Zombie Exodus: Aftermath, Scene 1

You roll out of your cot and listen to the sounds of the air horn blaring through Tempest Point. You have only been here for six weeks, longer than some havens, but this is the first time you’ve heard the siren. Shadows fly past the outside of your tent, and you hear shouting. As you slip on your boots you hear an explosion in the north side of camp. The ground shakes, and you tumble back to your cot. This is no drill. Camp is under attack.

You’ve seen this time and time again. After all you’ve grown up in the Apocalypse. You can forever remember the date of Outbreak Day 0, because it was your ninth birthday. Ten years later you’re still struggling to find somewhere safe to stay. 362 days. That’s the record. A tiny island off the shore of Florida. What was it called? Crab Island, that was it. The screening precautions failed to detect Z4 in a traveler. The fourth mutation of Zeta was one of the more lethal varieties, and it ripped through the colony. That was the day after your fifteenth birthday.

Throwing on some clothes and grabbing your to-go bag, you slip open the tent flap to the sight of two dwellers running past you with automatic rifles. Flames shoot up from the north end of camp higher than the tents in front of you. That means you go south.

You rush between trailers and tiny houses set up in the middle of camp, maneuvering your way around people you know by face but not name. The inhabitants of Tempest Point keep to themselves. Even at mealtime, they take their food and drink back to their abodes and share little of the challenges or triumphs of their day. You’ve only gotten to know a few people. There’s Jesse, who is your age and even grew up one town over. The day you moved in to camp, she brought you your first meal, meat soup with cabbage. She even snuck out a bottle of milk from the mess trailer for you, the first you had in the longest time. She was always grabbing things: a pair of keys, someone’s pocketknife, a flask of whiskey. Her hands were quick like a magician. When the two of you were bored, you would tie her hands in rope and see how long it took for her to get out.

Then there’s Carlo. He was the second friend you made. He took you to the gambling tent and gave you a few pills to wager on one of the insect fights. Your praying mantis won, and you collected a full bottle of antibiotics and some uppers which you traded for the boots you now wear. Carlo knows everyone. Anywhere he goes, he makes connections or has connections. He’s in his early thirties and has been in the area and moving from camp to camp since the start of the Outbreak.

You feel someone tap your shoulder and spin around to see Spark.

“Follow me. I think I can get us a car out of here,” he says.

You follow him through the crowd of running people as he leads you east. It’s easy-to-follow a tall red haired boy around all the dwellers, though he’s thin and quick, making it easier for him to slip between people. He can hotwire any car and fix anything that’s broken. But he’s going the wrong way. With the wind blowing towards the east, the fire must be spreading that way. You don’t know what’s attacking camp, but you can only imagine they will take out the east gate, the easiest way inside Tempest Point.

Continue to scene 2