Thought I'd share, after getting the various pieces put together. I'm aware there's a few parts that need editing, and I for some reason am having trouble with action scenes, the last one for some reason gave me trouble--I put off writing it for weeks because I couldn't think of a satisfactory way to do it, and I'm still not happy with it. Anyway, it's a slightly different take on the genre, which people might enjoy. It's not done yet either, the fun is yet to come.

Zombiepocalypse. The cities were pretty much gone, though the rural areas and the smaller towns/suburbs managed to survive. For the last couple of years, it's been the same--when winter comes, you get out and find enough food to survive, or to clear an area around your fort, or find a better place to hole up.

Up north, it gets cold enough the zombies freeze. This doesn't kill them, but stops them, and they can be killed without too much trouble since the infected fluids don't splash, and the "fast" style zombies can't run or fight. While they still reap a considerable crop every winter, there are generally not many zombie problems at this point, and even some of the cities are being resettled. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't have problems. neo-nazis, mutant zombie bikers, and others cause plenty of trouble.

The bacteria that caused it was a cross between a special energy producing one and a more normal one. result: the zombie doesn't need to eat to live, thus is perpetual, but the human mind destroyed by the disease still craves it, so it attacks people.

The normal zombie mind is too wrecked to be useful. They are "fast" though since there's really nothing stopping them. You occasionally get a "shambler" when the body has been wrecked too bad to support a higher level of activity--the bacteria provides energy, but doesn't heal, any damage done before/during infection will stay.

In a small but measurable percentage, the bacteria creates a mutation rather than a zombie. These are "mutant zombies" and their usual form is "mutant biker zombies" of some sort, cannibalistic gangs roaming the countryside. While they'll eat normal food, they don't shy away at all from eating the people they find there as well. They usually also do some torture first. They'll eat zombies, but only as a last resort. Mutations vary, some just become overly muscled, others get quite disfigured, open season for the costume/makeup people. The bacteria gives extra energy, so they're usually faster and stronger than normal people. Mutants vary in intelligence, and their danger varies depending on who and what they were.

In general, the drive to eat eventually destroys a person's humanity, rendering them the evil creatures of myth and fiction. Slower infection seems to lead to mutants more often, so they tended to show up later, though many came from hospitals where they were being treated.

For the most part, the prepared survived the zombiepocolypse, if only to become mutants(see above). The biggest groups in America are the drug gangs, and the Mormons. drug gangs--mostly in the SW--because they had heavily armed gangs and isolated strongholds, and the Mormons because they were prepared, had the climate in favor, and--being conservative--had lots of guns. The dry desert air has a similar effect, though more permanent and taking longer. The mountains will disable a zombie for a while, rather quickly, but the desert will slowly but surely kill them. Thus the other strongholds in the world share similar climate--cold--wet or dry, or hot and dry. The M.E., Nepal, anything higher than a few thousand feet or north enough to freeze early and consistently was more or less safe, unless you were near a city. With Z-day during the fall, a couple of months was all that was needed until winter provided a temporary solution. Mutants were still a problem since they were generally smart enough to seek shelter or fire.

Also with the collapse of civilization the crazies came out of the woodwork. Most areas were under control of fringe elements--the M.E. found itself with a new caliphate, which didn't have much power after Israel blew away most of the people in retaliation for various eradication attempts. In the U.S., neo-nazis, gangs, and others had trouble. Being slightly larger and more civilized, the Mexican drug gangs ended up being the new ad hock government. The Mormons reformed the Council of Fifty and started zombie patrols. Since they had such a large surviving population that was generally pro democracy, tyranny couldn't quite take hold. Being the sole powermongers, the gangs took control farther south. A socialist tyranny exists in what's left of New England, the midwest is small townships and nomads and gangs, and the southeast is divided between being under Texan control, and similar to the midwest but with slightly bigger groups with better organization.

Join us as we follow a family that seeks a safer northern clime to raise the kids they've managed to keep alive and whole through it all. You'll meet scary characters, heartwarming characters, and crazy characters. And we'll sing about the important things in life along the way--chopping up frozen zombies, running from crazy nazis, being scared of mutant zombies, romance, love, getting along with your neighbors, and of course, guns.

A cell phone twittered it's alarm tone, and the group of men in the bunks started rousing and getting ready for another 12 hours of zombie whacking. People were sometimes amazed at what all had survived what could have been the end of the world--cars, cell phones, computers, even Hollywood, to some extent. Three basic demographics had survived: "rednecks" and survivalists, gangsters, and sheep who lived in totalitarian dictatorships with large militaries. China was <I>the</I> global power now, or at least it would be if it could get ships out of it's territorial waters, but just about everyone else was too devastated.

Three reasons the Rocky Mountains had fared so well was the Mormon's preparedness, the cold weather, and the massive number of gangs in the big cities. Having had enough firepower to start turning California and the Southwest into Mexico II, the zombies didn't last long, despite the weather. The deserts helped too, killing the mindless things as they tried to cross dry, baking heat. They knew somehow where humans were, and moved in those directions. Denver and Salt Lake City had survived, among other areas, and had managed enough manufacturing to keep the area alive. California, with the farms, had kept them fed--though the farmers had had trouble the last year with low fertilizer stocks, and trouble getting water from outside the state. The plague had however caused a permanent demographic shift, though only a few states had functioning state level governments. Wyoming wasn't one of them--it had been turned into a giant zombie killing field, as the hordes had headed for the larger concentrations, sometimes ignoring the very small number of holdouts.

John got dressed, unlocked his bunk, and got out. Strict rules and barriers kept you alive--while the zombie plague was supposedly fluid borne, there were instances of random transformations. The inch thick plexiglass around all the bunks kept them isolated if one of them turned for some reason--something someone's distant acquaintance had seen, but you never met someone who'd seen it. The semi-trailer based sleeping bays were locked up as well, and everyone checked in before the man outside would unlock them. Then it was time to eat. John sat with his team, Mac the leader, and Tom and Cob. Cob had been a wanderer, too shellshocked to really know who he really was, so the rough burn scar on his cheek gave him his name. He'd been brought in when a search team realized he wasn't a zombie, but months of counseling hadn't helped him much. The balding man was in his 40s, and didn't talk much but had probably hacked more skulls than the rest of the team put together--good worker. With them was Marley, a member of one of the banger teams. He was talking as they came up.

"Nearly 20 people. One of them probably won't survive her pneumonia, but no one was bitten, and only a couple are sick. As soon as they clear quarantine, they'll probably join the cleaning unit, and earn some silver before heading up." He was scarfing food like they taught in basic training. A group like them would be put in quarantine, individually set in plexiglass cells to watch for a few days--if you got infected, it would show within a few days, but no more than a week. There were always random infections, but keeping infected people away from the surviving cities and towns prevented any major outbreaks since the first ones two and a half years ago. "Seven kids too, that's real surprising. You usually only get two or three people at most--bigger groups attract too many zombies, and are harder to keep fed."

Breakfast was finished, and they headed out. There were three locks that provided personnel access to outside of the foot thick concrete walls. When done, the prefab units would be loaded on trucks and taken to the next location. Inside the lock three teams entered, the inner door was closed, and when they were all set up, they'd open the outer door. Even in winter they'd follow the strict protocols learned from hard experience. They were much more important in summer though. The high rubber boots reeked of bleach, as did the entire room--for zombie plague, disinfectants had gotten immensely more powerful, with bleach solutions topping 10% for some uses. The tyvek, rubber, and solid plastic and metal tools had been washed down with 12%. They might not need the stronger chemicals, but no one wanted to take a chance. His axe had been recovered by the banger crew, but they were general issue, so who knew which of the barrels full of tools it was in. The factory that made them was pretty good about getting the balance even across a lot though, so he found one that worked and headed out. A pickup with bench seats in the back was waiting to take them to the next work area.

the original plague had been a modified rabies virus--after the U.S. finally defaulted, but before everything totally fell apart, it was suspected China released it to depopulate America before they foreclosed. They had never gotten around to it, because the virus mixed it up with some other stuff, formed the zombie plague, and the world quickly went to pieces. China had survived better than others because they simply deployed their military and methodically destroyed the infected areas of their country. America's massive urban enclaves full of people who had never bothered to learn how to survive a "sh*t hit the fan" scenario had been sitting ducks, and had quickly formed ravenous hordes that devastated most areas.

Marley was interrupted in suiting up by his team leader popping his head through the door. "Hold off on suiting up, we have a briefing in five."

Marley was interrupted in suiting up by his team leader popping his head through the door. "Hold off on suiting up, we have a briefing in five."

The 12 man team was stacked into the room, plastic chairs complaining about the weight of the well built men. The leader came in, followed by a man in a suit. "Gentlemen, this is Doctor Ron Martin of BYU. He's the one that initiated the request. I'll let him explain."

The doctor, nearly in his fifties and grayed from the experiences of the last few years, cleared his throat and started talking. "As you know, the plague vector was originally a rabies virus, which is actually still around. It was designed to promote a zombie scare, as well as kill a lot of people. Shortly after being released, it was exposed to E. Coli bacteria being engineered by a bio-physicist to make sugar via a synthesis process utilizing Mach-Lorentz forces. This created the zombies we all know and love." Dry chuckles met the gallows humor. "Not everyone ends up being completely zombified by the vector however, leading to what we affectionately call 'mutants.' They have varying brain capacity, depending on what was destroyed and what survived. The group that came in yesterday reported being attacked by mutants near Cheyenne. They also brought vehement tales of something that we've only had rumors of--super zombies."

It was typical that he would pause there, and the group would mutter to each other about what they'd heard and who exactly had heard it. While the bacteria provided all the stuff muscles and tissue needed at the source, it didn't really make you smarter or stronger. The only risk mutants posed was that they could drive, use guns and other weapons and tools, and plan their actions. not good for someone that wants to torture you and eat you, but super zombies supposedly had a strain of the vector that carried with it extra trouble--they could and would run faster, jump higher, etc. Tales abounded of car doors ripped off, vehicles flipped, and savagery that made normal mutant zombies seem beer and skittles in comparison.

Team leader Michols barked out a command for silence, then spoke. "It's our first time getting a first hand siting, let alone one this soon. They lost an RV and four people so we hear, but might have put one of these buggers out of action. F-16s are on their way over now to drop gas, we want to hit the sweet spot and police the area. If we can find the body, we'll try to take samples and get out before we're attacked. We know there's mutants in Cheyenne, that's one reason we've just been working on Laramie. The Doctor's team won't be armed, but they'll be the last down, and first up, and they know we'll leave them if we have to. Lift-off is at oh-seven hundred, take a nap while you can." Voices were drowned out by shuffling as people left for their preparations.

***

The compound was on the south edge of town, with a large area of crushed gravel near the highway serving as a motor pool. Getting into the trucks that would take them to the airport west of town, they saw several semis parked not on the gravel--which could take a lightly loaded one--but on the shoulder of the pavement. It was immediately obvious why; most trucks had three rear axles, and the trailers generally had more than three. Massive concrete posts occupied some, while others carried no more than half a dozen large, thick steel plates.

"Good grief, they're actually going to do it, aren't they?" Someone said, getting a "sure looks like it" in response. The plates and pillars would set up a forty foot unscalable wall around the campus, allowing faster work in reclaiming it. It had been talked about in Casper for years of using the campus as an outpost from which to do deep penetration into the wastelands. the higher wall would allow less work to be done on maintaining a perimeter, and a straight shot from one of the highway exits would be cleared so a heavy convoy could roll through and over groups of undead without having to stop. In the wastelands, you either had a lot of armor and walls, or you always kept moving.

Dawn found them checking the special gear used for this sort of operation. The scientists would be wearing normal emergency response NBC suits, but the bangers would be wearing a configuration based on military charcoal suits. Aluminum and Kevlar armor was added, being a bit more comfortable for longer than the heavy EOD suits they normally used. They would still protect from bites, but also bullets--mutants were generally smart enough to use guns if they had them.

Everybody double checked their gear before loading up in the helicopters, and masks and final seals were made. The big whirly-birds were over the pass between the two formerly largest towns in Wyoming when the F-16s roared overhead. They would find the RV the refugees had lost, check the times, and drop their gas so that several hundred yards around the target area was saturated and fumigated before the choppers came in. Soon after the aircraft lifted off, they'd drop more upwind to keep the area "wet." The UH-1s dropped the banger teams, which immediately fanned out with the others. The gas was a yellow vapor that came up to about waist height, limiting visibility of the ground to a few yards. This was where they paid the most attention as they checked the bodies for signs of life.

"Marley, take Heins and clear the RV." He traded gestures with the person next to him. The circle would expand into an oval, encompassing the ruined vehicle. He would enter it, making sure it was clear as the perimeter went buy. Heins with first, automatic shotgun ready. They switched on their weapons lights, the .450 Bushmaster carbine he carried had a slightly whiter LED light than the krypton bulb on the AK based 12 gauge. The place had been ransacked, all the drawers open, cabinet doors torn off, and four bodies in the back on the bed. Two men, a woman, and a child--all had gunshot wounds to the head. Heins moved back to check, Marley swung around and kicked in teh bathroom door. the small RV barely had enough room for the toilet--he didn't need to go in. He ripped down the curtain, checking the driver's compartment, acknowledging the finish of the sweep form Heins on the radio. "Four bodies, all shot in the head. Looks like after it wrecked, one of them killed the others and shot himself before they could be taken. They've been abused and snacked on." Zombies would eat anything, not just humans, but they wouldn't eat freshly dead humans--just the living or "ripe" ones. These bodies had been violated in various ways as well, not surprising for anyone familiar with mutants, but disquieting to others.

"This is Warren, I found our big critter." The call was punctuated by several shots from the man's .308. Mutants always got more than one shot, and supers apparently got a good deal, since those initial shots were followed by a dozen or so from various weapons. "Macaroni 22, you're clear to drop the geeks." the helicopter set down as near as it dared, blowing the gas away. Taking off again, they could hear pops as gas rockets fired by the F-16s went off upwind, and the clouds rolled down a few seconds later like a morning fog. The scientists had stainless steel cylinders to pack the samples, and immediately set about taking pictures and samples. Most simply involved considering a good place, and drilling a hollow tube into the body. The core would be packed up for later--fast and effective. They were getting ready to dust off the brightly colored suits when the mutants came.

"Macaroni flight, BUG OUT! BUG OUT! The call was from the team leader as gunfire erupted. Marley tried a shot at a blur closing from the hundred yard sight horizon caused by the nerve gas. Then he was face down, struggling with something on top of him. An elbow didn't phase it, and pressure on his arm suddenly increased as the duralumin bracer gave way, but wasn't penetrated. He heard the distinctive whacking noise of bullets hitting flesh, and the weight on him shifted, and he was able to roll, first on top then up, trying to turn around, pulling his tomahawk.

The thing was black and dark gray. There was no sign of rot like on some zombies, and there was a wet gleam. The thing breathed heavily, obviously unaffected by the gas, clawed hands flexing. Marley's air still smelled right, so his mask seal hadn't been broken. The thing was on him before he could get the blade out, and he kicked it off with the classic rolling move everyone sees in movies. He had his tomahawk out now, and was twisting around to take it when it tackled him again, but sharp slaps hit his eardrums through the electronic ear plugs, and the thing sprayed black goo behind it as it was showered with .50 slugs from one of the helicopters. The middle of the thing was filled with holes very quickly, and when one went through the things spine, it fell twitching. He put the tomahawk back, and headed for the smoke grenade where the helicopters were landing. The shooting petered out, and most people managed to get back inboard safely.

He sat next to the team captain as they flew back to Laramie. The man was fiddling with something in his hand. Marley looked over and asked what it was, and he showed him. A thin rim of gold showed between the heavy butyl gloves. "Doc's wedding ring. A good swing with one of those claws was all it took. After it clears quarantine I'll send it back with the rest of the team for his wife." The rest of the flight was in somber silence.

Decon was fun. They pretty much bathed his arm in bleach, both for nerve gas and for plague, then they pulled the armor off. The crushed area was about twice the size of a human hand, but pits showed where hard areas had dug in, and the claws had actually gone through the metal--thick Kevlar and charcoal foam had blunted their ability to get to the skin underneath though. Deep groves in his helmet and other plates bore testament to something that was no longer human. He wasn't the only one with damaged armor either. Claws had ripped through a few others, and not everyone had come back.

Everyone went into quarantine after something like that, the teams had their own row with larger cells. Unlike refugees from the wastelands, they had a bit more autonomy, and he went to his cell without an escort. He placed a placard with the number 10 on the outside, and closed the remotely controlled door behind him. As the days went by, the number would go down, until he was released. The extra time was due to the super mutants--they weren't sure if the different strain would take longer to incubate.

****

The mist left, and eventually the low frequency vibrations that told of the lingering presence of the F-16s disappeared. They came upon the bodies, four of them, and fought briefly before the Big One established it was in charge. The thing was huge, fat rippled over the large muscles underneath. It tore off the still twitching torso of the super, and threw the rest to the others. It also claimed all of one of the humans, one of the ones in the armor. Big One shared the bounty with Smart, who bore the remnants of a suit. Their intelligence was a different form than the humans, hard to correlate. The Smart One had said to stay away from the humans, and Big One had listened, though encouraged a few to attack, looking benevolent and getting a chance to watch the humans fight at the same time, and now he had the bounty. Sharing it with Smart One made sense--following the former engineer's advice had proven wise, and his "tribe" was benefiting greatly.

Mutant meat was preferred over zombie meat, but living flesh over that, with humans preferred over animals. Having abandoned a hunter-gatherer knowledge base centuries before being mutated, the idea of hunting was being rediscovered in formerly industrialized places. Big One was always eating, not minding zombie flesh, one reason he was so big. The tallest of the Supers came up to his chest. A group of normal mutants had gathered around the superior being; fighting over scraps was easier than hunting by themselves. The hunger was always with them though--eat. And Big One was guiding them to where the humans were, to eat humans. The small bounty today was encouragement after weeks of walking. The Smart One didn't like it, but his common sense was overridden by the same hunger, so he was helping them make their way.

***********

Benjamin's computer beeped, and then played a simple tone melody for a couple seconds, telling him that it had uploaded a document via bluetooth to the e-book reader he held. He closed Dickens--the hardcore sci-fi fan was actually reading the classics, what was wrong with the world?--and opened the e-mail, then turned past it to read the document that had come with it. When he was done, he set it in his lap, choosing a plastic cup to fling across the room--he was rarely that angry, but the reader was much too irreplaceable to be flinging around, no matter how durable iRex claimed it to be.

So close. He put his elbows on his knees and leaned over, ignoring the pain that shot up his left leg. He had been about to stop drinking the yellow tinted water in a clear glass still on the table next to the chair, for the real treatment, but now--years of work would now have to be crossed-checked with new data and he might not live long enough to benefit from it.

He blanked the page, wrote out a message, and sent it to the computer, which obediently e-mailed it to the lab down the mountain. Shortly afterward, he watched out the window of the RV as a helicopter picked up a cargo container and went off.

The big Russian helicopter was one of the reasons he was where he was. He'd had the reputation among a few, to get the manpower needed to seize certain assets as the world fell apart. After that, those assets had placed the lab north of Casper at the top--even the universities that had survived hadn't been able to collect the resources they had and make things happen. The underground factories originally planned to support an insurgency against a now-dead collectivist threat had then supported scattered communities--robot greenhouses that didn't hold zombie attention kept people fed, and then portable Dense Plasma Focus fusion reactors kept the warm, and alarms and hospitals running. If the lab asked, they could get just about anything, and being frugal with that reputation had only enhanced it. Nowadays they had started charging for their products, and visa versa, but saviors of civilization had certain perks--perks he couldn't enjoy yet, isolated up past the main lab. He limped over to the bed, and laid down, adjusting his leg before looking out at the dwindling helicopter.

****

Out of Benjamin's sight, the cargo copter joined up with a couple of old Cobra gunships and headed for Cheyenne. It was after nightfall after the raid that they arrived, and had much discussion over the carnage. The bodies had been eaten, bones scattered about. The decision was made to try to make another corpse for their purposes. They scattered, using another thing that was rare--terahertz spotlights, that could shine through even thick concrete walls. Software monitored the images and alerted the pilots when they found the group, bickering inside a building.

They never saw the rockets that punched through the concrete block walls. the Smart One had assured them that the thick concrete blocks and the two stories above would protect them from thermal imaging and night vision gear, but he hadn't known much about THz imaging. The 2.75 inch rockets sprayed the inside with shrapnel, and up top, they weakened the old building and threatened to bring it down, sending the mutants scattering. Big One headed straight out, as did most of his followers. The gunships recorded him, but ignored him since he was too big. The super mutants were obvious with the way they moved however, and 20mm practice slugs tore bigger holes in one of the tailers than the .50 had earlier in the day.

They only fired a little bit though, they didn't want the thing totally torn apart. Smart One kept the main group going to a second safe house--aircraft that could find them there were not something they wanted to mess with. the gunships ignored them though, they were covering a more important operation.

the big problem with zombies had been how contagious and unpredictable the plague was--a clean, secure town would suddenly be plagued with zombies. they didn't like looking at it in labs because even someone working in the highest security labs might suddenly become a zombie. It seemed to have a way to randomly get past safeguards. Liberty Labs had been key to the solution--teleoperated equipment, and had been working on the container here for months. If you couldn't risk bringing the samples back to the lab, then bring the lab to the sample. A piece of sheet metal was released from the bottom, showing a hole a bit bigger than a man. As it settled onto the ground, the helicopters released it and left, their job done.

Sensing the change, the mutant flopped over. black ooze had hardened in the air, seeping more as the corpse twitched, gradually filling the holes from the massive steel slugs that had punctured it. A couple feet over head, it could see bars across it in the dim light. LEDs flicked on, and it lay back down in panic, life preservation still working. The "bars" were about six inches apart, but were wide knife blades. A keening filled the air, and the knives lowered. The ultrasonic vibrations led the knives slice smoothly through flesh. The tougher flesh of the super mutant kept them from making as clean a cut, but they eventually settled into the pavement of the parking lot below them, dividing the mutant into six inch slices. Robot arms folded out from the walls, pulling tissue out to put in holes leading to other instruments. Hundreds of miles away, doctors poured over the data coming in, guiding robots with keyboards and joysticks to dissect the new thing. A sample would have to be brought back for testing the mobile lab wasn't equipped for, but that would be done much later. In the meantime, data poured in, and was also shared with other labs, including the mobile one in Laramie with the other samples. The operation gained another casualty when scientists and banger teams found out a bureaucrat forgot to send an e-mail telling of the availability of the remote lab--the fight with the creatures need never have happened.

Benjamin shook his head at the news, and studied what he could of the reports--he'd been an engineer, not a doctor, but the pain in his leg kept him up that night.