In the beginning, the virus spread fast. Faster than any virus they had ever seen. The process of the change seemed to only need a few hours to complete. It all baffled them.
At first, the world known scientists thought it was just the dead coming back. It had been shocking to see the live action video of it happening but nothing too hard to control. The dead were generally easy to control and quarantine. Soon, though, the CDC was announcing all morgue and monasteries be quarantined for the unforeseeable future. Any new dead body was immediately taken to be decontamination and put in holding for a 24 hour watch in its own separate area from the living.
It was some lowly, unknown group of college scientists that noticed the connection between the rising sick and the animated dead. The group happen to be doing research on an epidemic that was going on in a third world country at the time for their final exam.
Once again, the live feed of a whole third world city coming back from the dead baffled the CDC. It took the research and development department a month to discover the rising statistics in the sick, correlating statistics with the raising dead statistics. It was an almost perfect match once they ruled out the natural and common deaths. Very soon after the statistics hit public knowledge, every world leader was sending out their military to control and maintain society.
The virus spread was picking up by this time, though. Even with the mandatory issue of curfews, orders to stay clean and report any suspicious activities the people may notice, even off hand, the calls were numerous. The general public, being how they were, refused to listen it seemed. They rebelled in even the smallest of way. People just didn't believe, thinking of it as a joke. Most of the population still went about their day to day life ignoring the demands of the military and the CDC recommendations.
Two months into the supposed lock down, there wasn't a single countryside that could be found that wasn't over ran with the dead, code named Zombie, after the sci-fi versions of Zombie outbreaks. Once again, the seriousness of the situation shocked all those involved. At some point, as the last countryside city failed, the world leaders were banding together for what they were calling Wildfire Extermination. They systematically sent out orders to every known military base stating any such person diagnosed with the Wildfire Virus was to be eliminated immediately by however means possible. Black site camps were to operate under the oversight to capture and secure any with the virus with extreme cation.
It was the general public that figured out the kill method of what they had started to call Walkers. Some dick heads, which were really just fucking around, had posted the video of them doing it online, which immediately alerted the cyber watchers. Soon, the military were taking aim for the head of any Zombie trying to rise from the dead.
However, 48 days in, it was too late. Orders were sent out to retreat. At 50 days, two days after the orders were sent; governments were overwhelmed by the Wildfire Virus, sending the military, or what was left, into mass panic. They started lashing out in a desperate bid to save all the lives they could before they, too, were overwhelmed. Now, 52 days since operation Wildfire Extermination was put into effect, every government official was either under lock down, in what they considered safe, to continue their work (CDC), spread thin across the globe (military), or a Walker themselves (County leaders).
The world had fallen within 52 days of the first reported Wildfire Virus case.
The virus, perhaps done with its work, slowed down, taking its time, now. It had a method of transfer and plenty of time. Its victims were so numerous that it saturated the air. Every living person, within an overwhelmingly infected area, was practically breathing it in. All it had to do was wait. It didn't seem to mind the wait. After all, everyone would eventually join its ever accumulating victims.
Rick didn't really have a plan when he broached the subject about the Walkers in the barn. All he knew was he couldn't start with the facts; couldn't tell the man there wasn't anyone to save them. That hope had gone up in a big ball of blazing fire when the CDC went up in flames. Still, his people were unnerved with the idea of Walkers, of all things, were living within the same space as them, and he would really like to stay on this peaceful land Herchel had made his home on.
"Herchel," Rick called when he finally found the man tending to his horses in the field set aside.
The old man seemed to sigh, perhaps thinking Rick was there to pester him, again, into allowing his group to stay. "Yes, Rick," the man said, putting down the pal he was using to fill the horses water troughs posted to the fencing.
"My people seemed to have noticed you have a rather large group of Walkers in your barn," Rick started, trying to ease his way into the conversation as gently as he could, "we were wondering if you needed help clearing it out."
Herchel froze for a second before turning a glare to Rick. "What's in my barn is none of your concern," the man snapped in a harsh tone.
"Herchel, it is a concern. We are hoping to stay here." At Herchel's displeased look, Rick quickly amended his statement, "at least, until we found Sophia. And walkers in the barn make them nervous. I don't know how much longer I will be able to stop them from doing it themselves."
"Well, you don't have to stay here to look for the girl. I let you stay because I am sympathetic to the mother and concerned for the girl." This was a line Herchel found himself saying a lot to the other man. He was starting to feel like a broken record. "It would warm my old heart to see them reunited, but you can't stay here. Once you get the girl, you leave." Then he was adding, just because of the original topic Rick brought up, "Touch my barn and you leave immediately, girl or no girl."
"At least," Rick said, scratching the back of his head, "could you tell me why? Maybe if I had a reason to give them, they will leave the barn alone."
Herchel sighed. Clearly, Rick just didn't know how to leave it alone. The old man didn't want to talk about it. He turned to pat the horse that was walking up to the watering hole , absent-mindedly. "I was married when this whole thing went down…."
It was a long, sad story, Rick thought with passion. He could understand Herchel's view, could sympathize even. Perhaps this was his way of grieving for his lost love ones?
What Rick couldn't understand was how he was talked into helping the man wrangle the walker versions of the man's neighbors and friends. Shane, of course had a field day when he saw Rick leading a walker with a dog catcher's pole to the barn doors. They had gotten into, yet another, argument over it as the two from the Greene's Group took the pole attached to the walker and lead it to the barn.
"Look!" Rick was whisper shouting at Shane in frustration, "I can't very well tell them there isn't anyone working on a cure."
"It's a walker! We already know the person is dead," Shane was yelling at the top of his lungs, practically in Rick's face. Shane seemed to realize this and took a step back. After a moment, the man cleared his throat, and said in a more passive tone, "look, you saw the same video in the CDC as I did. We know for a fact that there is no cure because there isn't anything to cure."
"I know, but Herchel doesn't."
"Then tell him. Fuck, Rick."
"I can't tell him," Rick stated sadly as he glance over at Herchel pushing the captured Walker into the barn from a platform above the doors. "Herchel still has hope." Rick turned to Shane, who wore a displeased and disappointed face. "And we need all the hope we can get."
"Fuck hope!" Shane was shouting again. "That hope will get us killed!"
"What's going on?" Glen stage whispered to T-dog, who had been watching the argument longer then him, in the background.
"I'm not entirely sure since I can only hear Shane's portion of the argument," T-dog whispered back, even as Andrea, who was just got off watch duty and decided to check up on the barn, wondered over, "but, from what I can make out, Shane is upset at Rick for helping Herchel collect Walkers."
"Oh." Glen scrubbed qt his chin in thought as he watched the argument play out.
Next then they all knew, Shane was pulling his gun from its holster.
"Shane!" Rick shouted, grabbing the barrel of the gun and pulling it down. "Stop this!" the man demanded. Then, he sighed. "Look," he said a little gentler then before, when Shane looked at him with the up most discussed, "give me a week, maybe two, to talk some sense into the man."
Shane didn't bother to say anything; just let his expressions say it for him. Fuck you, Rick motherfucking Grimes.
"Just a week," Rick pleaded again to his partner, "Let me try and change his mind. After a week, if I still haven't succeeded then you will have your turn."
"Fine," Shane relented reluctantly, "but, after a week, one way or another, that barn is" he stressed the last word with a seriousness born from being a cop, "going to be cleared out." Then, he was holstering his gun and stalking off angrily.
"Oh?" Arron said as he walked up to Glen, T-dog, and Andrea, "I missed the show?"
"Yep," Andrea said, amusement dancing in her eyes when she looked at him.
"Well, damn."
Dear diary I don't have, Arron was mentally writing that night, because having a diary would mean I had paper,
Life in hell isn't so bad when you actually get to live it. Yeah, you got flesh eating Zombies and survivors trying to kill you at every turn, but that comes with every great adventure, I think. Actually living on the run is pretty thrilling in a way. Makes one appreciate the life they were given. The people around me probably would say otherwise. They're all so basic, though (well, not Daryl), that I don't really care what they think about our adventures. I'm having fun.
Funny, how society works… Humans seem to naturally crave danger, which is seen in the crime rates, but, at the same time, they want structure, which is seen in day to day living. When they are given a blank slate to work with, like, say, the world ending, humans seem to flounder around. It's almost like watching a child finger paint for the first time.
The group I'm following, watching from the sidelines, seem to be that way too. They don't really seem to know what they want, other than to survive. I don't really know if they will be able to make it at the current time. Everyone seems to be on different pages in the same survival book.
The main question they should be asking themselves is: are they living? It's one thing to survive, but it's a different thing to live. When the world goes to hell and everything seems to be lost, the definition of living becomes so much more important.