Zombidelphia(pretty much just the prologue lemme know what you think)

[Wene]

This manuscript is my account of the events starting on April 23rd 2013, and some slightly before. I figured that I should write something to let people know what happened in my group. If only it winds up being a history book for those of us brave enough to have children. Everyone was worried about December of 2012, that only wound up being the next Y2K before something more destructive than 9/11. In the early days, there was little difference between most fictional accounts describing things like this, but eventually it became less cinematic and more like the truth of the world: life is darker than all noir at the darkest times. I will inscribe footnotes for things people not native to the area may not understand. I am one of the few who grew up here left, at least to my knowledge. I guess I should start at the beginning, right before everything went to complete sh!t.

The last few days of normalcy were just that, disgustingly normal. It was an uneventful week, and nothing really stands out about it. There was school, work, family issues, and the other common stresses of modern life. I paid bills, went grocery shopping, and even had a few beers. Nothing could have prepared us for what happened next. The world changed on that Tuesday afternoon, and nobody has been able to reason why.

It started with scattered news reports the day before of incidents similar to the 'bath salts' issue. It was written off as drug addicts going insane and actual insane people reaching their breaking points. On that day, however; the true scope of the problem came into view. Those who were attacked began going insane and attacking the hospital staff, shortly after developing symptoms similar to septicemia. High fevers, chills, loss of complexion, and delirium all caused panic within hours. At this point, news reports became scattered.

I only know as much as I do because a hospital near my home was considered ground zero. It seemed to be isolated, but random cases began popping up outside hospitals. Even people who had no prior drug habits or mental health issues began taking bites of friends, family and neighbors. The government began doing its best to contain the media frenzy, but there was little left to contain. The reporters began fleeing, doctors and nurses soon after. Not a single soul was able to explain it. Religious fanatics raved of the end times, and atheists laughed. No single group was safe from this wrath.

I got to my house after hopping the bus home. My neighbors were all packing cars like I'd seen done on the news to outrun monster storms, but it was mid-spring so nobody needed to worry about crazy weather. I went into my house a grabbed a cold brew, turned on the tv and nearly spit beer across the entire living room. The news was showing national guard troops imposing quarantine on several area hospitals. Anchors raved about a virus that mutated faster than AIDS, bit had drastically different effects on the body. What I gathered from it all? We're all screwed. I began calling friends and family, looking for anybody that hadn't left the city yet. Thankfully, my crazy buddies who stockpile weapons in there basement were still here. My one friend who was inactive in the national guard, and a few other skilled associates of mine, along with a few run of the mill people we drank with quite often.

Now for the formal introductions, and all following descriptions are made with every ounce of love possible. The two weapons experts are the ugliest pair of twins of seen, Tim and Cole, but in a fight to the death looks don't mean much. My national guard buddy, named Brando, has to be the hands down biggest example of the melting pot in the US, put you finger on any land mass on any map or globe, he has ancestors from there. There's Shane, our resident gun enthusiast and manager/bouncer before the outbreak. Kathy, she never gives herself enough credit, sexy, smart, and all around great person. Then there's Delia, yea she can be abrasive, but hell she's got spirit. The rest of our group came into the picture a bit later, so we'll introduce them as they come into, and inevitably out of, the pack. Now last and most certainly least, there's me, Taylor. Yea, yea, yea, I know, it's a girl's name. Lay off. I'm not exceptional at anything other than being a wise-ass. Hell, I'm down right ordinary, but when push comes to shove, I grab a baseball bat.

The first day was spent racking our brains for any semblance of a plan. Stay here, go there, wet ourselves. Anything was a valid option. We decided we should all group up at one of our houses, the most defensible, least vulnerable structure. Definitely was not my place. Now we're talking about a group of college-age kids ready to whoop a$$, but without a direction all would be lost. Our ability to focus would become the greatest asset we could ever have, but in the course of our journey would put us in grave danger.

Now, this is when we figured out what to do, pretty much we all met up at Tim and Cole's house. They had two doors into the house, one would be used as an emergency exit. We would barricade the main door, conserve all our supplies and draw up plans to either fully fortify our position or find a better place. This is the only time I worried about how the group dynamic would work, there were various conflicting ideas. Move to a mall, a school, an old prison, you'd be surprised.

I might as well start writing this like a normal book now instead of a monologue. I will try to keep it as fluid as possible, but I'm not great at this kind of stuff.

We got up the morning after arriving at the twins' house to survey the situation, but outside seemed relatively calm. Tim stood up, "We have to figure something out with this. We have supplies, but they won't last forever. We need something more like a fortress and were in a shack. What do you think?" Everybody looked around, waiting for an idea to pop out, finally all eyes fell to me, "What? Don't give me that look, I don't know what we should do." They all continued looking at me, before Kathy spoke, "You're the only one who thinks of every angle. You should come up with a few ideas that we'll all vote on." Everybody else agreed. Brando looked around, "It should be an anonymous vote tho, otherwise people might get pissed that the idea they wanted doesn't get picked." Again everybody agreed, now it was on me, ****.

After five or six hours of writing down lists of plans, some completely cracked up, and a few relatively good ones. None of this would be easy, we could try to make our way to the old prison, our old high school, or maybe even city hall. There was one downside to most of these plans, they took us into some of the most heavily populated areas of the city, and that would not be good. I walked down stairs to meet with everybody, holding a few sheets of paper with my ideas down on them. "Hey guys, this is what I have so far, nothing much, but it's the best I've got." I started reading off the lists, each plan was a list of objectives, things to do on the way to our final destinations, and back-up plans should they fall through. The first one I read out was making our way up to the minimum security prison, there were many pros to this plan: led us away from heavier populated areas, many places to gather supplies on the way, passed by some of our family so we could check on them, the downside being there wasn't really a direct route there and it was roughly seven miles away. After I read that one off they started raising hands, as if I was a teacher in a survival class. I called on people, what else was I supposed to do? Delia asked her question first, "Well, how are we going to get there with the cars pretty much beat to hell?" I looked at her as if she had gone insane, "There's these two things everybody has called legs, hear of 'em before?" She scowled at me, not liking my response. Brando was next, "So what's the plan of attack when we get there, if it's still occupied, or is surrounded?" I answered matter-of-factly, "If it's held by the corrections officers, then we shouldn't have any issue getting in, I know a few people who work there so we'll be good. If it's held by the prisoners then we fight, none of them are violent offenders and we're probably bigger than them. Not to mention there won't be many of them since that prison is a transfer station." Shane looked at me next, "Where are we gonna get some ammo and some new pieces?" This was one of the questions I prepared for, finally, "There's an old gun shop a few miles from here, it's on the way, if it's not looted, which it shouldn't be, since nobody in the neighborhood picks locks any more, we should be fine. It'll have ammo and guns we can take."

[TGroves14]

wow very nice! love how you started this off mentioning the 2012 thing and what not and the bath salts.. things that apply to us now in real life, very clever. and making it into a day by day journal type of dialog. oh and the name is awesome! Zombidelphia, absolutely brilliant! hope you keep writting on this story, you could really have something great here.

[sartex]

I liked it but I had a few concerns for like 3 paragraphs.

Cooltay, you're in the story!!! :P

Also, Wene, the 2012 apocolypse theory was 3 things: Meteorite, Earth Crust Breaking/Failing, and Solar Flare from the Sun.

[Wene]

@ tgroves : thanks much.
@ sartex: it was just mentioning it as if it becomes talked about like y2k, a big bunch of blah blah over no big thing. Just like everybody thought y2k was gona reset all of the computers and absolutely nothing hapoened exception some crazies going nuts and opting out. In that sense it works, and trust me, I know all of the theories. Most of them have grounds in science, but cannot be proven without explicit knowledge of the earth's history for roughly the past 2 billion years, being that the earth is 6 billion years old roughly and people have been here for a mere franction of that makes it impossible to prove or disprove until it's all said and done.

BTW I'm surprised nobody realized the date I used for the start of it all.

[Neeko]

Wow this was a good read, and i dunno why but for some reason i was reading this in the same voice as the guy on tape recording in DI documenting his survival.

[sartex]

Hhahah I am XD

Youre famous now

XD

[sartex]

Hey I cant get into PSN,is it down?

I just got home and I am on my blackberry... havent logged on ps3 yet.

[TGroves14]

Wow this was a good read, and i dunno why but for some reason i was reading this in the same voice as the guy on tape recording in DI documenting his survival.

hahah same here!

@ tgroves : thanks much.
@ sartex: it was just mentioning it as if it becomes talked about like y2k, a big bunch of blah blah over no big thing. Just like everybody thought y2k was gona reset all of the computers and absolutely nothing hapoened exception some crazies going nuts and opting out. In that sense it works, and trust me, I know all of the theories. Most of them have grounds in science, but cannot be proven without explicit knowledge of the earth's history for roughly the past 2 billion years, being that the earth is 6 billion years old roughly and people have been here for a mere franction of that makes it impossible to prove or disprove until it's all said and done.

BTW I'm surprised nobody realized the date I used for the start of it all.

welcome, and yes i did notice the date, sucks that we can't enjoy playing DI riptide with real life zombies gettin in the way! lol

[Wene]

Hhahah I am XD

Don't go getting a big head, I base most of my characters off people I know in real life in all the stories I write, I just use diff groups of friends every time, i change names of course, but legit i have friends that are twins and collect most types of weapons, a national guard buddy, a friend who is a manager at a strip club and owns numerous guns....most good authors tend to put some of themselves into the focal character, but this one is pretty much based off my view of my dad when he was younger, hence the use of my line 'when push comes to shove, I grab my baseball bat' lol

Wow this was a good read, and i dunno why but for some reason i was reading this in the same voice as the guy on tape recording in DI documenting his survival.

Idk, I sound nothing like him, and you've heard my voice while playing DI so I would figure you'd read it in my voice...lol

[rrobb911]

That is a good story. I only read the first three lines but its pretty sweet. Maybe I'll read the rest tomorrow. Its probably a good story. Good story bro. Get it. Like the meme that says good story bro. **** I'm funny.