A fuckup.
That's what this whole situation is.
One, colossal, fuckup.
Chapter 1: Outbreak.
Gallatin, TN, August 28th, 1300 hours.
"Watch the fucking road!"
A pair of Humvees swerved as they bobbed and weaved between crowds of walking corpses. Hundreds were slowly but surely marching towards the sound of gunfire.
"Jesus fuck!"
The vehicle swerved once again as more and more undead poured out of seemingly every alleyway, corner store, and office building.
The front passenger of the vehicle flinched as one was clipped by the Humvee. Its head smashed into the hood as black blood and viscera splattered across the windshield, staining the forest camouflage paint job.
"Shit, shit, shit!" The driver cursed, whipping the wheel back and forth as a makeshift camp slowly came into view.
"Get ready to hit the ground running, you grab whatever they'll give you and get your asses back in the jeeps!" A stern-faced soldier yelled, a staff sergeant's insignia on his chest.
"What did the Luey say?!" Another, less confident soldier asked.
"Lieutenants gone, it's just us now." The Sergeant replied.
The soldier's eyes widened slightly, his mouth opened briefly, but was quickly silenced by the Sergeant's glare.
"We're going to get the fuck out of this town and regroup a few clicks north, rest of the company is doing the sa-"
"LOOK OUT!"
The Humvee violently jerked as the front right wheel popped. Its passengers were thrown to the left as it overturned.
The world went silent for a few moments.
2 hours earlier…
The road was strangely quiet.
The roar of engines was an anomaly on the quaint countryside roads. A full company of national guardsmen thundered down the road. Gallatin was a mere 15 miles away. The trip from the rendezvous point in Hendersonville had been uneventful, no sign of whatever disease this is had been reported.
A camouflaged Humvee led the convoy, its passengers quietly observing the passing scenery. A longer line of cargo trucks, water tankers, and other humvees trailed behind it, all filled with food, ammunition, and medical supplies.
"So this shit is real?" One of its passengers asks, breaking the silence.
"What shit?" Another replied.
"Everything, the flu shit or whatever going around, people going fucking crazy?"
"Sounds more like rabies to me…"
"I've seen Rabies Mick, this isn't it."
Mick exhaled through his nose; nobody knew what was going on. Not even the Lieutenant seemingly. Some sort of information blackout went into effect as soon as he had been activated, just a few short days ago the call had seemingly come out of nowhere. As soon as reports of some sort of new sickness began circulating the mainstream, they were activated almost immediately. Practically the entire Tennessee National Guard was being mobilized to enact a statewide quarantine, other states are likely to follow soon.
Other units had been parceled out to the rest of the state, with the largest formations being deployed to Memphis and Nashville. Rural towns were only to receive a fraction of support in comparison, with the guard mostly being deployed to assist local authorities.
"Well, if they don't let me call my sister, they're going to have a real fucking problem." The first soldier to speak replied.
"Dawes you've been whining the whole trip, chill the fuck out man." The topside gunner barked. Hendriks was normally the quiet one, his lanky frame easily slipping away from crowds and social encounters, the only one to have any real closeness with him was Dawes. The recent information blackout and sudden activation had him unusually talkative. The outburst earned a dirty look from Dawes, but he held his tounge.
Dawes was a worrier, Mick knew that very well, but he was also stubborn as hell. He and Mick met back in basic, he knew him pretty well by now, well enough to know that he was more frightened than angry. Dawes was a little shorter than Mick but built like a bulldog compared to Mick's leaner frame, being slightly more tan as well.
"Look, this is probably just another scare, like AIDS or some shit, what could a virus really do, we've been getting vaccines shoved in us for years." The driver said, scanning the road ahead.
"So why can't we call anyone, Hernandez?" Dawes retorted.
Hernández paused; his eyes locked on the road. He hadn't bothered shaving his short black beard, given the short notice of the activation.
Dawes went to speak again, only to be cut off by the crackle of a radio. The familiar rasp of Lieutenant Wilkins soon followed.
"Viper lead to Viper 3-1, detour off the bypass coming up on 87, our route has changed."
"Wilco Viper lead."
The trip to Gallatin had already taken several hours, they were all eager to escape the confines of their vehicles.
"Keep an eye out, boys. If you see anyone on the side of the road, you say something." Sergeant Callahan ordered. He was a stocky, well-built man with a stern gaze, most likely of mixed descent, though he refused to elaborate on his origins. Callahan was the only one of their number to have seen actual combat, having transferred from the Regular Army a few years prior. His no-nonsense attitude towards discipline made him both respected and feared among them.
Mick fidgeted with his rifle. Their mission was still somewhat confusing. Their only orders, as per Operation: Cobalt, were to set up a forward base in Gallatin, presumably in order to start handing out some sort of vaccine or aid. Last he heard, FEMA already had some sort of camp set up. Most other cities in middle Tennessee were in the same boat, if the few reports they're allowed to see are to be believed. Most thought the west coast would be the best bet for any sort of quarantine. He wondered how it was doing now.
Privately, he dreaded dealing with feds.
Present...
"O-Oh…oh f-fuck…"
Mick groaned as the shock of impact slowly subsided. His helmet had absorbed most of the blow, thankfully, but he was still disoriented by the suddenness of the crash.
He fumbled; his hands were shaky as he clumsily attempted to press the release. A second pair of hands quickly did it for him.
"Let's go! Halverson, come on!"
Callahan's voice echoed throughout the overturned Humvee. Mick's training and raw instinct overpowered his disoriented mind as he quickly pulled himself out of the crashed vehicle.
The surrounding town was a living nightmare. Overturned vehicles and small fires raged as a mass of shuffling bodies slowly made their way towards the group. Those...things were approaching from almost every direction; the second vehicle was nowhere to be seen.
"Go! Go! Hernández, come on!"
Mick turned to Callahan, helping him pull a bleeding Hernandez from the Humvee, blood streamed down his face.
"I'm fine! I'm fine I'm fine!" He coughed.
"Bull-fuckin shit let's go!"
Dawes had already clawed his way out, his eyes frantically darting between the masses of walking corpses.
"We need to go!" He yelled.
Hernández stumbled as Callahan pulled him along, the group hastily attempting to continue down the path.
"Those fucks left us!?" Dawes screamed, looking for the second Humvee.
"Shut up and move!" Callahan yelled.
"Fuck, Hendriks let's go!"
The corpses were closer now, their growls turning into a low, steady hum.
"Get back! Get the fuck back!" Dawes screamed, waving his M4 back and forth.
Hendriks had just managed to pull himself out of the gunner's perch, slipping out of his harness with a grunt as he began to stand. He barely made it to his knees when one of them grabbed him. He screamed as it swiftly jerked his head back and bit deeply into his neck, bright red blood staining his vest as the rotten teeth dug into his skin. He floored the corpse with a brutal elbow to its jaw, but two more quickly replaced it. His intensified screams turned into a strained gurgle as his neck was completely torn open.
"NOOOO!"
Dawes hesitated for only a moment before firing a burst at the first corpse; it jerked as two rounds tore into its shoulder.
His eyes somehow got wider when it kept chewing. He was quickly yanked away by Mick, his eyes not leaving the sight of Hendrik's struggling form.
"Through here!" Callahan yelled as he pointed at a seemingly clear alleyway, Hernandez latched onto him as he stumbled.
The group raced across the road, corpses closing in on all sides. Dawes yelled as he fired off several more bursts, dropping one of the corpses with a clean shot through its head.
"C'mon!" Mick yelled, yanking him along as the group ran into the alleyway.
"Fuck me, FUCK. ME." Dawes screamed, taking point ahead of Callahan as he hauled Hernandez.
The alley opened up onto another street after a hundred yards. Corpses staggered and growled here as well, though their numbers were few compared to the previous ones.
"Right! The camp's this way!: The Sergeant yelled, a knife in his free hand.
The group hugged the right side of the row of shops and corner stores, constantly glancing at the shambling figures that just took notice of their presence.
Dawes quickly dispatched another one as it exited a quaint department store ahead of them, brain and blood matter staining the asphalt as it fell.
"Shoot these fuckers in the head!" He ordered, growling as he scanned for more ahead.
"Fuck…fuuuuuuck." Mick groaned, keeping his rifle raised.
Chaos was the only applicable word one could use to describe the town. Store fronts were smashed, bodies littered the streets, at least the ones that weren't walking. Overturned and abandoned cars clogged the streets. The distant cracking of gunfire became a lot less distant as they hurried along the road, the street eventually opening up into a large town center. A makeshift encampment was present at the other end. Dozens of bodies littered the ground in front of it, the once pristine streets now caked with gore. A handful still shambled towards the noise, quickly dispatched by quick shots to the head.
A figure waved at them from behind a row of sandbags and makeshift junk formed into a perimeter wall, and several more pops echoed across the area as the group hurried along.
"Mick, stay tight!" Dawes yelled, cutting through a second shambler with another burst from his rifle.
"Hey, hey! Stay with me, brother. I see it, I see the camp!" Callahan yelled, shaking Hernandez as he dragged him towards the barricade.
"Go! Go! Get in here!" A faint voice yelled as they were herded in, a handful of rifle shots echoing once more across the bloody square. A pair of soldiers grabbed Hernandez, holding him by his shoulders as they dragged him deeper into the encampment.
"You three on the fucking perimeter!" Another sergeant yelled, his eyes frantically darting back and forth.
Mick gasped as he turned around, his eyes widening as, for the first time, he saw the true scale of what they were dealing with.
Hundreds of shambling corpses clogged the streets. A wiggling mass of stumbling bodies and rotted, snapping figures stumbled down the two roads that lead to the encampment. Their growls echoed off the buildings that lined the twin roads, leading to the town square. They all moved with purpose, growling as their jaws snapped. A handful of shots rang out as the few shamblers ahead of the main group were picked off one by one. The camp behind him was a flurry of activity, men hurriedly loading as much as possible onto cargo trucks and into Humvees, voices called out every second, attempting to organize the evacuation.
Not a single FEMA uniform was in sight.
"Hostiles moving on the right road!" An unknown voice called out.
Mick grunted, shifting his stance. A dozen of those things were pouring out from the western entrance to the square.
"LIGHT THOSE FUCKERS UP!" A hoarse voice called, laced with pure vitriol.
Mike brought one into his sights, exhaling slowly as he squeezed the trigger.
The round sliced through the head of what used to be a firefighter. The thing went limp as it fell to the asphalt, its friends soon joining it as gunshots rang throughout the square. Mick acted on instinct, falling in with the other guardsmen as they picked off the few shamblers ahead of the main pack. The growls of the distant herd grew louder and louder. Dawes' trademark yell could be heard, even in this chaos. Their bullets found their targets, but more and more shamblers continued to march forwards, a handful having reached the barricades before being cut down shortly after.
One guardsman, a burly, corn-fed redhead named Blaine had even dispatched one with his knife, stabbing it through its rotting skull before kicking it back over the barricade.
Mick's mind was racing.
What do we do...what do we do?
"I'm black!" One soldier yelled, franticly patting himself in search of more ammo. The men at the barricades had already been fighting for several hours, draining the relatively sparse stocks of ammunition carried into town by the convoy.
Mick noticed one man seemingly desert, his initial look of hesitance replaced with overwhelming fear as he leapt over the barricade, running out of the camp towards one of the many alleyways of the town center. Nobody else seemed to notice or care.
A small crash could be heard behind them as men frantically began scavenging FEMA and Military crates for supplies. The distinctive rattle of a SAW could be heard as several shamblers were thrown to the ground by machine gun fire. The other guardsmen frantically checked their rapidly diminishing ammunition. A sea of undead moved through Gallatin's once pristine streets. Snapping, growling, and hissing. They weren't stopping, forming a sea of grey skin and tattered remains of clothing.
A sea that marched towards them.