zombie back u[

***different story***



  No one knows where it began, or how it started. Countries have accused each other of biological war fare, creating a virus, modifying a fungi, toxic algae, something exposed from the arctic and permafrost melting, and so on; the experts never figured out what it was that started it all, and barely any idea how it spread; there was panic as no one even knows how it spread initially so undetected as to appear almost simultaniously in over forty countries. Too quick to have originated in one and spread to the others, hence the accusations of biological warfare. The CDC and other health organizations tried to downplay it to avoid panic, if anything that only made people ignorant and complacent; so you had panic on one side with people buying up canned foods, fire arms, building supplies, and health needs. On the other were people so out of touch with reality they called it a hoax, spread false information through social media, and other counter productive things as if public opinion could change reality.
   We all knew what is was, zombies. Even if the experts and politicians kept calling it different things as they made "discoveries", but it kept changing. One moment they said an algae exposed from permafrost melting and fracking was infecting people; the next it was a weird fungus brought to the surface through oil drilling in the middle east; or some other fungus from Asia, or some other thing like a virus. It made us simply not trust what they had to say more; I mean in hindesight it makes sense, started in so many different places, different...long term affects; of course there was more than one cause but...all around the same time? It makes no sense, like several booby traps set to go off at the same time should humanity fuck up the planet enough.
   The military claimed they had a plan for a "zombie outbreak"; their plan was to treat anyone infected as an enemy combatant and lock them away in concentration camps, or treat any groups of infected like rioting anarchists. The immediate backlash was almost humerous given how often I'd seen so many of these same people turn their backs on the suffering of others mistreated by our government; but now that it could be anyone, including them, should they even show signs of any sickness. People were afraid to go to the doctors more than ever, afraid that cold, fever, stomach ache, joint pains, headache, and a ton of other common symptoms of everything were also early symptoms of being infected. Like I said, we didn't know how they spread at first; sure those infected could infect you through liquid exchange, biting, blood, sex, but no patient zeroes were ever found. Again, too many cases at the initial outbreak to think it all started in just one place. The military enforced quarantines did exactly what every zombie apocalypse movie ever showed they'd do; make it spread faster. You got a little sick, they stuck you in wards, tent cities, locked down underground garage make shift prisons, with others you knew were infected. They'd tell you it would only be a few hours, but you'd be there for days, weeks, even months. Went in with a bad migraine, left a zombie because they stuck you in a cell beside someone whose flesh was peeling off and biting at spitting at everyone.
   At first it was all the same, with the exception of a big infected bite wound, you'd show general "I'm sick" symptons, headaches, stomach aches, cramping, joint pains, transitioning to a short temper and feeling hungry no matter what you ate, skin would sometimes show signs of rashes, decay, or else turning grey and cracking or white and puss like. Those cases told us there was more than one thing going on, but the average person didn't get that far before they just died. Only to shortly after resume living, but now they were mindless, ravenous, attacking every living thing around them. The doctors argued they were still alive, that it was like a living coma where the reptile part of the brain was in full control now; they insisted a cure could be found; groups protested they were still people; that this wasn't a movie; execution squads secretly took out so many that didn't have connected loved ones; claiming they died on their own like any normal (plague). This spread more false information, that it was fatal after the initial "rage zombie" stage. They put out false data sheets claiming they weren't digesting food, refusing food, backed up till they died, dehydration, deteriated lungs, and all sorts of stuff that was being refuted left and right by other countries; but just about every government dealing with it was trying to stop the panic..more so than stopping the diseases from spreading it seems.
    All of this resulted in more and more people hiding their symptoms. In the movies they always jump to the point where like 90% of the population is infected and running from house to house biting and eating each other. But no, it happened so gradually, laws being passed, boarders closed; and then state boarders closed a few years later, then passports to travel between cities, then you started to see cities being fenced in, communities walled in. The rich escaped into vaults, but with no one to care for them or maintaine those temporary vaults; you started to hear about "vault breaches". That was what the state controlled news focused on, even as entire neighborhoods turned into violent faschist police gangs, militia warlords taking over small towns like cults. The population wasn't some army of the undead explosion, it wittled down over the years, causing more and more panic, more forced control, more desperation. You felt like you had to join one of these cultist towns, the now self governing pockets of police and military bases. An entire generation was born and grew up with this being the world. Alot of places even practiced population control, didn't work, didn't eat, weren't able to work, left to die outside the gates; even if zombies were right there waiting.

    I lived to see an advanced civilization with talks of landing on Mars in the next few years degrade to Feudal societies, struggling to survive with the continuing loss of land available to cultivate. Canned foods only last a few years, ammunition had to be manufactured. There were people who knew how to make some, but access to gunpowder, the right materials, metals, it all dwindled. They thought they'd outlast the zombies, the government planes and helicopters at first were air dropping supplies; but then you saw talks on the news of stopping drops in certain areas, with excuses of it only helping the gangs and militia that had siezed control over the area. We saw sanctions on cities, states. Announcements on concerving ammo. Especially as the neo-zombies weren't as hurt by bullets, especially not the grade the average civilian could make from scrap and whatever they could salvage from a wal-mart to make rudimentary gun powder. The government bombed several places; that was the last thing any of us ever saw of our government. The plane flying over head dropping bombs on our own cities. Some clearly targeting the abandoned concentration camps where neo-zombies had their nests, or targeting the cult and militia compounds. The news stations stopped, power grids had already been going down. Entire cities were being left without fresh water, power, supply chains. We were cut off from each other now, no way of knowing if we were the last survivors or not. People didn't just commit suicide; now you'd see people trying to become zombies, being locked up by militia warlords as a result; without fresh food and water, and the only farm land around being a massive risk; you were forced to give into them, they had the generators, the fenced in fields for farming, and all the farm animals. You even had the return of "kings" and small armies threatning death to anyone caught hunting in "their lands".
   The neo-zombies were something we saw signs of early on, but it wasn't till pretty far along that the news had given in and reported them, informing people of signs a "zombie" was turning into one and to target those first and make sure to burn the body as the resulting "creature" was far worse than the majority of the other zombies. White cauliflower welt, red rashes, skin turning grey, skin turning milk white. The news coined names for them, White Walkers, Mutant Zombies, Glowers, and Reapers. The White Walkers were pretty common, the zombie's decaying flesh was being replaced by this white fungus material till you had a hideous oozing fungus humanoid walking around. They'd walk around like that till finding a dark moist place then explode into spores. They spread by biting while a zombie but became a thousand times worse in that final stage. By comparison the other three were far better, as they'd eat other zombies...including White Walkers; guess zombies can't infect each other for some reason.
  The mutants are like something from a video game or Evil Dead, they vary alot, like maybe unique to each person, I've seen things, bloated poison gas spewing pus bags, things with split skin crawling up walls with long frog tongues coming out of a toothy hole in the top of their heads, and all sorts of weird shit I don't want to describe...but for comparison I once saw what looked like a human head with only its spine and ribe cage, which had become like spider legs crawling around with rolled up intestines that shot out like octopus tentacles to eat small animals. So yeah, when I say better, I mean...not as infectious. Also those things really hated bright light so stuck to underground structures, so to be clear search parties for supplies into basements and sub-levels of buildings might as well have been sent into hell as every Neo-zombie loves the dark places, find one with alot of moisture and you had better have had on a good gas mask because White Walker spores were also down there, but thankfully glow under UV lights. But batteries were one of the things we were running out of the fastest because of things like that.