I do not, in any way, own the Dawn of the Dead franchise, or any other Zombie-related movie/television show/music/clothing company. I just really like Zombies.
Prologue: New Haven
"And then I found New Haven."
"Yeah, it's weird. The first time I catalogued someone they had just gotten out of the city, been held up in a shopping mall. It was a girl, can't remember the name, Margaret maybe? Said there was a group of people who had escaped, gotten onto a boat and sailed off. No telling what happened to them, but the important thing was that this girl had found us. We had just put up the fences, and here comes this deranged chick running at us like she was a goddamned Deader. Naturally a couple of guys, Gus and Fred I think, got scared and tried to shoot her down. Thank God she could still speak, or she never would've gotten past 'em. Anyways, we brought her in, checked her out-and this was after the Gregory scare mind you, couldn't take any chances-found everything OK; she was just messed up in the head. That's when I asked to catalogue her, y'know, for historic purposes. Our first survivor. Then the population was just, what, four hundred I think? Well four hundred and one, after her. We decided to make a business out of it, turned ourselves into a refugee camp of sorts. Anyways, I sat her down in Gus' Eat-In and catalogued her. She was kinda nervous about the camera, but got used to it. So did I. It was hard listening to her story at first; hadn't witnessed nearly one tenth of the stuff she had. But we got it down, and that's all that matters. When we got done, we gave her a place to stay. Food to eat…everything seemed fine. She killed herself the next day, found her hanging from the rafters in the Visitor's Center. We still have her catalogued, but I haven't mustered up the energy to watch it again.
New Haven, Wisconsin. Just outside of Milwaukee. Nestled in between the Milwaukee Mountains, the town remains untouched by the disaster of the outside world. Two years have passed since the Originator took a bite out of a laboratory assistant, and the dead came out of their graves.
"We call 'em Deaders, because they're deader than dead."
And then the whole country went. It spread like wildfire, and the United States of America became the United States of the Dead. And then the whole world went.
"A cure for it?"
The disease, coined the Flesh Virus, spread through bodily contact with the infected host. Any ingestion of blood or bodily fluids of an infected, or transmittance through saliva or physical contact, resulted in transference of the virus. The virus, in general, planted itself in the cerebrum of the host and took control of the basic functions that make humans "human". The virus would eat away at those functions, until the brain arrived at its lowest possible level, reverting it back to am animalistic behavior that reflected that of a rabid dog. The host would become enraged and hell-bent on eliminating, and consuming anything in its path. The virus wasn't specific to humans; soon dogs, cats, birds, any carbon-based life form became infected with the virus. Rumor had it that the Originator was of primate-origin.
"A bullet through the head's the only cure I know of."
The severing of the cerebrum from the spinal cord, or just any damaging of the brain (what's left of it) causes the infected to shut down any after-life functions. Any other attempts to destroy the infected, such as severing limbs, are futile.
"I once, I shit you not, saw just a head with the spine still attached rolling around in the Dead Zone. Scared the Hell outta me."
Designated "Dead Zones" were established in areas where the infected were extremely concentrated. The closest Dead Zone to New Haven happened to be the city of Milwaukee, which had turned into a Mecca of the undead. Anyone who wandered into these Dead Zones were usually bent on scavenging, or mislead by false assurance of safety within the city walls. Military agents, or what was left of them, continually monitored these zones, receiving orders from an unknown agency.
"We've had a few agents in town, passing through, usually on their way to Milwaukee or Chicago. You know they're still looking for a cure? Shit, when are they ever gonna give up?"
It's been two years. The world has been turned upside down, nations decimated, populations exterminated. A recent survey conducted by analysts in New York provided the number of living to be somewhere around two percent of the original population. And that number was shrinking drastically.
"I love this place. It's safe, and the people are good. What else could you ask for?"
Areas like New Haven have become "safe havens" for struggling survivors.
"Maybe no more Deaders, but that's pretty much it."
These are the chronicles of New Haven, collected by the residents (both alive and deceased) over the past two years, and beyond to the uncertain future.
"It's an assuring thing, y'know. Knowing that this place is here. Guess that's why so many survivors have showed up here. It's Hell out there, and haven in here. Catchy, huh?"