Midnight Truck

Location: An Overwatch Position 400 meters east of Solnichniy

Time: roughly 2300 hours

Conditions: Clear/full moon

Sometimes in this game you just get lucky, other times you get shafted and are dead right when you log in. And other times there are opportunities that you could have taken that would have benefited you greatly. This story is about all 3, and how they played out in one scenario.

The Midnight Truck

Overwatch or “camping” as its more commonly known can be boring, and in many people's eyes it is looked down on. But I am a sniper in a post-apocalyptic land, observation is all that separates me from the dead and infected. So there I am in my over watch position looking down upon Solnichniy. A very peaceful town at night, waves lightly breaking on the shore near by, the soft sound of leaves rustling in the distance... Perhaps it would be a place to consider retiring if the world wasn’t faced with flesh eating zeds. I’m listening more then watching. Keeping my ears open for the sound of gunshots that would alert me to the presence of a person down below. While keeping a constant scan of the area looking for general movement I spot a beam of light emerging from the tree line blow. Intrigued I zoom in with the scope of my CZ550 to see what appears to be a new player inspecting the factory with his flashlight.

He is standing perfectly still 300 meters away, I have the shot. But I hold off, I could waist a precious round on this poor newbie and then bask in the limited glory of killing a fresh spawn or I could see what the situation unfolds into. So I waited and I watch this guy with a hatchet and flashlight enter the factory. As he enters a few near by infected are alerted to his presence and follow him in. And just like the civilized infected that they are, they cue up and enter the factory at a modest pace, single file. The survivor's flash light is clearly visible from within the factory, and then all of a sudden the sound of shots echo from within. At first I think nothing of it, but then I realize, you cannot hold a weapon with your flashlight out..there is more then one person in the factory. The situation was beginning to unfold.

Shots ring loudly from down below and with every shot more infected seem to converge on the factory. The situation looks rather desperate as the bodies start visibly piling up at the doorways. And then I see it, 2 people emerge from the south side of the factory and immediately cut towards the main road. A stream of zombies following them as they change direction now running north along the road. From my position I see the weapon that the previously unidentified survivor was carrying. An M14, which would explain the unusually large amount of infected attracted to the factory with every shot. For those of you who don’t know, the M14 is a hybrid sniper/assault rifle. It has all the power and loudness of a rifle but boasts a faster fire rate and scope more suited for medium engagements.

As the two survivors pass over the bridge on the north end of town I, lose them in the crowd of infected. The only thing that lets me know they are still in the area is the constant sound of shots being fired. Scanning the cost line franticly, I'm having a hard time distinguishing infected targets and survivor targets. Suddenly 2 bright torch lights appear in the middle of the fray. There is a vehicle down there. The beams of light are coming from a pickup truck that was masked by the darkness just seconds before. Suddenly it all makes sense! They were looking for car parts in the factory, they parked out of town to minimize the attraction of infected. Not that maintaining a low profile was really working our for them at this point, but it seems that desperate times call for desperate measures. The truck began moving back and fourth trying to run over infected who had started mobbing the truck after it was turned on. 

Just then an idea popped into my head, If I can just incapacitate/kill one of there survivors, the other would have a hard time reasonably fighting all the infected and I could steal the truck. Or even if he managed to fight off the horde I could then pick him off at range or close quarters.

The my goal was to target the guy driving the truck, for 2 reasons. Mainly because I wanted to keep the truck there as long a possible. I set my sights on the driver's side window. My first shot sails though the air to a target 450 meters away. I score a direct hit on the window but the truck is still moving slowly. I had missed the driver. I fire again, this time I hit just below the window. The guy driving the truck jumps out and starts to run north. At the same time his buddy goes to the back of the truck to grab a new weapon. I size the target and fire again. I miss completely, sending the round clear over his head. Later I would learn that I was not zeroed properly causing me to miss my shots.

To this day I am not quite sure what caused the last part of this story, but after I sent the bullet over that guys head both survivors started spiriting north along the shore line leaving the truck near the bridge. Were they running because I was shooting them? Or was the truck disabled from infected/sniper rounds. I was over 450 meters away, it is possible they didn’t hear my gun fire although that is unlikely. But after they left I had a choice to make. Do I want to combat waves of infected to check out and possibly steal the truck? Or continue watch? Or just accept failure and leave? I chose abort the mission all together. As much as I wanted to check out the truck there were tons of infected in the area, there was no way I could make it down to the truck with out firing my weapon. Also where had the survivors gone? Surely they would not leave their vehicle for a lone sniper to take, and why would they run from it if it was still drivable? These questions lead me to believe that the truck was disabled and trying to investigate would be more risky then it was worth. So as much as I hated it, I had to leave the area.

My inability to eliminate a target kept me from possibly stealing a truck and all the goodies that could have been stashed in side. On the other hand had I just open fire on the player with the flashlight in the beginning, I would more then likely have killed him, but then this story would have never unfolded.

Perhaps with more practice the next time I encounter this situation, I will put my self in a position to reap the benefits.