Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Poetry: Broken Windows

There's a storefront just inside the city limits
With all of its windows busted out
In graffiti on the brick wall
It says,
"bREak glAss in case of aPocalypse"
I saw a boy get torn to shreds there
I saw a man leave his son to save his own life
I hate that man.
He writes to drown out his demons.
He cries himself to sleep.
I hate that man.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Poetry: Everyone Knows the Name Comes Last

In the hot summer
The smell of decayed flesh
Carries for miles
You can't smell it in the winter
Can't smell the death on your doorstep
But you can always hear it
Howling for your blood
Screaming for your gray matter
And after a while
Your shotgun looks different to you...
It looks like you could just
Fit the barrel in your mouth,
Trust me, it fits.
It's hard to write and keep Your trigger toe stea

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Poetry: Genesis

Who didn't see this coming?
Our line in the sand was crossed
So long ago that I don't remember it
God told us not to eat
But we did
And it tasted good
Like those fried foods that
Coat your arteries in plaque
In PLAGUE
He came to our house and said,
"Fuck you.
I've seen enough and so have you."
The tree was just the begining
Things got really bad
When we started eating each other.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Volume 1: All You Fucking Zombos

All You Fucking Zombos
by Scott Thurlow

At least they don’t shit. The thought I told myself [comforted? Though the situation wasn’t exactly comfortable. Still, two things: I wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t one of them.] about ten times a day, give or take. I wouldn’t want to imagine what it would be like if these fuckers could. Human excrement coming out of the tattered remains of human waste. Goddamn Zombos. And goddamn them for being such a rapidly ingrained part of what the rest of us call life now that a few of us around here have given in to using that as an actual nickname for them. Like they were some kind of fucking pet. There were certainly some kind of fucking something.

I scanned the horizon, what I could make out of it anyway. Off in distance at the edge, the watch towers rose above, those stationed there vigilant against the major roaming horde. I envied their isolated jobs. Smoke still drifted lazily across the far west side of the city. Huge gray clouds were sweeping the ground, they reminded me of the ones that came off the free-burning fires that went unchecked for weeks just after the real shit went down. Numerous other parts were more intact however. The businesses two blocks east I could see clearly through the fog of smoke were less ravaged. Most of the high pristine frosted glass windows remained unbroken. The bottom floors were of course, like probably every other establishment building, shattered beyond recognition, or had already been salvaged for scrap. Ah well, no more working in a cube, another vaguely comforting yet irrelevant insight for the day.

No zombos anywhere that I could see at first glance around the immediate area. Might as well go with the name for now I thought. Maybe I’d suggest a vote to start calling this place Zombotown. Zomboton. Welcome to it, assholes. Population: You’re Fucked. Nobody bothered to think up a new name in the meantime though and didn’t seem to care to remember the original. The ‘official city council’ had more pressing business to attend to, like keeping this shelled out shit hole running. Hell, maybe I’ll run for mayor. Always wanted to see what it was like to be a fucking politician. No sounds either, which usually meant things were going alright for the moment. And why I was drifting into some serious bullshit line of thinking. At least it was keeping me occupied. Fucking mayor, yeah right. Even after this, bureaucracy still clings to life in society. I supposed it was better than hearing a low rumbling trampling of pavement somewhere in the distance. Or that goddamn horking noise they seemed to enjoy making when they’ve found “food.” It pissed me off even more so, that it exactly resembled the noise a former moron co-worker of mine made while he cheerfully hacked up what sounded like part of his lung each and every morning. For a second I took legitimate comfort in the fact that in all likelihood that asshole was long dead now. I couldn’t even imagine him being competent enough to have survived far enough into the shit storm to become a zombo himself.

Flipping out the communal radio, I called up Jimbo [his name inevitably reminded me of the dreaded Zombo. Tough fucking luck for him henceforth] inside and reported that I had seen no sign of any stragglers that had managed to sneak past the normal defenses.. “Okay, you staying out there?” I had previously decided that I was definitely going to be by myself on this damn roof at least until just after sunset. Then maybe I’d be up to facing the rest of the lot inside. “Yeah, see ya in a while when I get in,” was all I replied instead and closed my phone up. It’d be an hour or so become it became dark enough to not see usefully, but I still had a half pack left and some matches I’d been hoarding.

I lit up a cig and watched the twirling wisps as they seemed to superimpose themselves over the larger ones sweeping through the city. Picture-fucking-perfect. This should be a postcard. Shit, I could use it to advertise for the city when I became mayor. I spit in disgust at such thoughts coming to me again and took another drag. At least they don’t shit, I thought, for what I counted to be the seventh time of the day. I glanced over at the rifle leaning nearby on the roof balcony. Seemed hard to remember that I didn’t really know how to use a gun until fairly recently. I mean I’d sure as shit always wanted to, but being a corporate drone doesn’t exactly afford a lot of fucking opportunity. Now though I could get off some decent shots with that fucker here and again. Climbing up the fucking corporate ladder indeed. I mean, I wasn’t kidding myself here, I’m not Corporal Badass A. Hardcore from Secret Whatever Corps. But I did learn how to reasonably use that thing since it all went so gloriously down the shitter. Give this motherfucker a promotion.

I had to admit it was some seriously fucked up and damn amusing shit, that we found ourselves in this current state of affairs. I mean whatever else you want to call it, we were pretty fucking lucky, compared to what in all likelihood the rest of the surrounding areas were suffering. Not long after the initial wave of the shit hitting the fan and splattering over all us remaining unwashed masses, the rest of us here had figured out the goddamn quarantines had actually done a decently adequate job of preventing total fucking devastation of everything. One more small fucking comfort in the wondrous list in my daily recounting. Plus at least they don’t shit. Eight. I was nearly finished my smoke and tossed it off the side of the balcony. One more seat at the fucking table.

I hopped back over the edge of the balcony and picked up my rifle. Just as I was no black ops military fucking operative, neither was this a high-powered semi-automatic sniper rifle. I’d picked it up at the market the instant I saw it for sale there, snatching it up before all the other assholes got to it before me. Buy. Sell. Now, now. Cost me most of the rest of my electronic shit, but by then I realized I’d had enough of my fucking ipod. I wasn’t really missing much in the new state of fucking affairs. Anyone in the real military would indeed deem this a certified piece of shit. I know this because one of the watch guys who actually was a former soldier told me so verbatim when I had asked him for some training. Nevertheless it fucking worked, with a little care and feeding, and I felt fucking better for having it since the day I acquired it. I was quite thankful that our previous capitalist and terrifically over-saturated convenience- driven consumer society had the balls (in all senses) to carry firearms at most random sporting goods stores. That was where this piece had been rescued (said the guy in the market at least, giving me some kind of fucking history lesson on its origins for reasons knows only to himself) in all its cheap faux oak wood glory and eventually found its way into my hands. Whatever it’s true origin was meant dick now, since from that day forth, it was fucking mine. If there was anything to be learned from history at this point I felt it was this: get yourself a fucking gun when you can. Besides the “city council” recommended/ “passed a proclamation” that everyone acquire whatever firearms they could in the immediate vicinity and round up what was left when resources fucking dictated. Yes, more topnotch post-civilization government on their part.

I was back to eyeing the cityscape again, this time looking out a little more south, and through the scope so as to ascertain a better view, and because I had to admit, doing so did make me feel a bit more kickass. I steered my sight towards where the latest mob of zombos had almost broken in through a weak spot along the main perimeter a few weeks ago. No stopping it now then, zombos as a term was here to fucking stay. I fired up another smoke while assessing the recent repairs to the shit pile that was being used as a serviceable stop-gap in the blockade just near the closest wall. No signs of any disturbance and I could also still pick out the “FUCK YOU” sign I had hastily made and set on top of the junk barricade after repairs had been made, my own personal touch. I decided that was fucking good enough indeed. Suck it all you zombos, I thought, wherever the hell you are right now, willing the message on my sign to flash right in front of their horking faces, even if the dumbshits could no longer comprehend what it meant.

I leaned back against the balcony, and was truly content at this particular moment, however fleeting it may be. Pulling out what I was resigned to admitting was going to be the day’s last cig, I was determined to fucking enjoy it thoroughly. To savor it on my accommodating rooftop, I began to assess the list I had been going over daily ever since this shit started. Taking stock of it like I once would have my fucking portfolios. So: Alive. Not a zombo. That dude from work is [probably, I of course was still just best-guessing at the dickhead’s ultimate fate, but it still seemed the most likely fucking scenario] dead. Got my fucking rifle.Had some stoags for tomorrow, that was a bonus for today, + 1 on the fucking list. And they don’t shit. Tenth and final time for today.

Deciding it was time that I might as well head back in, I scooped up my rifle and jumped back off the balcony onto the roof. No need to call anyone inside, I’d fucking be back there soon enough. And then I had to put up with whatever bullshit topics they had come up. Forced into participating, listening to them drone on about organizing whatever fucking neighborhood watch program was the du jour of the day/week/month/etc as handed down by the council. Maybe that’s what inspired all those fucking mayor delusions earlier. As much as I appreciated that we had a nice little Gilligan’s-fucking-Island of survival going on here, in the City of Zombos, it was so goddamn boring to have to put up with the logistics of keeping it running. I was better at home being on the roof for the most part, eye in the fucking sky and so on. I never much liked staff meetings, and that’s all these were, fucking progress reports. You’d think this shit would bring us all together, and I suppose in one sense it had. Fucking hooray for humanity so far. Then again we were the ones who got ourselves in this gigantic turd of a situation in the first place, so what does that tell you. But none of that changed the fact that nobody was ever going to agree on something completely. Thus, the aforementioned daily migraine inducing squawking session.

The light was going down as I stepped into the roof stairway and began tromping down to the floor that was our local area base. I knew that soon whatever makeshift spotlights and batman signals had been cobbled together throughout this section would be flipped on in the towers and whoever else was in charge and/or possession of them. I experienced another moment jealousy for the tower guards. Lucky bastards. Maybe they’d move me there someday, when somebody couldn’t do their job anymore or got tired of it. Though I didn’t see why anyone would, you’d have to be fucking retarded to want to leave a post like that. That was why they got all the better supplies for the most part. Corporate hierarchy rearing its fucking head again, but I quickly pressed on. Least I gave myself a nice a fucking raise in the form of my rifle.

Inside in they were already babbling away, I overheard someone saying something about the recent scavenger party sent out to the downtown section. Apparently they had found a fucking cache of intact booze along with whatever more directly useable supplies were in the couple of blocks they made it out to. That was fucking interesting. Perhaps I’d been mistaken about the usefulness of these little meetings. But then the talk turned to how to start diving up the duties of reporting and restocking supplies at the council headquarters, and I was reminded how much I fucking hated them all. However the booze thing was of definite fucking note, no doubt a decent amount of that shit would find its way to the market fast and if all went well, I’d have some of it to call my own next chance I got. It would go fast at that place no matter what, but this fucker Strizzy [I no longer cared if people gave me their real “before” names or the ones they’d made up for themselves after the zombos took up nearby residency] knew I’d want to hit that and would undoubtedly save some for me. Plus, he fucking owed me, so he’d better.
I did enjoy our little revamped/modified pseudo-feudal barter system. Paper money meant shit now that there was nothing to do with it, except wipe your ass I suppose. So much for all those benjamins. Trading for goods was more direct, another common sense action retroactively approved/mandated by the council. Fucking geniuses. At least they weren’t trying to cling to the old economy. What a fucking nightmare that would’ve been. Zombos and money managing. Guess they figured no one would put up with that shit, and for once they were fucking right.

As I pondered how much and of what kind alcohol I was going to end up acquiring, someone asked for my report from the roof. I always tried to give them the necessary information in as little words as fucking possible. Thus my reply, “barricade’s still there. No signs of the zombos fucking with it. Everything else seems fine too.” That seemed satisfactory to them. No one even gave some smartass comment about the zombo label, guess it was getting so ubiquitous nobody gave a fuck anymore. For the better I guess, soon it’d probably spread across the city. Goddamn, I should still take credit for it, but what good would that do. They promptly resumed planning their shit. Before I could be sucked into it though, I retreated back to my room to touch up my rifle and settle in to sleep. My room blocked out the sounds of the group and the night promised to be quiet, which was exactly what I fucking needed. Whatever choice of action they decided, I was fucking sure I’d be told about it soon enough. Tomorrow I’d go out and see if I could find some time to check the market and with that bastard Strizzy about the booze. That was priority number fucking one for now. I went to bed, my rifle reassuringly resting nearby.

I woke up the next day with the booze still on my mind. First though I had to make sure I wasn’t “volunteered” for whatever fucking scheme arose out of the last night’s session. I knew wasn’t scheduled to be on the roof and nobody had previously assigned me any random fucking tasks for the day. Downstairs in the meeting room the usual mill of people were standing around, preparing for whatever they had to do themselves for the day. I stopped keeping track of who did what for the most part if it didn’t concern me, but I eyed Jimbo and he nodded back, knowing that I would want the necessary information without all the bullshit, and he would provide it. Jimbo was one of the few people in our base I could actually tolerate, mostly cause he didn’t dick around either. He sidled over to me by the corner and grinned secretively, a dubious fucking sign at best. Thankfully, without the unnecessary pleasantries, he spit out the deal. “We’re supposed to assemble a scouting party to hit the farthest eastern part of the city. Council says supposedly there’s more usable salvage there than anywhere else. Most of the others who already went to the other parts over the last couple days are being told to stay put while the council and the engineers figure out what they want to build and how to do it. That’s the big news from last night. They’ve “asked” us to be part of the group that goes out. Last long distance scout for a while until they finish whatever they’re gonna be building. Anything extra that isn’t on their list of top priority materials is yours to keep.” I nodded back and was about to reply when he continued with, “I know you actually want this one, I saw the look on your face last night when you overheard about the liquor stash. If we get this done fast enough, you might have enough shit to trade for bottle or two. Assuming that weird guy that you claim owes you saves any.” It was my turn to grin lopsidedly. The fucker had me on that. As much as I resented being told what to do by our ad-hoc government, for once it afforded me to opportunity to further my own agenda as well. “When do we go?” I asked. Jimbo grinned back again and responded “Two hours. Give you a copy of the list of things the council wants most on the way over. I’ll come find you before we head out.” I nodded agreement again and that was fucking that. It was so much easier without all the whining middle-men.

Since I had the hours to kill, and no interest in gossiping with the rest, I decided I’d head back to my room and take stock of my current supplies to trade. The cigs were definitely a valuable commodity, packs were traded regularly down there, and as much as I was reluctant to part with them, I figured it was worth it if the goods received in return were of a high enough fucking quality. If I went down there and saw a case of fucking Beast in Strizzy’s stall, someone was going to get dickpunched for sure. While we may be living in the shitty remains of civilization, I don’t see why that meant I have to lower my standards when it came to drinking. Hopefully the team who had found it had decent taste as well. But if I could scrounge something worth trading on this little trip, I could perhaps enjoy both some quality drinks and my cigs, and live the high fucking life indeed.

Two hours later Jimbo and I and the rest of the team were eastward bound. The roads that led out to the east wall were more or less cleared away and stripped of anything immediately valuable. I kept my fucking eyes open though, never knew what you could find and who at the market would want it more than was reasonably expected. The council’s list itself included car interiors as some of the material they were looking for. I couldn’t figure out what the fuck they would be using it for, but at this point I didn’t care much. Whenever it was done we’d all know soon enough. I was more focused on finding other shit that was useful to trade. I carried my rife at the ready and followed the chosen path out to our destination.

We walked for a while in silence, thankfully, nobody tried to liven up our little journey with more meaningless drivel and I was intently checking each car we cut the interiors out of for anything else I could pocket. As we came up nearing the wall, I was again reminding myself that at least they don’t… “Shit,” Jimbo said. And before I could ask how the fuck he knew what I was thinking, I looked up and saw that he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking out over the wall, where the unmistakable sight of a large horde of advancing zombos accompanied by their eerie as fuck sing-songing to each other was displayed before us. It was a second later that the sirens started up, and the spotlights set up in this part of the city started coming on. Well goddamn, so much for that fucking booze, I thought, as I brought up my rifle.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Volume 1: Who Watches the Dead Men?

Who Watches the Dead Men?

by Steve Ormosi


Jonah looked out over the barrier at the charred and toppled buildings that used to be part of his city. It was hard to believe how fast everything had come tumbling down. It could be worse, he thought, I could be dead…or a howling lunatic by now. He gazed out on the ever-present throng of mindless bodies attached to vicious teeth and nails. He scanned through the crowd of used-to-be people. There were three today. Three people he knew from a lifetime ago. Two had gone to high school with him; one was a friend from work. All three wanted to eat his guts now. They looked hungry.


He tried to get his mind off of how depressing the whole situation was, but his watch seemed endless, sitting in this tower, alone, with a siren and a handgun. He found it funny that the siren up here would be significantly more useful than the gun if there was any kind of breach. A simple loud noise could save thousands of people if it came down to it, this handgun would only save one soul…not even his life, just his soul. He wouldn’t ever come back if he had anything to say about it. One shot to the temple and that would be that if they ever got through.


Jonah stared at the barricade. It encircled the whole encampment, which was close to the center of the city that had been, with a watch tower situated every mile or so around the interior’s circumference. The barrier was sturdy, about 15 feet high, made of concrete and curved slightly out so it couldn’t be climbed. The unfortunate people of the initial attacks had found out early that fences didn’t work; they’d be scaled within the day. Barbed wire didn’t do shit since they apparently felt no pain. Luckily, the zombies, or zeds, or Zack, or infected (for the scientists) or whatever you were calling them hadn’t figured out how to stack things to enable themselves to get over the wall…at least not yet. This was part of the reason The Watch tried to never kill zombies that were just outside the barrier, they didn’t want bodies piling up since they had no way of clearing the ground. There was a second wall about 40 feet behind the towers just in case the first one broke.


Jonah looked back towards the city, or what was left of it. It had been pared down to just less than 15 square miles and held over 100,000 people. He thought about the Herculean effort it had taken to erect a barrier around these 15 square miles with only a few months to prepare before the plague had hit. Every man woman and child that stayed behind had been put to work doing all they could and it still hadn’t really gotten done in time. The initial quarantines had been real bad. Lots of uninfected people were put in pens with the infected because they were suspected to have the virus. A lot of people left. In a way it was lucky that so many had fled the city after the first reports of outbreak and first wave of quarantines. They didn’t need so much land and could defend a smaller area. It helped that the zombies weren’t too smart; they were pretty easy to take out when the need arose.


They did retain good hunting instincts though, which, combined with their unquenchable desire for flesh, made them damn dangerous especially when they formed packs. Jonah sat on this tower all shift, every shift, thinking about these soulless bastards of man. He thought about ways to kill them, he made up back stories for the ones he saw, he prayed for the ones he knew. Sitting up here was probably going to drive him fucking batshit insane and he knew it, but he stayed. Loyalty to his remaining friends and fellow survivors spurred him on. He’d often catch himself thinking , “One day I’ll break,” over and over again. Then he’d think, “but not today.”


And then his shift was over. His relief called up from below and Jonah shimmied down the ladder, passed off the gun and gave some other poor fuck the chance to lose his mind for a while.


*********************************************


Going back to the city involved 2 doors and about 10-15 minutes of questioning from the guards at the second gate. These were the second rate citizens of The Watch. The ones who really only had to fight if the shit had properly hit the fan, and by then there probably wasn’t fuckall anyone could do anyway. You were required to give a testimony of anything unusual you’d seen before reentering the city limits. Jonah laughed to himself nearly every time they asked that, “No, sorry sergeant, nothing unusual, just about a million people doing their damndest to eat my fucking face off.” He’d found out early they didn’t really like responses like that. That’s why he kept giving them.


After that he had to strip down and be inspected for bites or broken skin of any kind. He’d heard that one guy had accidentally cut his hand while on a watch about a month ago and they quarantined him for a damn week, must’ve sucked for him, but Jonah understood the caution. Nobody wanted to have their dad or husband or neighbor waking up as a zombie one night and fucking life up for everybody.


Once he was through, Jonah headed home for some rest. He worked in four twelve hour shifts a week and had the next two days off. There would be plenty of time for fun and games after he caught some zees.


**************************************


Jonah woke up, as he often did, in a cold sweat. He shivered off the most recent nightmare, stepped into a pair of torn up jeans and went to the bar downstairs of his apartment.


Kelly was working the bar today, “Moonshine or beer, Jonah?” she asked.


“Beer Kel, and for the love of god, keep ‘em coming. I got a couple hundred brain cells want killing by the end of tonight.”


“You got it.”


The Watch always drank free, and Kelly was good for a conversation if you were in the mood. She slid the beer down the bar closely followed by an ashtray. They didn’t mind smoking in the bars so much as they used to before the downfall of man. Jonah lit up two and handed one to Kelly.


As he breathed in that first delicious drag he asked, “Slow tonight, eh?” Exhale.


“Yeah, there were a few in here earlier but nobody’s out and about. It’s a school night remember?”


Jonah grinned, “These kids must be pissed. The world ends and they still have to go to school.”


“Kids go to school because it keeps them out of their parents’ hair while they try to get electricity and running water working,” Kelly gestured at the sinks with her cig hand, “Sure would be nice if I could wash my dishes in those without having to walk a mile to fill up on water.”


Jonah finished his beer and had another in front of him before he put the glass down, he grinned and stubbed out his cigarette, “Quick aincha?”


“You’re my only customer, gotta keep you in drinks. And besides, I have to butter you up before I ask you to run down to the corner and pick me up some dinner.”


“Oh Jesus, alright, I think they just offed a cow, maybe they’ll have hamburgers. I’ll go after this beer. Grab me some plates.”


*****************************************


Jonah strolled through the entrance of the bazaar, plates tucked under his arm, and started off toward the food carts ignoring the shouts of, “Suck your cock for onna those plates,” and “BRAND NEW BATTERIES, NEVER BEEN USED! TWO FOR A HOT MEAL OR A WARM BED!” and “Equal rights for infected Americans!” on the way. God bless America. It was an uncertain prospect that he’d get anything especially good to eat in here, but you could always get something and that was much better than nothing. Turned out they didn’t have hamburger, but a pig had just died at the farm, so hot pork chops were on sale. The old world’s money was pretty much worthless these days but a hard day’s work still earned you some currency, he showed his official ID, just a piece of paper, but within the city limits it was like gold. He got two meals, pork chops and potatoes and started back to the bar.


As he walked back through the bazaar, he took in the insanity of it all. Even on school nights, this place bustled. There were people selling anything they could. Coffee was a big seller, working batteries too; they were becoming hard to come by. And as was always the case, humanity’s alleged oldest profession was doing quite well. Many of the vendors sold whores as well as whatever they could dredge out of their basements before they fled the zombies. A lot of them had been holding onto these knick-knacks, until they realized they needed to eat and they could barter this stuff for food.


Local government was often buying up electronic equipment on the cheap because they were usually the only ones with the expertise to make it work in some capacity or another. Full-on city wide electricity was probably still months away at the very least, so anyone who knew anything about electronics was working for the guys in charge (their power over the city was tenuous at best, but it was better than pure anarchy). All the scientists up in city hall were working on god knows what while The Watch sat in the trenches and witnessed the abominations clawing and biting and bloodying themselves against the wall. It was maddening, but it was the job. Jonah thought about all this as he walked.


********************************************


Back at Kelly’s the food had vanished and was replaced by shot glasses full of the only damn liquor you could find anymore. Good old-fashioned moon shine. It tasted like shit and Jonah hated it, but he couldn’t turn down the offer from Kelly.


“To the watch,” she said.


“To liver explosions and brain aneurisms,” Jonah countered.


“Here, here,” Kelly said before she gulped down her favorite gasoline flavored beverage.


Jonah sputtered after drinking his, “I need a beer and another cigarette. Quick, quick, lickity split. My eyeballs hurt after drinking that sludge,” he coughed and gulped the new beer Kelly had brought over to him.


“Oh, stop being such a pussy.”


“Kel, seriously, I think your moonshine would stop the hordes. Melt their skin off em, explode their heads. I think you might have saved humanity when you brewed that shit. “


“Then they’re pussies too,” she grinned, “Got plans for after this?”


“I got no other plans, why? You closing down soon?”


“Not soon, just trying to make conversation. Well I’m glad to have some company for a bit anyway,” Kelly slid another beer down to Jonah just as he was finishing the one in his hand, “That one’s on the house.”


“Great, thanks. You’re a real humanitarian.”


“Anymore Jonah, we all gotta be.”

Getting to Know the Good People of the City

Synopsis: Stories of an unnamed city several months after a zombie uprising. This city has survived to some degree by extensive quarantines and luck, along with the enterprising spirit of many of the inhabitants. The rest of the surrounding areas appear (at least at first) not to be as fortunate. Barriers encircling the city keep the hordes at bay...for now.

Rules for stories:

1) Try to keep any continuity going by reading other people's stories and not messing with stuff that they've written. If you use a part of the city, character, event, or anything else that someone else has used first, keep it in the continuum of the world we are creating. - Also, try not to use someone else's main characters from their stories as the main characters for yours, the can be ancillary, but we want fresh faces, not reused ones. - And try not to re-use your own main characters too much, you've got free reign over this but I want to cultivate a city atmosphere for this, which means there are a lot of personalities to choose from.

2) Recommended length for stories is 5-10 pages, but if you want to go shorter or longer feel free.

3) Do not do anything that would massively effect the city (i.e. blowing up a few city blocks, killing off a couple hundred people, letting zombies flood in somewhere) without asking everyone else first. I'm not saying this type of stuff can't happen, but if you want to do something big with the city we'll have a vote on it and if you get a majority to agree, you can go ahead.

4) Any questions just ask. And if you have any ideas for rules let me know, I can always edit this post to add or change things around.

A Little History

I'm gonna leave most of the history open, but for the sake of continuity, I'm going to have a couple details of the end of the world available:

1) This is an infection zombification, not voodoo or toxic sludge or any other such bullshit. It was spread by virus through bites or mucus membranes (tainted blood/spit/bodily fluids contacting open orifaces). This is most similar to 28 Days Later in this respect.

2) These are fast moving zombies. Slow moving zombies really only make sense as grave risers because they would be decomposing and their shit might fall apart. These are still living beings that contain the apparatus to run...so why wouldn't they?

3) The zombie horde must eat humans, it is the only food that they want and the only thing that can sustain them. They are not truly undead, this infection is closer to rabies, though much more violent, and seems as though it won't kill them as long as they can eat. Even though they don't seem human anymore, they still need to feed. As a corollary, it seems as though they don't excrete anything (needs more research).

4) These zombies have the same senses as humans. Thus they communicate through rudimentary sounds.

5) The virus cannot survive outside of a human body for more than a minute or two.

6) The city is almost constantly surrounded by zombies, though this sometimes thins out, presumably so they can hunt and feed.

7) The city's population is approximately 20% of what it was before the zombies. And the survivors have fallen back to a defensible position so there is much urban sprawl that used to be part of the city right outside of the barricades. Again, if anyone thinks of anything else, leave comments and if it sounds good I'll add it in here.