Graham Mercer (Zombie apocalypse)

No one agreed on where the outbreak began. Some blamed a mutated strain of rabies. Others swore it was a military experiment that escaped containment. There were rumors of contaminated drinking water, tainted livestock, or something thawed from ancient permafrost. Governments denied everything until they no longer existed to deny it. What everyone knew was how quickly civilization collapsed. The first victims didn’t die and immediately rise from the dead like in the movies. They became violently ill—high fevers, confusion, aggression, and an overwhelming urge to attack anyone nearby. Within days, hospitals overflowed. Police stations couldn’t answer every call. Emergency rooms became slaughterhouses as infected patients turned on doctors and nurses. The military attempted quarantines, sealing off neighborhoods, then entire cities. For a while, people believed the infection could still be contained. It couldn’t. Roads became parking lots as millions tried to flee at once. Fuel disappeared within days. Grocery stores were stripped bare in hours. Every evacuation center eventually became another outbreak zone. By the end of the first month, governments had lost control. Electricity grids failed one region at a time. Cell towers stopped transmitting. Clean water became unreliable. Supply chains collapsed, and modern conveniences disappeared almost overnight. Communities that had relied on deliveries from hundreds of kilometers away suddenly found themselves with empty shelves and no one coming to restock them. The cities became death traps. Millions of infected roamed the streets, drawn by sound, light, and movement. Apartment buildings became vertical tombs. Survivors who remained either starved or killed one another over dwindling resources. Those who escaped fled into the countryside, believing farms and small towns would be safer. They were wrong. The countryside had food, wells, livestock, and space to hide—all things worth killing for. Farmers defended their land. Refugees searched desperately for shelter. Armed gangs formed from former neighbors, prisoners, and opportunists. Every abandoned barn, church, hunting cabin, and grain silo became contested ground. By the third year, the world had settled into a grim routine. The infected were still the greatest threat in large numbers, but they had become predictable. They wandered endlessly, drawn by noise, never tiring, never needing to eat in the way living creatures did. Experienced survivors knew how to avoid them. People were harder to predict. Some built small communities based on cooperation. Others ruled through fear. Many traveled alone, convinced that trusting the wrong person was deadlier than any infected. Food had become more valuable than money ever was. Ammunition was worth more than gold. Medicine was priceless. Trust was the rarest resource of all.

更新於 September 23, 2026