"The Dead Don't Swim"

"The Dead Don't Swim"

A tabletop style game
of survival
following the Zombie Plague.

CLOSED​

For more than 100 years, the Rand Family Summer Reunion had taken place on Goose Island in the middle of the Willamette River, midway between Corvallis and Salem. The get-together had been scheduled for the 3rd weekend of August to allow one last family event before the children returned to school and the adults dove into the harvest of the family's 2,000 acres of field crops, fruit trees, and nut groves.

The Rand Family patriarch, Robert, had suddenly moved this year's get-together to the middle of July, though, after what the Press had dubbed The Zombie Plague reached America's shores. The virus was like nothing humankind had ever imagined outside of some very bad Hollywood movies or television shows. The hemorrhagic fever-like disease ate through the human body, pushing it to the brink of death, before suddenly causing the victim to come back to full animation as an animalistic, cannibalistic flesh eating zombie.

For three days now, family members had been arriving from around town, around the state, and around the country to immediately use Robert's motor boat to cross from the farm to island. Goose Island was a football shaped island surrounded by 150 yards of river on each side. It included just under 8 acres of wild growing forest that surrounded a 2 acre, groomed park-like recreation area.

When the last of the expected arrived, there were exactly 100 people in all: 46 from the Rand bloodline and another 54 spouses and other guests. Between what the individuals and nuclear families brought with them and what a fore-thinking Robert had had delivered over the previous days by several big box stores, they had enough food to get through maybe six months with just a bit of rationing.

Robert was sure the Government and medical professionals would develop a vaccine by then and immunize the citizenry against contracting the virus that would soon be killing millions, then tens of millions of people every day.

Introducing Alice Rand

She looked back over her shoulder as she leaned against the deck railing and smiled with delight at the sight of her favorite uncle. She said with obvious joy, "I hoped you would make it."

They chatted for a bit about the craziness of what was happening out beyond the water surrounding Goose Island. A zombie plague? It was like something out of Hollywood, SyFy channel, or Netflix, not reality. But it was happening. She'd been listening to news broadcasts on her smart phone off and on all day. They claimed the virus causing the plague had reached all of the State's western counties by now.

"I guess we won't be going anywhere for a while," she said softly, again looking out up the river. "Will we be safe here? Can the virus get to us here? What if someone here already has it?"

There were about (exactly, it would turn out) 100 people here. What were the chances that none of them was infected? They talked about the dangers ahead. Taking a bit of a risk with the semi-suggestive nature of her words, Alice said, "As long as you are here with me, I feel safe."

Alice looked away to hide the blush that filled her face. She'd had a crush on her uncle for as long as she could remember. He was 12 years older than her and so ruggedly handsome. When he was working on the farm and it was hot, he would shed his shirt. He was muscular and fit with a chest of kinky curls. Alice fantasized about running her fingers through that mass of brown often. She did more that that to images of him. The first time she'd driven herself to orgasm with her fingers it had been to the fantasy of his head being between her thighs. It was far from the only time she'd masturbated to his face. It was far from the only sexual act he'd performed with her.

Killian Rand finished yet another task designed to make his family and the family's guests comfortable, then made his way to the island's largest structure. (OOC: Do we have a name and description for this yet?) He got a badly needed cup of coffee and snatched up one of the many sandwiches someone had made and laid out in a pyramid shape atop a metal platter.

As he looked about himself, he caught sight of one of his nieces out on the deck. Killian had always liked Alice. She was intelligent, level headed, and very cute to boot. He'd often thought it was such a shame that she was blood to him. Oh, and 10 years younger than her, too. Oh, and not his wife.

He made his way onto the deck and smiled to her as she said, "I hoped you would make it."

"Well, I'm never too far from the far, so..." he mused, telling Alice nothing she didn't already know about him. "We got just about everyone here who was expected. A couple of stragglers didn't make flights or trains. I don't know how Dad's going to deal with that. I mean, they say the virus is everywhere now. How's he going to let people come out to the island who might be infected?"

The dad he was talking about was the Patriarch of the Rand Family and, as such, the owner of the Rand Family Farm. Killian respected his father more than any other man he'd ever met before. Robert had dedicated his entire life to this farm and to his family. Killian had, too, of course, but unlike his father, if Killian felt that he and the others ever found it necessary to flee this place, he would in a heartbeat. He had a suspicion though that Robert might simply take a stand against the virus and die rather than evacuate.

"I guess we won't be going anywhere for a while," Alice said softly. "Will we be safe here? Can the virus get to us here? What if someone here already has it?"

"Well, I would take those one at a time, but they're all kinda related with one another aren't they?" Killian responded. "Yes, I believe we are safe here. I don't believe that anyone here is infected already. From all I heard, the virus isn't here in the valley yet, and everyone who came in from out of state came from areas that aren't yet on the infected map. At least, that's what I was hearing on PBS news while I was working."

He reached up and flashed the Bluetooth earbuds currently hanging around his neck. Killian was an avid Public Broadcasting Service follower. He listened to a dozen and a half daily and weekly programs regularly, as well as to a few of their radio programs. He was a Sustaining Contributor as well, with $50 coming out of his checking account each and every month.

"As long as you are here with me, I feel safe."

Killian looked to Alice at the unexpected wording of her statement of relief. She had immediate family here to help keep her safe, as well as her grandfather -- Killian's father, Robert -- and yet she seemed to have very conspicuously said that as long as Killian was here, she felt safe. He looked to her with a questioning expression but Alice quickly and somewhat conspicuously turned her face away. He realized that she was trying to hide a serious blush when the fair skin of her neck and shoulders turned more red than normal.

Killian had always known that his niece had a bit of a crush on him. He used to catch her looking at him when he was working hard without a shirt on; she often volunteered to help with farm projects on which Killian was part of the crew yet mysteriously often had no interest in the ones in which he wasn't participating.

He'd always written it off as a teenage girl's puppy love, until she reached her later teens and even her 20s and the attention she paid him hadn't waned. Killian had always found it flattering, of course. But when he found himself masturbating out in the barn one stormy night to the image of Alice grasping a corral gate and screaming out in ecstasy, Killian realized that he needed to watch the way he behaved around the decade younger beauty.

"Erin is in New York City," Killian told Alice when she asked about his wife's location. Without revealing that they were on a trial separation or that she was now sharing a bed with a coworker, Killian told Alice, "She was there for a conference. I suggested she find a place to hole up until this all blows over. It can't possibly last more than a couple of weeks."

Killian knew that probably wasn't true. He'd been listening to stories about the Zombie Plague for weeks now, months actually if you included the stories about overseas disease that began before the epidemic had been given a name. The story being passed around was meant to prevent panic.

But Killian had been part of preparing Goose Island. And he knew how much food, water, perishable supplies, building goods, and even weapons and ammunition his father had had shipped to the farm to be boated out to the island. His father was expecting them to be out here for months. And he was expecting trouble from others -- not family and not friends -- who would want to come here to get away from the dying world beyond the water.

"I have to get back to work, honey," Killian said as he turned Alice toward him and took her into his powerful arms for a tight hug. Using his pet name for her, he said, "You're going to be just alright, Ali Baba. You've got a hundred people her to keep you safe."

He laughed as he held her, knowing that they way he'd pulled her face into the crook of his chest and arm she could barely breath. It was something he'd done to her all her life, something that had begun after she was being a spoiled little brat on day and he wanted to remind her that she was a little girl and he was anything but! When he heard a strained muffled gasp for air and a muted laugh, Killian let her go and kissed her on the forehead.

"Go be a brat somewhere else," he joked giving Alice a playful push away from him. "Real men doing real work here."

"I am so happy to see so many familiar faces here today," Robert Rand called out, adding, "as well as so many new faces of those lucky enough to be here and who we feel lucky to have with us."

He was talking from about 8 feet above the crowd that had been called to assembly before the south facing balcony of what had long been known simply as the Lodge. It was a three story, 16 room log cabin situated atop a hillock looking down upon the rest of the Rand property. It had been built by Robert's great-grandfather's great-grandfather as the burgeoning family's new home.

Ironically while it now sat on an island in the middle of the Willamette River, it had actually been built on what they all now called the mainland. A major flood in 1923 had altered the course of the river, digging a new channel on the opposite side of the Lodge and isolating it from the vast majority of the Rand estate. Unable to secure permits -- or the funds -- to build a bridge across the river to connect the Lodge zone to the rest of the farm and ranch, the patriarch of the Rand Family of that era built a new, smaller house on the farm side of the river.

A subsequent flood in 1946 had caused the previous channel to gain flow once again, isolating the Lodge entirely onto what would come to be known as Goose Island. Modern flood controls programs -- aka dams -- built upstream in the 1960s had prevented any further major changes to the river's course. And the land had remained as it was with little change since.

"I want to take a moment … I want us to take a moment," Robert went on with a more solemn tone, "to think good thoughts for our family and friends who are not here with us today. Shall we?"

Looking left and right, he took the hands of two of his children, who themselves took the hands of other family members standing beside them. Throughout the crowd, the regulars to the reunions did the same with those standing near them. Robert wasn't a religious man, despite his ancestors having been dedicated, church going Methodists. But he believed in the human spirit, and he believed that the human spirit didn't survive and thrive on its own. Thus the joining of hands.

After a long moment of silence, Robert squeezed the hands in his meaningfully and those hands released their grip; the squeeze-release gesture continued through the crowd as Robert stepped closer to the balcony's railing and began his monologue of what all could expect in the days to come.

"Today, those of you who have not already checked in with Mary at the Lodge," he began, gesturing to his eldest daughter who had always handled the annual registration, "need to do so. We will find every one suitable quarters and make each of you comfortable. Some of you, the regulars, mostly family but also others who have attended the annual reunion regularly, will have access to your usual cabins--"

Beyond the gathering of people was a semicircle of 18 1 and 2 room cabins. Most were simple -- primitive, in fact -- and were typically shuttered up except for the week or two before, during, and shortly after the annual reunion. But some were used off and on during the year -- during fishing and duck hunting seasons, as well as over some family holidays -- and these were mostly assigned to Robert's children's families.

He continued, "--but I assure you that no matter who you are, I will endeavor to make each and every one comfortable, even if that means giving up my room here in the Lodge."

Robert gestured to one of his children, who stepped up and explained about how food, water, toilet paper, flashlights and batteries, and just about anything that would be needed had been securely stored away in the basement of the Lodge and would be distributed to one and all.

Robert gestured to Killian, who -- as the resident hunter and fisher extraordinaire -- talked a moment about how tomorrow he would be getting together those adults and children who liked to hunt or fish or simply wanted to learn to do so.

Others with important jobs spoke to the crowd, and after they were done Robert told one and all, "We are safe here on this island. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to fear what's happening out there in the world. Whether we are here a few days, a few weeks, or a few months, I assure you that so long as each and ever person does their part and remains calm and of good spirit, we will survive and thrive during this unusual time in our history."

He gestured to one last relative who stepped up to the balcony edge and called out loudly, "Dinner … is served!"

With excitement exploding throughout the crowd, most moved off to the left to find a place in line for the largest buffet line a Rand reunion had ever seen on Goose Island.

(OOC: TF and Alice, I had planned on presenting your first choices tonight, but I am exhausted and simply can't keep my eyes open any longer. If you wish, you can post more characters in the OOC.)