Apocalyptica

A cinematic episodic campaign with zombies. And guns.

Setup

It's fifty years in the future in the USA.

In the late 2030s, technicians in the Defense Intelligence Agency finally cracked one of the mysteries of materials found at the 1947 Roswell crash site. The material, found in hypodermic injection devices, was used by the aliens to shut down their metabolisms on centuries-long journeys. The agency used this discovery to develop a genetic-manipulation serum with the goal of creating the perfect soldier: completely obedient, needing no food or sleep, nearly indestructible, and possessing powerful combat capabilities.

The first human experiments were the beginning of the end. Four Yemeni would-be suicide bombers were detained in 'black ops' facility in Egypt for two years, before being flown to an underground lab at CIA headquarters in Virginia, sedated, and then injected with the serum. What happened next, nobody knows, but the end result was that one week later, the entire CIA complex was evacuated and a state of emergency declared. Apparently employees were killing and eating one another's flesh by the thousand.

Six thousand Marines surrounded the facility and ended up shooting everyone who came out. After multiple warnings over a loud speaker and the failure of various non-lethal tactics, the Marines killed each and every one of the 12,704 employees who wandered out, slavering and murmuring according to exclusive FOX Satellite video.

Any sense of relief was short-lived, because within hours of the massacre, the Marines started killing and eating each other's slain bodies. The affliction was an airborne contagion.

A nationwide curfew was declared, all flights grounded, and the United Nations issued a Security Directive prohibiting any nation from allowing an American entry until the epidemic was under control.

Fast forward ten years:

• A now-defunct American government has detonated nuclear weapons in several major cities along the eastern seaboard in order to exterminate the tens of millions of wandering "zombies" (as what remained of the public began calling them).
• The UN Security Directive stands. Americans, and now Canadians, are not welcome in any other country.
• A serum-based "vaccine" has been introduced into the water supply nationwide, virtually eliminating the airborne contagion, but it still may be transmitted through wounds that break the skin.
• Zombies are by far the primary bipedal inhabitants of the North American continent.
• Aggressive abatement in Europe and Asia has the problem partially contained. In South America and Africa, zombies are spreading fast.
• Zombies don't sleep and need no water or food, but crave fresh human flesh, which they can somehow sense from up to 100 yards away.
• Zombies die a 'natural' death after their flesh and internal organs rot completely from their bones, which takes up to a decade. They are most dangerous and hungry and vigorous for their first year after being converted.
• Zombies may be killed through complete bodily annihilation, decapitation, or doing substantial brain damage.
• Zombies don't seem to have any recollection or recognition of their previous lives, and are driven by purely animal impulses. They have no reason and no mercy.
• The remaining unafflicted humans in America seem to have formed tribes of 5-500 people in barricaded fortresses (sometimes in old mini-malls or elementary schools), and make perilous excursions out to find food, water, and fuel, hunted by slavering zombies.
• Traditional media are dead, and most internet connections and cell networks, unmaintained for years, are inoperable, infected by malware. Some old-timers communicate via short-wave radio.
• Gasoline is essentially gone. Cars and trucks and trains and planes rust where ever they ran dry. There are no imports. The solar-vehicle industry was only just getting started as a niche market when society crumbled.

Characters

• Jingles, played by Niki
• Billy Ray Kingdusky, played by Brant
• Charlene Johnson, played by Mel

What Happened

Welcome to Hell

• Melissa: 32-year-old full-time mom, part-time shuttle-bus driver at a huge amusement park in suburban Atlanta. Your husband owned a gun store, before he was attacked and became a zombie himself. When the neighborhood was set ablaze by a well-meaning neighbor during the rapid spread of zombies in Atlanta a few years ago, you packed the minivan with supplies and raced to pick up your kids from soccer practice, only to find the entire team of wild-eyed youngsters devouring their coach. You drove next to your husband's shop and grabbed as many guns as you could before an armless half-decomposed zombie wandered in and scared you off. You forgot to get any ammo. You began to drive south to your parents' house in Florida, but realized after a hundred miles dodging wrecks on the interstate that they hadn't returned a call in almost a year. You had less than half a tank of gas, and every station you passed was overrun with zombies, so you turned around and drove the minivan to work, and transferred your guns and supplies into a solar-powered shuttle bus. That bus has been your home for the past 18 months, and you haven't seen another human since. You've looted abandoned grocery stores for canned goods and bottled water to survive in the meantime. But, two of the bus' five solar cells have failed now, and soon the faster zombies will be able to simply catch up with you. You know nothing about how to fix them, but the manufacturer, Sunburst LLC, is based in Houston, Texas, so you've embarked on a road trip. You were never a big fan of your husband's guns and have never dealt with the lack of ammo issue.
• Brant: 30-year-old odd-jobs worker and baseball-star wannabe in Vance, Alabama. You washed out of college when the zombie explosion hit Birmingham a few years back, left your baseball scholarship and the mayhem behind to return to your hometown out in the country. Mostly unmolested by zombies until a few months ago, you've been doing odd jobs and playing rural-league ball for the past few years. It was a Tuesday afternoon practice at the ballpark just last week when everything changed. Wearing your old college uniform (a bit tight these days) and preparing to smack one out of the park into the neighboring mosquito swamp, a horde of dozens of zombies rushed onto the field. Armed with a Louisville Slugger, you were able to fight your way out, but not before watching most of your buddies get bitten by zombies and fall down screaming. You jumped in your hand-built supercharged stepside truck and got the hell out of there, went home to your parents place to find it teeming with zombies, and have been driving country roads aimlessly for the past few days, and, too shaken to return to town, shooting the occasional possum with your .22 for an unpleasant meal, just like granpappy used to show you. Running low on gas, you just got on the interstate.
• Niki: 25-yr-old waitress in a topless cafe. Got off the farm and went to the big city (Nashville) to be a country star at 17. A little depressed ever since Playboy Digital turned you down 5 years ago, maybe because of the little gap between your front teeth. That didn't work out, so you did some waitressing, and some stripping, and finally landed this gig at a truckstop just outside the city, Robby's T&A Cafe, where you sling steak and eggs to truckers and weirdos and weirdo truckers wearing nothing but 4" heels, black short-shorts, lots of make-up and a frontless apron. Buford and Willy have done a rock-star job of keeping the cafe safe from zombies with their shotguns and frontloader in the parking lot over the past year. It was almost a sport for them, much to the amusement of patrons in the cafe. As the proportions of zombies to people has tipped, though, customers have become more scarce every day, you and the other staff have taken up residence in the cafe, and Buford and Willy haven't had a decent night's sleep in more than a month. Ammo's running low, and the stack of head-exploded zombies in the parking lot is ten feet high and 30 feet wide now. Yesterday, a regular named Dawson invited you to escape and drive south with him in his big rig. Dawson was twice your age but charming in an awkward sort of way, so you gathered your purse and pink polyester tube-top and went for it last night. Dawson had a big, long, silver gun, and downed five zombies with single shots on the way to the rig, where he fumbled with the keys for a moment. Zombies grabbed at him, he fought them off, and you escaped. After driving all night while you dozed, he pulled over at a rest area along the interstate, seemed feverish, a scratch on his right arm was oozing pus, and his eyes developed a weird vacant look. Despite your questions, he stared silently at your bare legs and saliva dribbled down his beard. You grabbed the gun and made a run for it, hungry, scared, and not sure where to go.