Zompocalyptia
Prologue
None of the people in this story are completely ficticious and are not real in any way, the names may exist but they do not have any relation to me as an individual.
Life used to be filled with happiness. Kids playing in the streets minding their own business. Women at the shops buying their groceries on their families' budgets. Business men pacing across streets to get to their meetings and debating about economic decisions. This used to be a life that we'd all remember, well those of us that are not Stenches.
It is a life of hell now. After the swine flu vaccine came and taking it, curing themselves from the epidemic. Over the course of five years the vaccinated people began dying from unexplained causes. The only reports were of the vaccinated people scratching their skin a couple days before they died. Shortly after the last person that had the vaccine died, a new virus arose. It was like a catalyst, his death causing the Stenches to rise from the graves and walk the streets as the undead.
He was patient X, the first Stench. It started, after being bitten, as a rash from him, but after the first infected person it evolved, from nausea and fainting with at least three to five days of being alive to going to the full blown virus, with half an hour to three hours remaining before turning Stench. It has been three years after the Zompocalypse first started, there are around three hundred thousand of non-Stenched people left in the world, and I'm one of them.
After settling down in a town just outside of the Los Angeles, away from Stenchtopia, the civil underground tunnels was the best way to travel around. No Stenches scurrying around looking for human flesh to feed on. It's a limited amount of people dying when they escape using the tunnels, and it's the best way for the tribes to commune between each other.
Home, was what I called this place, the walled base that people made around the underground tunnels for travel and was the best way to protect the people living in its boundaries, but knowing that other safe haven's could fall, could lead to our death. Yes the home where I live is called 'SafeHaven', other tribes that are around in the state of California are called the 'Locos', the 'Demon Dogs' and the 'Tribe Circus'. These are the tribes that connect around in the L.A area.
Going into the CBD (Central Business District) would be a Mecca for Stenches. On each street there would be hundreds, even thousands of them. Whether it was that they adapted to what lifestyles they had before becoming Stench or that they plan to trap us by the lure of what we would find comforting. The Stench population would remain in well populated areas and would hardly be seen out roaming in county like areas. SafeHaven has a few hundred Stenches, outside of our walls, that walk round the outskirts of town.
The guard posts would always kill the Stenches that came near the wall and also for the sheer fun of it. The time when they would mostly come, would be early in the night. The Stenches would be most vicious; it is like that they have heightened senses and are able to sense our blood. But at night they would always find some of our mercenaries transporting goods in the metro tunnels then at day time they would be clumsy and pass us in the streets above.
My life in this world was as the close adviser to the reigning commander of SafeHaven, Bill Moss. He was the one who made laws and our first SafeHaven right at the start of the Zompocalypse. He's been commander the whole time. Bill had called a meeting between the tribe leaders, Mitchell Goulburn of the Demon Dogs, Corey Priestman of the Locos and Jessie Alestin of the Tribe Circus. Trade, opinions, laws and communal changes were raised in the speeches in the meeting.
My story of the events that made me the ruler of SafeHaven starts with this meeting. We were out of SafeHaven in a secluded area; still we had assault rifles on us in case of Stenches coming and were a good thing too. The other advisers of the leaders had various weapons ranging from a 9mm pistol, 12mm sub machineguns and the typical M5 assault rifle which I had. With the weapons we had if the fence that surrounded us failed we would kill them before us getting turned Stench.
After a few hours into the meeting the Stenches started to come. We shot at them killing them all as they came. When we stopped shooting a bomb that was placed under the table where the leaders sat had exploded. As it blew up I was blown back rendering myself unconscious in the process.