Chapter 1 - The City

"OK, I think the next closest in proximity are my family. There will be three - My wife, Lisa, my teenage daughter, Sarah and my son Gavin, who's 11.We have a Jeep, it can hold 5 and gear or 7 and no gear Kel says as he loads the goods in the car.

Howard takes Annette's hand and grips it, tightly, to reassure himself that she is there. Andrew's vanishing from right under their noses - disappearing without a trace - that right there is some weird Star Trek jazz, and if he can get vaporized, who's to say that any of them might not be next?

"Okay...okay...so your family next, then. We'll figure out where to go after we get all the families..." The fact that they can't go to Andrew's cabin without Andrew is unspoken, but obvious. One step at a time... "Who's...who's going to ride with us?"

"Well, we still have Andrew's car, my car, and Jacob's. Should we try and get on the highway, or do you know a quieter way, Kel?", John asks. Loading gear into the back of his car and Jacob's.

"I assume the highway is totally fucked. We need to take side streets. Opdyke to Lapeer road..."

Realizing that the group has three cars among them Jacob starts to feel bad for turning the family away. Any guilt that he may have had quickly disappears when John starts loading in supplies. "We're going to need to transport everything we need at this point."

Opening the driver's side door, he yells to the others, "Whose with me? We should get moving!"

"I'm with John" Kel says as he loads the last of the gear.

...yes. It's not like Andrew wandered away - Howard has convinced himself of that - Andrew vanished. Completely and utterly, without trace, from one moment to the next. Abducted by aliens, teleported to a starship, transported in time...at the moment, none of those sound too outlandish. Howard does wait a moment, pausing before he starts the engine. Then he rolls down the window and says self-consciously but in a loud voice:
"Andrew, if you turned invisible, get in the car now. I'll give you 30 seconds, and then we're leaving!"
He looks over at Annette, embarrassed, and shrugs. He waits about 15 seconds, then starts the car, then waits a while longer, tapping his hand on the steering wheel, feeling more and more foolish. Then he adjusts the rearview mirror to look in the back seat. "Andrew, if you're back there already, I swear, I'm gonna..."

The time's up. Howard leans out the window: "Okay, John, I'll follow you!"

John starts to drive off towards the direction Kel described. A few turns and they find their way out of the city and heading into the suburban back streets that lie outside the city.

GM. A few things are about to go down. I'm going to restructure the forum a bit so we can have a chapter break here. Moving away from the city to the suburbs. Since leveling in this system is more an "at end of session update characters" we can take this opportunity to heal stress on characters if you would like, and upgrade our characters. I'll post how to do that in the character creation area after I update the forums. :)

Good work surviving so far everyone. :) Well, except Tim. He bit it pretty bad.