access to bash some fluid and Tranexamic acid into her ready for transfer.  

Taking out the bag of saline he ripped open the top and sloshed some of the fluid across the wound to give it some kind of clean without dislodging any clots that had formed, biting open the green foil pack of the dressing he got the WPC to push the pad of the dressing hard against the wound.  The male officer he instructed to lift the girl’s hips gently allowing him to run the bandage around her middle and back onto the clips of the dressing, pulling hard to form a firm pressure and allowing the female officer to step back.  Looking back quickly at her and her partner Andy nodded toward the truck “know how to get the trolley out on those things?”  The WPC looking clearly shaken, visibly pulled herself together, determined to help the stricken girl “I think we can work it out!” she stated flatly, running around to the back of the vehicle with the PC trailing behind her.

Andy turned back to his patient, the cops were smart and had worked on enough incidents that they could figure it out, trusting them to do their job he could get on with his.  Anna had already inserted a big bore cannula into the patient’s right arm and moved around to the other side as Andy drew up the TXA, a binding agent that helped clotting and prevented major blood loss in trauma. By the time it was drawn up, the other arm was sporting another orange cannula and Andy handed the syringe to his mentor before turning to the bag of fluid and running up a line to deliver the sodium chloride to restore blood pressure to the patient. What she really needed was blood and both medics knew that meant hospital or the HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Service) doctors.  Andy left Anna to connect the bag of fluid and keyed his radio, sending a request to speak to Ambulance Control, after a 30 second wait the radio began to beep.

“Control to 147 are you receiving?”

“147 to control, thank you. HEMS requested at this job, looks like major trauma, over”

“Control to 147, apologies HEMS are unavailable at this time, over”

“shit” Gobbo whispered under his breath, thankfully not keying the mic before he swore over the airways.

“147 to Control, yeah rog that, CCPs? over” CCPs were Critical Care Paramedics who were specifically trained to deal with major trauma and had a whole bag of tricks they could offer crews that would be really helpful to the guys when the shit had the fan.  Sadly, they were also a very finite resource….

“Control to 147, negative CCPs, they’re tied up in Ramsgate I’m afraid. Over.”

“shit” he swore again, this time forgetting to not key the mic and hearing his profanity emanate from the radio on his crew-mate's hip. “err apologies Control”

“no bother 147, understood. Be advised that QEQM is your only option as the roads are impassable at this time.”

“rog, thanks Control, out”

Looking over at Parker, who shrugged her shoulders as she turned back to the patient. “Guess we’re on our own boss” Andy quipped as the coppers returned with the trolley, a scoop stretcher balanced on the top.  “Help us with the lift?” he asked them reaching for the scoop [sorry for the really long piece of text but the coppers and medics didn’t activate so I used this opportunity to witter on…].

Shaun’s instincts were screaming at him to do something as he watched three ‘people’ coming toward him deceptively quickly considering their shuffling gait.  Beatrice turned to him and mouthed the word zombie to him and the word just felt right to him, clicking into that part of his brain that separated people into two camps – those who were safe and those who were a danger.  These three fell firmly into the danger section and he hefted the cricket bat just as the large Haitian lady powered her frying pan in the face of the first zombie and dropping it to the floor! Taking his cue from his companion he smashed the bat into the back of a teenaged zombie’s knees, reversing the blow he chopped the heavy willow into the back of its skull. Pure instinct controlled his movement as he ducked underneath the grasping hands of an elderly male, who’s false teeth rattled as it tried to clamp onto Shaun’s arm. With a powerful kick he drove the zombie away from him and into the range of Beatrice’s frying pan as it whistled through the air to crash on top of the infected man’s head, crumpling his pork pie hat and flattening his skull.

Shaun and Beatrice fight side by side

“Time to run champ” Beatrice called as she turned and started to jog away, which considering her bulk was actually quite quick.  Shaun looking around and saw a pair of coppers looking in his direction with shocked faces. He didn’t need to be told twice and he scampered after the lady who before today he hadn’t even known and now trusted with his life.

and leg it!

Sargent John Ellis looked across the road at the scene of the fight between a cricket bat wielding man with a woman armed with a frying pan against three unarmed civilians that looked like they had been trying to bite them! Ellis knew there was something wrong with the three civvies, their movement was unnatural and awkward and even when they had been clubbed to death by the other two they had not cried out in pain nor tried to retreat away from the threat.  The word zombie did not occur to Ellis who preferred not to watch horror films, but he did think drugs and lots of them.  Not a brave man and one who had wanted to stay in the nick doing paperwork instead of having to come out and deal with the aftermath of the disasters, he could not will his body to move and cross the road as fear poured cold water down his spine and froze him to the spot [failed brown pants (I may have got this wrong as I wasn’t sure whether cops had to take them or not?) so he couldn’t move].

Ellis’s partner was not so restricted, Constable Harry Smith was 3 months into his probationer period and loving every minute of his police career, that was up until now.  When Storm Daenerys hit, all of the enormity of the responsibility of the job had come into a very sharp focus.  Hundreds of dead with more injured and now citizens were running around attacking each other, the emergency services were cut off from the resources of the main land having to rely on what was stationed here on the newly found Island, which thanks to successive government cuts was a lot less than they would all want.  Now Harry was determined to live up to that responsibility and when he saw another one of those ‘weird looking’ people with their funny walks and the hungry looks on their faces, that determination was more than enough to overcome the sense of fear the weird guy instilled in the more experienced sarge. Drawing his ASP, Smith dashed across the road, calling out in his best, most authorative voice (which only slightly cracked at the end) to stay where he was and to stop moving.  When the creature and it certainly looked less human as he got closer, turned and headed straight toward him, he rocked back on his heels and swung the weighted baton in an instinctive arc that connected with the assailant’s head dropping it to the floor instantly.  Looking stricken at what he’d done, Smith dropped to his knees next to the guy and felt for a pulse, finding none he frantically looked over to Ellis pleading with him to do something.

Over by the ambulance Parker directed the coppers as they transferred the patient to the back of the vehicle.  Andy started to gather the scattered bits of kit that they would need to take with them when he saw a strange looking figure lurching over from across the junction. In an almost comic like double take, Andy realised that the civilian that was getting closer and closer wasn’t quite right, the movement, the outstretched arms and bared teeth, combined with the milky look to the creature’s eyes all added up to one thing and the years of watching, reading and playing fantasy and horror films, books and games came crashing through into the reality of the moment – ZOMBIE!!

in the gloom of the morning Gobbo spots the zombies

“what the fuck is this?” he shouted alerting the coppers and Parker to the situation.  The zombie came closer and was reaching out to the EMT when his brain snapped into gear, the infected’s hand closed around Andy’s forearm which was the catalyst for movement and caused him to almost lazily close his own hand over the zombie’s. Hours spent in the dojo repeating drill over and over left a muscle memory that was automatic and he found the levers he needed, turning the hand over and straightening the zombie’s elbow, snapping it as it was hyper-extended. The zombie stumbled passed Andy as he turned away from the creature’s momentum and used it to drive it to it’s knees.  Releasing the zombie he reached down to the ground for the spare oxygen cylinder that the crew had left in the middle of the road and swung it with all of his might into the zombie’s temple.

charged by a zed, Gobbo swung his O2 cylinder

and adds another bloodstain to the tarmac

Adrenaline coursing through his veins he looked down at the former human being, now turned creature that lay before him.  “What the fucking hell is going on here?” he whispered to himself.  Turning around he saw Parker looking at him in horror, the patient forgotten, suspended in the air on the tail lift of the ambulance. “Get the patient on the fucking truck right now!” he bellowed at his mentor. “We need to get the hell out of here!” Andy’s eyes grew wide as he saw more zombies closing in around the crew, appearing from behind hedges and alleyways and all heading toward them.  Parker seeing the folks gathering around and trusting her colleague slammed the trolley into the back of the truck as the coppers jumped down drawing their ASPs.

This believe it or not was only the first 5 turns or so, this is a really time intensive exercise for me so the next 5 turns might be some time so I'll have to leave you wondering what happens next for a little longer, not too long as I'm typing away but sorry...

hope you enjoy
dGG