Left 4 Dead: Sanctuary
Prologue: Sanctuary
Saturday 24th August 2030, New 'Sanctuary' Fairfield, Pennsylvania
Darnell 'Coach' Coleman
It's been twenty one years since the outbreak of 'Green Flu'. Much has changed since we got that rescue 'copter out of New Orleans. Where do I start with a story that spans the last two decades? I guess I'll start from where we left off. Here goes, sit back, have a few beers and a burger and listen to what a veteran of the 'Zombie Wars' has to say about his life as a carrier of the deadliest virus the world has ever seen.
As I sit here among family and friends, both old and new. Celebrating my sixty fifth birthday and my upcoming retirement as a high school football coach at the end of the year. Seeing my young family enjoying themselves despite our seemingly permanent and incurable condition and thanking god that I and my fellow survivors were able to make a life for ourselves despite the obvious hostility of the outside world. I can't think of a time when I've been happier.
It's a strange way in which god works. He brought us all together during a time of utter death and destruction. Completely shunned and hated by the outside world, we now make our home in what is thought to be 'Ground Zero' the place of origin for the spreading of the Green Flu. Some might think that New Fairfield, a place we refer to simply as 'Sanctuary' is nothing more than the largest prison camp on earth. But surprisingly once the military and CEDA finally won the battle to contain the virus and stop it spreading any further across the USA and the rest of the world, the government set about finding a solution to the problem of what to do with over half a million carriers of the Green Flu.
It took over three years to finally contain the virus. Three years of harsh conditions and martial law. Myself and my fellow survivors were subjected to three terrible years of what we considered imprisonment in a maximum security CEDA Containment Zone. We were among the first to be separated from the uninfected populace. Over the next three years, we would see thousands added to our numbers as the Containment Zones gradually grew and became more numerous, occupying much of Louisiana, much to the displeasure of the locals who were the first to call for our complete eradication.
There were of course rumours of the terrible atrocities committed against some groups of carriers as the Zombie Wars intensified and the carriers became more numerous. We heard reports of trigger happy army officers ordering the mass executions of hundreds of carriers, which inevitably led to unrest in the Containment Zones. All these were brutally put down and we were reminded that the easier course of action would simply be to slaughter every carrier and save themselves the trouble of what to do with us.
By the time the government had counted the cost of the Zombie Wars, over twenty million people were dead, and the estimated cost of rebuilding was thought to be in the region of one trillion dollars. Hundreds of billions of that money went towards what some considered the only solution to what to do with half a million carriers. A completely walled and contained city, separated from the rest of the USA by a massive barrier and the largest concentration of specialist military forces anywhere in the world. Work began immediately on constructing a city to house the unwanted masses, festering in the Containment Zones.
New Fairfield was the obvious choice for a city of carriers. Once it had been completely cleared of the Zombie Hordes, much of it was demolished and work began on creating a city to house our vast numbers. Much of the surrounding farmland and small towns and villages were swallowed up as new apartment blocks and industrial sites sprung up. Billions went on refurbishing those buildings that could be saved, such as Mercy Hospital, now a specialist hospital. It is supposedly the foremost authority on the Green Flu Virus outside the newly constructed vast underground CEDA Laboratories that sprung up during and after the crisis.
The city was fully walled off by 2014, and even though construction was continuing, the first carriers were assigned apartments and began populating the city in their tens of thousands. The authorities arranged jobs for every adult entering the city based on their previous experience. I luckily got a job teaching high school football, just like before the Flu. They were literally giving businesses away. For example Rochelle was given her own News Channel to run, Louis got his own IT company, Francis was given an old run down bar, now the most popular biker bar in the city, and so on. Amazingly it seemed to work.
The authorities had their work cut out of course. There were literally tens of thousands of orphaned children. Families willing to foster or adopt them were needed. But obviously only carriers were allowed in the city and there were very few intact families remaining. Most ended up in local authority run institutions. The real problem came when trying to find specific experts in their field of work. The government could only work with those carriers at its disposal. While there were plenty of people willing to take up and be trained for the more common jobs like police officers, firemen, paramedics, doctors and such. The roles of experts were initially hard to fill.
While all this was going on I met a beautiful young woman in the Containment Zone Camp by the name of Maria, a young African American girl twenty years my junior. We were married in 2011 and she gave birth to our first son Henry in twenty twelve. He was the first of six, three girls and three boys, all fine young kids I'm proud to call my own. By twenty fourteen we were moved from the Containment Zones to the city. I was one of the first inside. Not knowing what to expect I was at first extremely apprehensive. Afterall we had fought like hell to get out of this place. But even though it was still heavily under construction the city was starting to get back some of its old attraction. We were appointed a family house in a quiet neighbourhood in the suburbs. At our request, they housed our little group of survivors in the same neighbourhood along with a few others we had met in the camps.
The authorities set about ensuring we had all the vital services in place, such as police, hospitals, fire department and schools to begin with as well as the city authorities. While all this was going on the arguments in government and internationally raged on. Many were openly calling for our complete extermination. Luckily for us we seemed to have a number of powerful and influential voices speaking out in our favour.
What we didn't really realise at the time, at least not fully, was this was it, once inside we would never leave the city for the rest of our lives and no uninfected unless protected CEDA scientists or specialist military personnel would ever enter the city. For some it was too much to take and unrest inevitably swept the city, leading to rioting and looting not to mention the loss of life. This led to the deployment of the newly formed CEDA Military Task Force and the Summertime Massacre of twenty sixteen when more than six thousand rioters were gunned down by the military. Since then the city has maintained a standing police force of over ten thousand officers, many of them specialist riot control officers and special strike teams for the most deadly situations.
Many consider the city to be a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Some say it's just a matter of time before the next outbreak. Some point to the number of attempted breakouts by the city's more desperate residents, none of which have succeeded to date and all have led to the death of those trying to escape due to the military's shoot to kill order for anyone trying to leave the city without authority to do so.
The survivors of our little group are all married now, even Francis and Nick. All have young families. 'The next generation of survivors' we call them. All have been brought up with the possibility of another outbreak occurring at any time. They all learn how to shoot from the time they can hold a gun. The have all been brought up with survival in mind. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, we have to be prepared, and I'm not getting any younger. They have to be able to fend for themselves if it all goes to hell again.
The mystery surrounding the cause of the Green Flu continues. No one seems willing to tell the world how it started and what caused it. As yet a cure seems like an impossibility, at least that's what they tell us. But why wouldn't they cure us if they had the means to do so. This has caused the rumour mill to spout off numerous conspiracy theories about how we are just one giant pet project and they wouldn't want to do anything to disrupt the smooth running of the city.
As for the city itself and the people who call it home, things are pretty good, at least on the surface. The city is extremely prosperous with an unemployment rate of only one percent. We are pretty much self sufficient, the numerous factories that have been constructed here providing much of the resources we need. That's not to say things don't come in from outside, but over the years it seems the city is less reliant on the outside world.
Personally, on the downside, I still have horrific nightmares of that month we spent trying to reach New Orleans. It's simply impossible to forget. I lost count of the number of those walking corpses I sent back on their way to hell. I've killed more in a minute than most soldiers will kill during their entire careers. As far as I know some of the others suffer as well, though we all have our different ways of handling it. I can only pray that we never see times like those we witnessed again. Certainly every time there's an outbreak of a virus around the world, the Green Flu raises its ugly head once again, at least the mention of it is always raised and the threat to civilization that our city poses.
It looks like they are calling for the host, that would be me, to make a speech, before Ellis charms them all with one of his famous stories. For now I'll leave the past behind and move the story forward to today. They're waiting for me, so I'll put this voice recorder down and join the party. From here the story will tell itself. Stay with us for awhile longer and see what the future holds for the survivors and their families, I'm certain it will be a tale told down the generations of future survivors.