Where the virus came from, who spread it, was it on purpose? By accident? Who can say? Within 2 days almost the entire world was dead, undead, blame seemed kind of pointless.
The virus spread fast and effectively. There were many ways it spread, though two most noticeably. The first being an airborne infection. The start of it all. A victim breathed in the virus which then quickly incapacitated them, completely rewired their brains and caused death within hours. Then the rewiring kicked in and a reanimation of the corpse functioning at a base, animalistic level, arose to begin its new “life”.
Some people were just naturally immune to the airborne disease. They were not many. They were not prepared. Mostly, they died.
The second level of infection was the classic zombie bite. One of the critters bit you, and you managed to escape alive and then in a few hours you were dead anyway. Zombies tended to travel in packs so few people survived long enough to join their ranks this way. Dismemberment plays havoc with your survival abilities.
The bite version of infection was, however, a ‘10 out of 10-er’! You got it, you died. No immunities, no cure, no passing ‘Go’ and collecting $200. Dead.
An unexpected way the virus spread was in the fact that zombies also needed to drink. For all their brains were mostly dead they still had left over, lower level functioning. Eating. Drinking. Ripping you apart and defecating. Zombies were a whole bunch of lovable. The water supplies soon became infected. This meant there were a few people who became infected with the virus through a warm cup of tea or a nice relaxing bath that proved to be anything but.
One difference from the movie zombies we all know and love was the fact that these zombies craved food. Not just brains or the human flesh of say a silly blonde bimbo too slow to run away due to her 5 inch heels she’d rather die then take off. Food was what they wanted. If it was edible the zombies ate it.
And a Zombie eats. Eats, eats and eats.
They are like a wave of locusts, using their heightened sense of smell to find food. Plants of all kinds were destroyed, uninfected animals and people devoured, and shops and homes soon ransacked of edibles. Chances are some of those zombies ate more spinach dead then they ever did when alive.
People weren’t the only ones to catch the plague. Dogs, cats, birds, many fell to the virus as well, becoming little zombies of their former selves. It was almost cute if it wasn’t so damn scary to watch a Maltese poodle devour the face of its once owner. Even things like mosquitoes, ticks and fleas had become zombified and helped spread the disease all the faster. Personal hygiene had never been as important as it was now.
If you were a survivor who was immune to the aerial virus, and had not yet to be bitten. Probably living off of canned goods and rice cakes, the only food supplies to fail detection by zombie nostrils, then you basically had to keep yourself squirreled away and hope that sooner or later the zombies, finding all easy access food gone, would either turn on each other or starve to death. A very long wait awaited you.
If you had to move out amongst the zombies it was both a very basic thing to do and hugely complex. Basically if they couldn’t smell you, they couldn’t identify you as a food source ergo they left you alone. Movement, sight, sound, touch, none of these senses mattered to zombies. They were ruled by scent and if you weren’t food, you weren’t worth the trouble. So driving in a car with the windows up and the air-con on was a usually pretty safe way to travel.
The problem is getting to the car. Human flesh is delightfully fragrant to zombies and their sense of smell is far superior to our own. Touch the outside of the car with a hand and they’ll smell the residue. Get caught in a tight situation inside your car and sooner or later your body odours and air-con would work together sending out inviting wafts that would summon zombies in for a closer look-see. With appalling strength, a pack of zombies could strip a car clean in minutes. Your bones even faster.
Travelling in Haz-mat plastic suits is pretty much the only way to go. For most of that means being zipped in firmly and then doused head to foot in perfumes and sprays. Zombies are not a fan of Chanel no.5. Perfume is not a food smell and helps hide your scent on the suit. After that, as long as you don’t spring a leak, which is terribly easy in the torn and twisted world of wreckage we live in, then you can pretty much go where you want and do what you like.
Not that there is much to do, or places you’d really want to go.
Usually, as a survivor, you had to find ways to continue having that status. Raiding empty homes, stores and malls for anything you could use to keep your heart beating. Canned goods and dried foods are the staple diet. Chug down some vitamins where you can find them and hope you never get sick enough to need a doctor or hospital.
Nearly 7 billion zombies.
And that’s just the human ones.
Do you know what damage that amount of zombies can do?
And what of the seas? All the creatures there in? What have they become?
And when all the plants are gone, the animals gone, the zombies and their ravenous hunger gone.
What then? Should any of you outlive them, what then?
Look around you. This is what extinction looks like.
