Post by Basil on Sept 4, 2009 2:51:02 GMT -8
A gunshot cracked through the air outside, wrenching Nadya from the dreamless sleep she had fallen into last night.
She looked at the battered old alarm clock sitting on her bedside table...it was 9 am.
Another gunshot followed by a scream of pain came from outside. The fuel shortage and the riots it had caused seemed to have spiralled completely out of control during the night.
She got up and mechanically opened the fridge, taking note of the fact the small light inside the ugly cubic box didn't come on.
No electricity it seems...
There was no food in the fridge except for an apple, which she grabbed and quickly devoured.
Her tiny flat in the Algiers District never failed to bring her spirits down in the morning...it was so small and miserable.
The lack of food in her flat brought her old fear of starvation back...she had suffered from starvation before, and she didn't want to go through it again.
Searching for food would mean she would have to go outside into the dangerous streets of New Orleans, but braving looters was better than starving to death in her miserable rat hole of a flat.
She got dressed, putting a pair of old jeans, a pair of tough hiking boots and a leather motorcycle jacket. The thick leather would give some protection against stab injuries.
She picked up a small rucksack and put a couple of water bottles and a flashlight in it. Apart from that, there wasn't much she could take.
Before leaving the flat, she took an old World War 1 trench knife and it's sheath from a cupboard above her bed. The thing might be old, but it was strong enough to punch through a helmet, and it had a nasty-looking knuckle duster guard.
She left the building in which she lived, cautiously looking around the street outside for any sign of the gunner she had heard earlier. Three clearly dead people lay sprawled across the sidewalk nearby, and upon closer inspection it seemed they had been shot in the head.
Their bodies had been thouroughly looted already, so their pockets wielded no weapons or food.
Disapointed, Nadya headed in the general direction of the bridge that crossed from the Algiers District to the French Quarter, encountering several more dead people, one of whom had had his head bashed in with a brick.
While walking down Brooklyn Street she came across two gangs of people who were engaged in a spectacularly violent gunfight. One group had broken into a small diner on one side of the street while the other had taken cover in a clothes shop. Bullets flew, and both of the shop fronts were riddled with bullet holes.
Hiding behind a metal rubbish skip, Nadya observed the fight for a while. There was no way she would be getting through that.
As she observed the battle, a car screeched into view and hurtled down the street towards the looters and her. The driver seemed to have lost control of the vehicle, and the car swerved violently to the left, crashing into the diner in which one gang of looters had taken refuge.
Nadya left just as the looters hiding in the clothe's shop emerged and charged across the street waving guns and baseball bats.
This is as bad as St Petersburg in 2010!
After a while, she reached the road leading to the Pontchartrain bridge. It was clogged with abandoned cars. A dead old man lay sprawled face down near his car. Nadya went over to him and kicked his motionless body over. He had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest and his belongings had been stolen.
The road really was completely clogged with cars...they were jammed bumper to rear and side to side.
Nadya looked at the car graveyard.
"Трудный как консервированные сардины..."(Tight as tinned sardines), she said softly to herself, "looks like we're going to have to scramble over all that!"
She went over to the nearest car and climbed onto the roof. She then began to jump and scramble from car roof to car roof.
It was a dangerous situation. She was fully exposed to any trigger happy snipers nearby.
Luckily, nobody started shooting at her, and after a while she came to the bridge itself, where a road block (two humvees and some roadblock barriers) had been set up by the military.
She searched the vehicles and the surrounding area but found no weapons whatsoever. The soldiers had left and taken anything vaguely weapon-like...how conscientious.
Nadya did find some army rations though, which she stuffed into her rucksack before heading off down the bridge, which was entirely clear of traffic.
Plumes of black smoke rose from buildings on both sides of the canal bank, and the French Quarter seemed to have suffered a lot from fires.
She reached the end of the bridge, which was blocked by a police roadblock. A violent gunfight seemed to have taken place here, and a dead policeman lay behind his shot up police car.
Nadya searched his body in the hopes of finding some kind of firearm, and, unsurprisingly, found nothing.
"Даже в Аду Вы не можете найти это оружием..."(Even in Hell you can't find a gun it seems...)
Leaving the roadblock, she headed off into the French Quarter.
She looked at the battered old alarm clock sitting on her bedside table...it was 9 am.
Another gunshot followed by a scream of pain came from outside. The fuel shortage and the riots it had caused seemed to have spiralled completely out of control during the night.
She got up and mechanically opened the fridge, taking note of the fact the small light inside the ugly cubic box didn't come on.
No electricity it seems...
There was no food in the fridge except for an apple, which she grabbed and quickly devoured.
Her tiny flat in the Algiers District never failed to bring her spirits down in the morning...it was so small and miserable.
The lack of food in her flat brought her old fear of starvation back...she had suffered from starvation before, and she didn't want to go through it again.
Searching for food would mean she would have to go outside into the dangerous streets of New Orleans, but braving looters was better than starving to death in her miserable rat hole of a flat.
She got dressed, putting a pair of old jeans, a pair of tough hiking boots and a leather motorcycle jacket. The thick leather would give some protection against stab injuries.
She picked up a small rucksack and put a couple of water bottles and a flashlight in it. Apart from that, there wasn't much she could take.
Before leaving the flat, she took an old World War 1 trench knife and it's sheath from a cupboard above her bed. The thing might be old, but it was strong enough to punch through a helmet, and it had a nasty-looking knuckle duster guard.
She left the building in which she lived, cautiously looking around the street outside for any sign of the gunner she had heard earlier. Three clearly dead people lay sprawled across the sidewalk nearby, and upon closer inspection it seemed they had been shot in the head.
Their bodies had been thouroughly looted already, so their pockets wielded no weapons or food.
Disapointed, Nadya headed in the general direction of the bridge that crossed from the Algiers District to the French Quarter, encountering several more dead people, one of whom had had his head bashed in with a brick.
While walking down Brooklyn Street she came across two gangs of people who were engaged in a spectacularly violent gunfight. One group had broken into a small diner on one side of the street while the other had taken cover in a clothes shop. Bullets flew, and both of the shop fronts were riddled with bullet holes.
Hiding behind a metal rubbish skip, Nadya observed the fight for a while. There was no way she would be getting through that.
As she observed the battle, a car screeched into view and hurtled down the street towards the looters and her. The driver seemed to have lost control of the vehicle, and the car swerved violently to the left, crashing into the diner in which one gang of looters had taken refuge.
Nadya left just as the looters hiding in the clothe's shop emerged and charged across the street waving guns and baseball bats.
This is as bad as St Petersburg in 2010!
After a while, she reached the road leading to the Pontchartrain bridge. It was clogged with abandoned cars. A dead old man lay sprawled face down near his car. Nadya went over to him and kicked his motionless body over. He had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest and his belongings had been stolen.
The road really was completely clogged with cars...they were jammed bumper to rear and side to side.
Nadya looked at the car graveyard.
"Трудный как консервированные сардины..."(Tight as tinned sardines), she said softly to herself, "looks like we're going to have to scramble over all that!"
She went over to the nearest car and climbed onto the roof. She then began to jump and scramble from car roof to car roof.
It was a dangerous situation. She was fully exposed to any trigger happy snipers nearby.
Luckily, nobody started shooting at her, and after a while she came to the bridge itself, where a road block (two humvees and some roadblock barriers) had been set up by the military.
She searched the vehicles and the surrounding area but found no weapons whatsoever. The soldiers had left and taken anything vaguely weapon-like...how conscientious.
Nadya did find some army rations though, which she stuffed into her rucksack before heading off down the bridge, which was entirely clear of traffic.
Plumes of black smoke rose from buildings on both sides of the canal bank, and the French Quarter seemed to have suffered a lot from fires.
She reached the end of the bridge, which was blocked by a police roadblock. A violent gunfight seemed to have taken place here, and a dead policeman lay behind his shot up police car.
Nadya searched his body in the hopes of finding some kind of firearm, and, unsurprisingly, found nothing.
"Даже в Аду Вы не можете найти это оружием..."(Even in Hell you can't find a gun it seems...)
Leaving the roadblock, she headed off into the French Quarter.