Zombie Apocalypse

[Wensleydale]

*points at his addition*

[beejazz]

Okay, so our character list thus far runs:

First narrator (dead?)
Doc in the Cage (escaped)
Sam
Key
Third story narrator
Bill
Sarah

Also, someone got zombified in the Beth story (I think)... who now?

[DeeL]

[From the report of Key to the bunker council]

Yeah, I wanted you all here - no, I'm not getting all military on you, but I wanted this taped and witnessed six different ways.  Something happened in the city.  Something huge.

No, I'm not talking about my screwup.  I blew it, okay?  I got so used to dealing with husks, I forgot how it was with the fresh ones.  I parked the van behind a barb wire fence.  I wasn't thinking.  Here's what I've been repeating to myself all day - zombies don't feel pain.  They don't care about barb wire.  Husks can't climb for nothing, but the fresh ones go over concertina wire like they don't even miss the bits of flesh they leave behind.  Guess they don't.  

So anyway, I remembered just as they reached the fence, and peeled out of there just as they jumped it.  Nobody got bit, no harm no foul, okay?  That's not what this little get together is about.

This is bigger than me losing my head.  Way bigger.

It all started in the morning, with the paper.  I had gone off in my own van, down to the south side - only husks down there, so it's pretty safe.   I spiked a few of them, but it was boring work.  It was almost clear down there.  Once your down there, you can almost imagine that the world could be normal again.

Then a piece of paper blew up to me.  A piece of loose paper.  It's been six years, all the paper on the street has been eroded into dust.  This was new.  

I picked it up.  It was an announcement for the Pike school curriculum.  Here it is, no big deal, except that it's fresh.  Somewhere something got opened up, recently.  That's not much of a mystery, considering what happened next.

There was a chick.  Dressed like those packers, old clothes but well cared for.  She was walking down Lombard, I could only see her left side at first.  I said something, and she turned toward me, and most of her shirt was gone.  Didn't get me hot, though - most of her titty was gone too.

I hotfooted back to the van, and about half a second after I closed the door there was a big dent in it.  That girl zombie hit like a SCUD missile, you know - I spiked her, but by then the others had shown up.  At least two dozen.

Packers, for sure.  Looks like they came to town, scavenging, and opened up a pop-up or two.  Maybe they didn't realize they had been bitten - or maybe, even now, they didn't know what the bite would do, or figured it had worn off, you know?  Hardly matters.  They went down.  They turned.  And they were all over me.  Like in some old tv commercial, 'Revenants come a'runnin' for the great taste of fresh people!', you know?

I didn't have a gun, so I met up with Sam and the others.  Bill jumped into my van with guns and ammo, and we started to set up a parkway ambush, just like in the old days.  Took some arranging, and that's when I pulled my own bonehead play, parking back of the wire fence at the off-post store.

We got away.  Bill smacked me upside the head later, but it was all cool.  We led them to the overpass where Sam, Q, Steve, Sleepy and Nate had set up a firing line.  We had to make three passes, but Sam's a deadeye, and nobody else is a slouch.  We got all of them.  

And by the way, I want to put something on the record.  When we got back to the bunker, Bill's wife Abigail kicked my ass.  I don't hold it against her, even with the busted lip, but she knew before we even got back.  Somebody squealed on me.

Go ahead.  Get it over with, 'cause this is a real comedy here.  With my lip busted and Abby's bootprints on my nuts, guts and ass.  Laugh.  Go ahead and laugh.

Just get one thing straight.  Somebody owes me.  It wasn't Bill, even though he enjoyed watching me get my nuts cracked, 'cause he doesn't tell his wife anything.  It wasn't Sam, he doesn't tell anyone anything.  It wasn't Sleepy, he rode back with me and he didn't use my two-way.

That leaves Steve, Q and Nate.  One of those guys is a wide-mouth cocksucker who owes me.  I'm going to remember this shit.  Someday when Abigail is talking to me again, I'm gonna find out -

No, you know what?  One of those guys tattled, but the other two just sat there and listened, probably laughing their asses off.  All three of them owe me.  Cocksuckers.  I will collect.  I just want that on the record.

Anyway, we got most of the fresh ones, so it's really gonna stink on the parkway for a while.  Don't know if we got 'em all, though, so no more solitary scouting expeditions, for me or anybody else.  And by the way, I would love to know how the parkway was clear.  I mean, after years worth of those ambushes, we've left enough bodies out there to choke Godzilla, and the parkway is always clear.  Somebody is moving our roadkill off to the side of the road, and it isn't one of us.

Maybe I got a look at who it was.

It was really weird.  So weird that if Bill and Q hadn't seen it too, I'd wonder if I was dreaming.

It was on the way back.  We had stopped outside the city to take stock, and take a leak, and whatever, and we saw a husk.  About fifty yards away.  Ambling down the sidewalk, not missing any legs or arms which was a little weird for a husk, but it was skinny and brown and mummified, so there was no question.  

Then it saw us, and this is where it gets weird.

It turned and ran away from us.

Ask Bill.  Ask Q, if you can catch him before he starts on his next six-pack.  In six God damn years, I've never seen a zombie run away from live humans.  I've never heard of anyone who has.

Things might be changing again.  The rules, you know?  We gotta have another talk with the dead Doc.  Somebody find some - what the hell?

[Report ends as all hell breaks loose in the wake of Q, intoxicated, breaking security protocols in the captive revenants cell]

----------------------------------------------------------

Just thought I'd add a late observation of what would work to contain zombies, and what wouldn't.  Another absurdity in the movies - wherever barbed wire appears, it works to keep the zombies out.  Only one exception, in the remake of Dawn of the Dead, but little was made of that.  Am I the only one who realizes the implication?  In containing prisoners, in enforcing quarantine, in protecting bases and stockpiles, what does civilized man turn to to keep safe?  

Barbed wire.  And it works like a charm, as long as whatever you are containing fears pain.  If it doesn't, though, it's a whole new ball game.

Golem, I also  tried to incorporate your addition into the general course of events.  It wasn't perfect, I know, but all of this is subject to modification.  Would have done the same for you, beejazz, if I only understood your addition.  Perhaps later - I'm still waiting with bated breath for your next installment.

And yes, it is intended that the story of Beth serves as backstory for the zombie packers that encounter Key in the Southside.  Not that our protagonists will ever know the whole story.

As for the timid zombie, I might be changing the premises of the world of the Pale Event.  We'll see.  I'm still kind of letting it gel.

[beejazz]

Wow... nice. Hell, I think I might be ready for a follow-up. Also, I may have missed something, but packers?

As a side-note, I'm loving the lingo that's developing. Really making this feel like a fleshed-out setting.

[DeeL]

Packers, short for 'wolf-packers'.  Just a name the bunker people give for the less organized survivalists who live elsewhere.  And oh, Spikers are a new weapon, a pneumatic spike with a two yard reach, quieter and less ammo-intensive than a gun.  Compress air for about 15 minutes, and you have a capsule that will 'spike' about 30 zombie skulls.  And it works like a bayonette even when it's out of compressed air.

Not sure how to incorporate that stuff in narrative form, so there it is.

[beejazz]

Woah... spiker. Win and apples, DeeL, win and fucking apples.

Also, forgot to mention: Zombie runs away? Really curious.

[Wensleydale]

Cool.

Aha! So Q is the guy who got eaten... good good.

So, the next part...

[beejazz]

(Note: The dude who ate the zombie... his name is henceforth Edward)

"Jesus, I never thought I'd be staring at these bars from the inside," Edward muttered, "The least they could have done is move Q." It had been three days since the incedent. It had been decided shortly thereafter that it would be best for all parties if Ed was kept confined. So here he was now, alone under the flickering of the flourescent lights, confined in a cage... like an animal.

Q's body sat still in the corner, the flesh stripped from the bones. The right arm lay bent in an unnatural position across the chest. The left arm was on the other side of the room. "You speak nonsense," the body rasped, "you know you like the company."

"SHUT UP! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU! This isn't real! YOU aren't real... just leave me alone already."

"Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd like to deny what's been in you since the pale event... you'd like to believe it isn't real. Hell, you may even be convinced that what you were once was the real thing."

"Why do you say these things?"

"I haven't told you anything you didn't already know."

"You're drunk... you always were a drunkard."

______________________________________________________________

Sarah broke the silence,"You know we didn't have to cage him..."

"He's a danger to himself and others. Besides, he's a hell of alot safer than we are right now..." Sam checked the corner, signalled, moved forward.

"That's a bit of a fuss to be making over a lone zombie," Bill cut in, "and such an old zombie at that."

"Ffft! You want him to hear you?" Key rasped, "This is the Doc we're talking about. Took two of us down just to catch that one. He may be old," Key wiped his bleeding nose, "but he's tough. Like he aged himself brittle."

"And he's eaten."

Silence.

The signal.

Running.

[Wensleydale]

The feel is around again - a taste, almost, a scent, and yet neither. Me - John - is that really my name? Since the Time, I've forgotten - John. The voices speak to me, but I don't listen. Voices on the edge of hearing, almost - unhearable, and yet there. Hungry. Feed.

I look around. Some kind of metal - tubes? Guns - that's it. I'm beginning to lose it all. Clutch. Grip. Sanity. But I don't need guns, not anymore. Not when I have myself.

Something comes back to my memory - what was it? Ah - a door. The door, not just a door, THE door. The feel from beyond there is stronger - stronger. The slick film I left there when the Voices, the Hunger, overtook me - a line down it. Clawmarks, almost - my fingers had made.

They were there. One of them, the feel of him is strong, very strong - and familiar. The one who questioned me - the Once-Born. That's a nice term. Once-Born.

The hunger overta-

The door is still there, and still shut. I find another way. I climb back up into the ventilation shaft, crawl along. I can hear voices from beneath me - speaking of the 'Doc'. Where have I heard that before? They refer to me? I halt. I slow. They speak.

And then it overtakes me ag-

[DeeL]

Ooooh, spiffing. Yesterday I was in a bookstore when I became aware that Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide was merely the prequel to a serious novel entitled World War Z, a series of vignettes regarding ... well, a zombie apocalypse.  

As if that weren't enough, I read enough of it to see that it's pretty good.

Pissfuckit, can't I do anything original???

[SA]

Originality is defined relative to the individual.  Whether or not a similar idea existed already, so long as that idea did not inspire you your Zombie Apocalypse is as original as it needs to be.

Besides, most of us ain't never read no "World War Z".  The Zombie Survival Guide, on the other hand, is necessary reading for all:

After all, it could happen to you...

[beejazz]

Yeah... quite true.
'Sides, the zombie genre was done to death before WWZ ever came out... we're just gamers and we're here to have fun!

[Eladris]

Ooooh, spiffing. Yesterday I was in a bookstore when I became aware that Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide was merely the prequel to a serious novel entitled World War Z, a series of vignettes regarding ... well, a zombie apocalypse.  

As if that weren't enough, I read enough of it to see that it's pretty good.

Pissfuckit, can't I do anything original???

Ever heard of All Flesh Must Be Eaten?  It's a horror setting with heavy zombie influence published by Eden Studios.  Regardless of what-came-befores, this thread is great.  Zombies really do make everything better.

[beejazz]

BUMPAGE!
SUMMUDDY WRITE SUMMAT!

I got nuthin'.

[DeeL]

From the report of the sole surviving wolf-packer, who insists on calling herself Dirt:

Thanks for the grub.  And thanks for taking me in.  

This is what I saw.  I was the only one left.  The others were all turned.  Then I found a bus station, and ducked into the baggage part.  And I saw them.

They were all zombies, most of them were really old, but some of them had been my friends.  Fresh risen.

And there was another one.  It looked like an old zombie, but acted like a person.

It was in the bus part, and the zombies were kind of ambling around - but they weren't going far.  Like the person-zombie was where they wanted to be.  More and more of them showed up.

The person-zombie was working on one of the buses.  He started humming, then came out and went to a toolbox or something, then went into the bus again.  In and out.  In and out.  He started singing as he worked on it -

"Do you think that I know something you don't know?
If I promise you the answers, would you go?
Do you want my blood?  Do you want my tears?  What do you want?
What do you want from me?
Shall I sing until I can't sing anymore?  Play guitar 'til my fingers are raw?
You're so hard to please!  
What do you want from me???"

He had walked down into the crowd of other zombies, and then he killed one of them.  Casual.  He just turned and grabbed it's head and twisted, and it fell.  I had never seen one zombie kill another before.

The other zombies didn't seem to notice.  

Then he stood up on the ticket counter, and waved the screwdriver around like he was in front of a band.  He was singing at them, like he was trying to get them to listen -

"You can have anything you want.
Drift, you can dream, you can walk on water, anything you want.
You can own everything you see.
Sell your soul for complete control, is that really what you need?
You can lose yourself this night
Realize you have nothing to hide!  Turn and face the light!"

And then it gets really weird.

There was this one big window at the end of the room, where the sunlight was coming in.  And when he said face the light, all the zombies kind of turned toward it.  Like they could hear him, and kind of wanted to do what he said.

Then he came up behind one of them, and started stabbing it with the screwdriver.  Five times, just grabbed it and stabbed it under the ribs, five hits.  Vicious.  Then he just let it go and walked away, like he had made his point.  The zombie didn't seem to notice.

Then he stood back up on the counter and started preaching.  He had a normal sounding voice, not like what a husk would sound like.

"In the beginning!  Our Father created us!  And he promised us dominion, over all the Earth, and everything that dwelt therein, and everything that walked upon it!  Our Father promised us!  Our Father promised!  Our Father promised us dominion!  Dominion!  Dominion!"

Then he kind of looked up, not at the ceiling, not even at the sky, but like he was looking higher than the sky.  And he said something, to whatever was higher than the sky, he spat one word out like it was too bitter to keep in his mouth.

"Liar."

That's when I saw the panel, that led to the roof.  From the roof, I got to the building next door.  And just in time.

'Cause from up there, I could see the streets.  Full of zombies.  Husks.  A few fresher ones, but no dashers.  They were already there.

All of them headed for the bus station.