Timeline: Short Stories from the Apocalypse - A Through Rough Times Spinoff

[ukron]

Fog of War (part 9)
Z-Day +6
unknown location, PLA nuclear command bunker

The general gobbled up the cupcakes without hesitation, crumbs falling from his thick mouth and landing on the folds of his uniform, which had obviously been ironed with care, in contrast to the tarnished and dirty uniforms of the dozens of officers and NCOs milling about the underground base.
Zhang Shenghim struggled to stifle the disgust he felt for this inadequate, venal man: in the days of the Great Helmsman, this bastard wouldn't have lasted long! Soon he'd surely be able to make him pay for his corruption and indecent lifestyle for a good Communist, but for the time being, China's entire future rested on the shoulders of this inefficient lump.

"So, my dear friend, you're saying the Americans won't budge?" (the man had taken on the tone of an operetta conspirator).
"Yes, that's right and that's why China needs a man of your calibre (always stroke in the right direction first of all), of course it's an essential but dangerous mission, which could well cost you dearly, especially if it were to be learned that you conspired with me (and now forbid him any pushback) but I'm sure you'll know how to assess the risks and benefits (more than you think, you arrogant fat bastard).
"But my dear, what exactly would you need - men, equipment?"
"Oh, it's quite simple, so much so that I'm almost ashamed to ask you, I'll need the remnants of the 16th Army as well as your entrances to the Ministry of Public Security (his daughter was getting buck wild by half the ministry) in order to secure the Politburo as quickly as possible."
"But that's a lot you're asking me there (the man took advantage of this respite to wedge another round of sweets down his gullet), imagine what could happen if we failed."
"If we don't complete the victory, I don't think our dear President wont hesitate to shoot us down, but between that and the teeth of the Shang Shi, the choice is easy...especially since I assume you've made all the necessary arrangements to fall back?" (the man had chartered a flight, in the direction of a lost corner of Kazakhstan, a flight which he could never take advantage of, as soon as his orders woud be given)
"But..." "Well, I'm sure Zhou will probably be less hesitant than you.." "Very good, I'm in" (Wang Zhemin had a great moment of inner relief, and thought about the third stage of his plan to conquer power in China).

[ukron]

Fog of War (part 10)
Z-Day+7
Ministry of State Security Emergency Headquarters.

The Ministry of State Security is roughly a maze of organizations, organizational charts and chapters, more or less independent, in theory overseen by the Council for State Affairs, itself headed by the Prime Minister. that's the theoretical aspect, in practice the civil political power (the party) and the Army disputes the paternity of many offices, which is certainly very practical when you want to avoid that an external service infiltrates you but not very handy when you need to have (relative) collaboration between services when your country is being eaten away by the resurrected dead. If Xi Xinping's rise to power in 2013 had helped to restore some order (meaning, to put in jail those who did not want to cede their power to the new boss) the state of anarchy in which China was plunged had reopened all its inter-service fractures and threatened to overwhelm the Ministry.
We can say that Inspector K (was he really an inspector? did his name begin with the letter K? did this man or this woman simply exist?) was perfectly aware of all this, having navigated within the 2nd Bureau (Counter-Espionage) since about the 90s, this required a good knowledge of its limits and a lot of audacity, he (or she) would not be qualified as someone very ideological , or even at times of someone sometimes showing a certain insolence calculated towards the hierarchy but sufficiently competent to be irreplaceable whatever the political regime.
Ultimately, he was a necessary person for anyone who wanted to expand their influence within the maze that is the Ministry and avoid its (sometimes deadly) pitfalls. What neither Xi's supporters nor Zhemin's supporters knew was that the inspector had made his own choices based on calculations and reasoning so precise that they would surely have escaped many people: Supporting Xi was certainly suicidal in view of the number of Zhemin supporters who haunted the 10th and 17th Bureau, not to mention the moles of military intelligence, appearing with Zhemin would have been the most logical choice but also the most stupid , if tempted that one is not an old dinosaur, fossilized since the end of Zhou Enlai or that one is not up to his neck in corruption cases: Take Taiwan, save everything there we can and hope that no one takes advantage of it to end China, was more of a sweet and naive hope than a real reality: Zhemin would only push the Americans to irradiate everything that was Chinese from here until Vladivostok, as for Xi, he was definitely unable to understand that the political and ideological position of China (when it was done with this difficult moment, certainly cataclysmic but hey it had lived worse than that) should change radically: nobody had listened to the Chinese people for a long time and the new regime should finally take it upon itself to establish a democratic system.
The inspector got up from his (her) desk and approached the window, staring into the distance at the fires that were ravaging the downtown area disputed between the PLA and the infected. As expected, the guards watching the building had deserted at the first opportunity. He spoke a few words to inform his assistant (a mole in charge of monitoring him) and when the latter (panicked by the disappearance of the guards) turned his back on him, lodged a 9x19 Parabellum bullet behind his head, the corpse of the man slumped (who would be interested in a gunshot there right now) along the desk, somewhat in the way of Detective K when he picked up his satchel, stuffed a wad of several thousand dollars into it, a concealed gold ingot and some sufficiently compromising papers to enable him to move unhindered to the depths of Asia. Before disappearing forever, Inspector K made a very short call to one of his still living superiors informing him of the exact position of the putchists and the progress of their plans. When it was over, he left the ministry building in complete anarchy, retrieved a small bicycle, made sure to leave the building's security gate unlocked (to let the dead enter at will) and disappeared forever.

[ukron]

Fog of War (part 11)

Sino-Burmese border

Z-Day+7

​

The commander-in-chief of the Burmese army (and junta leader, incidentally) Ming Aung Hlaing had good reason to be wary of China, even more so with what was happening in the world at the time. While the destruction of Rangoon was a blessing in disguise for him (the civilian government had disappeared in its wake, killed or shot down under his orders), Burma had lost its main economic and industrial center and should therefore logically retreat northwards, towards the hordes of Chinese refugees who were beginning to flood into Burma from the town of Ruili.

This prospect was hardly cheering, so when he had received a phone call from Xi Xiping, he had expected the usual (and useless) diplomatic protests, a reminder of the duty of nations (that joke) or a set of thinly-veiled threats enjoining him to welcome as many Chinese as possible, but not this... it was unimaginable (but then again, given the current state of affairs).

The Chinese president had asked (almost begged) him to advance an armored corps towards Kunming and to keep a corridor open for the evacuation of PLA units; obviously nothing being free, Hlaing had taken the opportunity to mention the many problems caused by the current border problem, refugees and Chinese gangs, and of course the fact that his country lacked many industrial resources.


Hlaing wasn't born yesterday, and he knew that this meant Xi was calculating that China didn't have for much longer: taking advantage of the opportunity to weaken the Burmese and move in until the situation calms down.

Hlaing knew very well that to dine with the devil, you needed a very big spoon, so he took no chances and incidentally took it upon himself to contact Wang Zhemin, offering him another, even juicier deal.

[ukron]

Fog of War (part 12)

Invasion. Secret Politburo bunker, somewhere (probably) in Inner Mongolia.

If someone had been able to tell the young Xi Xinping, that of the 70s, that all his political ascent strewn with pitfalls that he had to undertake, would have led him there: the young man would surely have left his place to some another and would have continued his studies in chemical engineering against all odds. This thought, certainly intrusive, pleased him very much and allowed him to overcome the grief of the news he had received the day before: his wife had been killed when the safe zone which housed her had been infected, following a panic movement; as for her daughter, she could very well be dead or quite alive, since she was hundreds of thousands of miles away. In short, he was alone and could count on no one, especially now that the Ministry of Security had gone silent forever, that Wang Zhemin was strutting around like a new Cao Cao (one would wait to see his reaction when he learned that the nuclear warheads he had stolen, had just been recovered) and that China was being eaten from within.

So he was not surprised when Zhemin pushed the last pawns he had left, was it out of revenge or the absurd idea that eliminating Xi would allow the mischievous general to take control where there was none? no one would really know. He politely brushed aside the objections of an obscure young colonel (replacing a deceased general) referring to the penetration of a Burmese armored column into the south (funny times, isn't it?), probably deployed there to grab everything who could be, and concentrated on this amusing idea of alternate history, where he propelled himself at will to the head of important groups of chemical industries, leaving power to the foolish and the proud.

In the distance, through the meters of reinforced soil and concrete, you could not hear the explosions and the crash of weapons, but Xi knew what was happening: Zhemin's forces were trying everything, disembarking from about ten Harbin Z8 and Z20 helicopters, his forces were going to storm the bunker, weakly defended by a few reservists and elite policemen: yes certainly, one of them would manage to lodge an anti-aircraft missile in the one of the opposing machines, causing a deadly collision, but that would not change anything. Xi could well escape with the last bodyguard he had left (he almost felt guilty for dragging this faithful man to death) but he didn't quite know what use it would be.

[ukron]

Fog of War (Part 13)

The candidate.

​

The worst that can exist in a political regime is not to have a competent but discreet éminence grise, knowing where his place is (the man put on the bulletproof vest, which handed him one of the commandos) , he adored this French expression: "éminence grise", a man of influence, but hidden in the interlaces of power, all these years that he had studied France and its history (learning the language) had finally benefited (he checked and under weighed the gun, cocking it with a flexible gesture, before waiting for the signal from the platoon leader).

His role in China could have been that of a Kissigner, or even rather of a Tayllerand, of course it remained to be seen who would be the Napoleon Bonaparte to betray? (Wang Zhemin, Xi Xinping?), in any case he hadn't liked seeing these two morons fighting over China like two scavengers fighting over the same rotting carcass.


(The first lieutenant waved his hand, alerting all his comrades and the éminence grise, they put on their gas masks without waiting, before slipping into the shadows of the room, one of the opposing sentries was discreetly eliminated and dragged out of the room that led to Wang Zhemin's bunker). Of course we could argue about the political and military talent of Bonaparte, the incredible luck of a Nixon but we will never forget that Bonaparte had stumbled in the Belgian plains and Nixon jumped on the march from the White House but that all their éminences grises : Tallyerand, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, had survived the political disgrace of their masters.

Even if however, today, it was he who was about to give the final blow to one of his masters.

The " éminence " waited for the safe and controlled gesture of one of the commandos who threw a stun grenade into the ventilation duct that led to Zhemin's room.


The door opened on a handful of general officers, on the verge of asphyxiation, quickly shot down by the commandos...Wang Zhemin was not among them: the man stifled a sigh, that would have made him task much easier but as he liked to say, if you want it to be done well, you might as well do it yourself.

After all, that had been the end of his work since the 1990s, quiet and effective work to restore China to its status as an unshakable power: work ruined first by the virus, then by Xi and his procrastination and finally by the pathetic coup d'etat of Zhemin (coup d'etat which had not even succeeded in guaranteeing Xi's death!!!).


The first commandos advanced into the room that had served as Zhemin's headquarters for several days, large screens showing the progress of the infected and the military units, a gigantic map of China deployed on a massive table in the middle of the a grandiose piece for an operetta general like Zhemin.

A few "delays" were eliminated by the commandos, but Zhemin was nowhere to be found...in fact no, the man who had shaken China and the Politbruo was hunkered down in his chair, in front of the giant map.


The man coughed energetically and his eyes filled with tears landed on the "grey eminence", still masked and dressed in his black night camouflage.

"Huning...is that you?" he said with great pain.

Wang Huning only responded with a brief sigh (he hated physical violence) before firing a single bullet into his head.

The bloody mush that had once been Wang Zhemin's brain spread like a reddish wave across the map of China, engulfing cities, towns and military bases.

[ukron]

Fog of War
Chapter 14
Admiral on deck.
Taiwan Straits

Shandong's commander peered through the darkness of the night to find only the half-lit screens on which were busy a dozen operators and sailors, as tired as him.
Normally, this sight should have inspired him with pride and confidence in his country and its armed forces, but all this had disappeared for several days and the beginning of this absurd war against Taiwan: of course he supported reunification with the rebel island, but not like that and especially not at this precise moment.
He was tired, exhausted and demoralized but unlike his men, he couldn't afford to show it, he was not one of those puffy political officers!

"Sir, the Air Surveillance Radar is still out of order", for several hours and due to lack of maintenance, the equipment on board was breaking down more and more, the captain began to wonder if these breakdowns did not find their cause at the crew.
The only comforting aspect he could find was that he and his crew would avoid the fate of Liaoning, this one drifting off Yulin occupied only by the undead.
The Taiwanese had done a lot of damage to the Navy and the Naval Air Force of the People's Republic of China but had not succeeded in touching the last aircraft carrier operated by Bejing (rather by the one who occupied the seat of the Politburo) as well as its escort.
Now that the small but effective Taiwanese navy had been silenced, its air force driven back and its missile launch sites destroyed, a naval landing was possible (well in theory, the commander thought) but he found himself, without orders, cruising offshore from Taiwan, waiting for orders that should have been there for several hours.
The captain took off his cap, took off his jacket, put it on his chair and went to bed, leaving his crew to maintain his ship for a few hours, after all what could go wrong? He had no doubt that the Shandong was being spied on from the bottom of the South China Sea, for a silent, streamlined shadow had pierced the protective bubble of the aircraft carrier.....that shadow was called USS Connecticut.

[ukron]

Fog of War
Chapter 15
Game over.

Wang Hunin pushed the cup of boiling coffee away with his hand, he definitely had no time to drink or comfort himself, the reports from the few moles he had infiltrated within the naval command had not been in vain but was not very reassuring: the Americans were engaging in the deadly dance taking place in the China Sea, the Shandong had been torpedoed before sinking right in the middle of Chinese territorial waters and it was obvious that the Taiwanese would not have not risked their old conventionally powered submarines that far.
And if the Americans had taken the risk of torpedoing the Chinese's main asset in the region, that meant that it was ready for escalation, including nuclear escalation with China.

This really annoyed Hunin, he would have hoped that Washington would have other fish (zombies) to fry but he had to remain realistic, the Pentagon had to think about the question of Taiwan and the importance that the island could play in the reconstruction of the world economy after this complicated little interlude.
Hunin could well order his remaining Navy and strategic forces to target Guam, Okinawa and Hawaii, but that would mean serious nuclear problems for what remained of "free and healthy" China.


On the other hand, and with a little humility and a lot of effort, China could recover from this crisis within 30 to 50 years, which was not so bad all things considered, what's more old retrograde clique of the party had ended up being eaten by worms or the living dead, and this would finally allow a little innovation in the country.
Of course, there were gigantic human losses but the technical and economic capital (the machines, the patents and the people to use them) had been carefully sheltered at the start of the crisis and reconstruction would not involve distributing to zero.
Some ports and quite a few industrial centers had been evacuated and as soon as the winter/rot of the infected allowed it, we would go and collect them.
But for that, it was necessary to stabilize and restore order in the new party and the new China, avoid and eliminate the seditious and contain the ambitious and present its best profile to the Americans and the Europeans, we would send the army reserves clean the Shanghai corridor, as soon as winter arrives and we could supply the survivors entrenched in the Three Gorges Dam (avoiding another catastrophe, much more problematic).

In short, a lot of work and little prospect of seeing it completed during his lifetime but enough to end up in the history books as a "restaurateur."
But for that, it was necessary to learn from one's mistakes and to use humility without moderation. Hunin picked up the "red" telephone and called his American counterparts withdrawn into the Strategic Command Center of Mount Cheyenne.

[ukron]

Close Contact
Z-Day+2
Maryland State Highway 700

Only the great banks of smoke escaping from Baltimore disturb the serenity of the Maryland sky on these days of apocalypse, for 8 hours now the forces of the National Guard, FEMA, the Baltimore Police Department and groups of civilian volunteers have been fighting hard to keep Interstate 95 open.
They are losing despite the sacrifice of thousands.
The city of Baltimore, and consequently the whole of Maryland, is about to be cut in two, blocking hundreds of thousands of civilians and military personnel and leaving them at the mercy of a gigantic horde of zombies.
It is vital to clear access higways near Martin State Airport to allow reinforcements and supplies from National Guard to converge on Baltimore.

This mission is entrusted to the airmen of the 104th Wing, who are not allowed to fail.

The rain of fire and machine-gun fire rained down on the infected like hail on a tomato plantation, precise and without a chance. It was tedious work, but more than necessary for the A-10 pilots who had been taking turns without interruption for over 6 hours to prevent the highway from falling into the hands of the hostiles.
The CRV7 and MK5 rockets had proved fairly effective against the masses of infected, but only when they were grouped together, forcing the A-10s to use their impressive but greedy 30mm cannon. Stocks of PGU-13 ammunition/buses were not eternal, and they would have to come down at some point, the later the better.

Captain O'Hara swooped to the left, sweeping away a group of infected that were threatening the National Guard's line of defense, before gently raising the nose of the aircraft, leaving her fellow wingman to finish the job with two 250-pound bombs, the national guards would be hot under the collar on this one, but it was a lesser evil compared to what was happening further south. The captain shook off her thoughts and banked her aircraft, it was time to return, refuel and head back to the front line.

The fierce defense of National Guard positions in the urban districts of White Marsh, Rossville and Midlesex is considered critical by the Pentagon, for fear of seeing the only access route to Baltimore cut off, a desire to maintain pressure on the hordes and that of achieving a victory, provisional but sufficient to secure a large part of Pennsylvania (excluding Philadelphia) and West Virginia.
While the situation in Philadelphia becomes more catastrophic by the hour: the destruction of the Walt Withman Bridge only gained the defenders a few hours, it was decided as a last resort to evacuate as many residents and fighters as possible on Wilmington and on Elkton.
The A-10s of the 104th Fighter Squadron were once again widely used during operations to clear and clean the city of Newark (Delaware) in order to maintain an open corridor.

The CRV7 rockets went off in one fell swoop, setting off a joyous fireworks display over the mass of infected gathered along E.Main Street, at least it was still about twenty of his crap less. Further south of his position, Captain O'Hara could clearly see the silhouette of her fellow wingman bombing the positions of the infected in the urban district of Brookside: the job should have been entrusted to the Apaches and Blackhawks of the 28th Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade but they were too busy in Philadelphia and Trenton to help out. And finally, we had to use the A-10s for urban combat, at least there was no risk of getting hit by a SAM or a ZSU, right? The captain righted the A-10 and looked for her next target, there was no shortage of them.

Faced with ever-increasing hordes and congested roads and highways, the National Guard units of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland recorded high losses for no territorial gains, while fighting fiercely in Washington. These men and women will have no reinforcements, and must abandon Baltimore and Philadelphia. The fallback solution is to consolidate a line of defense starting from York to Allentown, with the Muir base as the center of operations. With an increasingly high rate of attrition and exhaustion, the 104th Fighter Squadron suffered its first human losses at the beginning of the night following two piloting accidents, friendly fire accidents increased and certain commanders and leaders units order to strike columns of refugees, without distinction of whether they are infected or not.

Captain O'Hara had a doubt but she kept it to herself, in the end no one could blame her, not in these exceptional circumstances but incinerating with rocket a column of refugees to allow a group of the national guard getting out wasn't really the kind of thing she'd dreamed of doing when she signed up.
exhausted by hours of combat and piloting, no one could blame her for crashing her plane when it landed on Martin State, she was good for a big scare and a few bruises but she knew she wouldn't take the A-10 flight control before very long, perhaps never if the American army and the national guard could not triumph over the infected.

The 104th Fighter Wing receives the order to quickly clear Martin State while the last bastions of defense north of Baltimore have failed, Maryland as well as Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and a very large part of the eastern coast are abandoned for several months to the infected.

[ukron]

The Bag
Z-Day+3
Lyon, France.

Tom felt a lump in his stomach, stress and hunger, nothing else, the smell of rot and cay blood could not pierce his gas mask, leaving him only a vague smell of chemical disinfectant and rubber inflated by heat.
He risked a glance from his temporary hiding place, a small city car, blocking access to Rue Laborde in order to monitor the horde that had failed to cut him to pieces.

And shit, no way to get his bag back, what kind of poor bastard he could do, slip on a pool of blood and wallow on a car, setting off its alarm, that kind of stupidity worthy of gag videos that could now make you kill.
He had rushed after having managed to loot medicines and emergency supplies from the Pharmacie des Hopitaux, forgetting in the face of the prospect of a good meal some basic rules of survival...and now he was panicking while it was a non-event.

Okay, let's recap, you dropped the bag and walked away instead of staying put (good idea), you wait, they'll get tired of standing around and you can get it back then. Tom stood up, checking the long studded baseball bat he had made at the beginning of the "events", he slid alongside the vehicle, inspecting although its previous owners had not left anything useful (no , Shame).
He evacuated from Rue Laborde to take Rue de la Paix and the 200 meters separating him from his building, even though he had spent all day yesterday clearing the distance which separated Rue Laborde from his building, he remained suspicious, the Z still knew how to walk and not all of them had yet reached the stage of Rigor Mortis preventing them from chasing you.

Shit, Tom froze in front of the Z who was posing in front of him, a fucking monster dressed in an Armani suit, probably a nightclub bouncer or a bodyguard, it would take several beatings for him perforate the skull, and this in the most optimistic case where the Z does not turn around before it does.
Tom ducked and hid behind the burned carcass of a Peugeot, the wind was blowing in front of him, which took away a major worry.
Tom's brain, although undernourished and a little intoxicated (why do zombie apocalypses always occur after a night of drinking?) was working at full speed, his gaze was drawn to the empty beer can rolling quietly, pushed by the wind.
A stroke of genius that could very well have exploded in his face, he aimed and threw the can which landed a few meters away, enough to distract the attention of the big malabar in armani and gently smash his skull.
Tom broke speed records despite his homemade protective gear (a lot of clothes from yesterday, a padded vest and makeshift protections on the calves and forearms, he was dying of heat) and probably had to accomplish a homerun, which if he had been American, would surely have gotten him into the national league but he didn't have time for that.

he sprinted and reached his building, went through the courtyard, climbed with the trash can to the concierge's window, and took a deep breath.

Shitty day, zero profit and tonight he would have to learn how to catch and cook the pigeons that shit on his balcony.
What a shit world

[ukron]

The barrier.
Z-Day+7
Somewhere in Helmand province (Afghanistan)

Abu mechanically checked his Chinese assault rifle, giving it a screech that did not bode well, before turning his head in the direction of the fence that marked the boundary of the local poppy field. He was convinced that he had seen something sneak up on the fence, ever since the dead came back to haunt the living, Abu's nerves were on edge, of course it could be nothing more than a hallucination of his tired brain, but it's better to be cautious, isn't it?

Abu raised his rifle as he gently pushed aside the numerous opium plants, which have been the mainstay of the local economy for years. God willing, it would be a prosperous year, the old men had said, but Abu had other, very different predictions, which he preferred to keep to himself.

Mullah, the other sentry guarding the northern flank, gave Abu a big wave. He too had seen the shadow, and if it was one of the resurrected frontiersmen who had managed to reach the village, it was better to be two than one.

Abu sighed, cursing the sun and the dryness bruising his face. He checked Mullah's position with his eyes and, seeing that there was no apparent threat, leaned over while sliding his rifle along his belly so that he could drink from the long irrigation canal.
When he was just a child, Abu remembered the long, tedious job of digging and cleaning the long canal linking the water source to the poppy field, but since his uncle had acquired solar pumps 5 winters earlier, that had all changed: the time and effort saved was enormous, eliminating much of the grueling labor at the same time - if only we could have done the same with the Taliban and the coalition "kafirs"! thought Abu as he sipped from the stream.


A sudden creak from his left alerted his attention, and he barely had time to stand up before he saw the source of the noise, a resurrected man wearing a Pakistani army uniform stained with dried blood and dust, crawling through the poppy plants towards him.
Abu panicked, and instead of logically backing away with care and precision, the man caught his feet in the jumble of stone and pebbles, falling on his buttocks and crashing into some of the plants, which began to bleed a lovely whitish liquid.

Abu desperately fumbled for his weapon as the resurrected man gained on him, revealing at the same time that both his legs had been snatched up by the detonation of a mine, the dead man placed his grotesque right hand on Abu's leg, causing him to let out a yelp that would have been comical in other circumstances....it wasn't looking good for him.


Finally Abu managed, with his fingertips (his legs were busy grinding and beating the face of the other bulbous moldy) to grab the butt of his gun and bring it back into his lap, he immediately grabbed it and aimed at the resurrected...the trigger pulled into the void, and instead of a bloody, inert mush, the Pakis' purulent face bent over his left leg, Abu took a few moments to realize that:
His last conscious thought was to close his eyes.... only to reopen them on Mullah's face and his assault rifle bent over the zombie he'd just shot.
Not a word was spoken between Abu, smeared in a thick mixture of sweat, urine and crushed poppy latex, and his savior; the latter helped him to his feet and led him to the small promontory overlooking the valley slightly below.

Hundreds of grotesque figures, caricatures of men, some complete but many with limbs torn off, could be seen heading towards the village and its poppy fields, with the sole aim of sowing death.

A prosperous year, eh? finally thought Abu.

[gillan1220]

Oct 23, 2023 15:32:13 GMT ukron said:

The barrier.
Z-Day+7
Somewhere in Helmand province (Afghanistan)

Abu mechanically checked his Chinese assault rifle, giving it a screech that did not bode well, before turning his head in the direction of the fence that marked the boundary of the local poppy field. He was convinced that he had seen something sneak up on the fence, ever since the dead came back to haunt the living, Abu's nerves were on edge, of course it could be nothing more than a hallucination of his tired brain, but it's better to be cautious, isn't it?

Abu raised his rifle as he gently pushed aside the numerous opium plants, which have been the mainstay of the local economy for years. God willing, it would be a prosperous year, the old men had said, but Abu had other, very different predictions, which he preferred to keep to himself.

Mullah, the other sentry guarding the northern flank, gave Abu a big wave. He too had seen the shadow, and if it was one of the resurrected frontiersmen who had managed to reach the village, it was better to be two than one.

Abu sighed, cursing the sun and the dryness bruising his face. He checked Mullah's position with his eyes and, seeing that there was no apparent threat, leaned over while sliding his rifle along his belly so that he could drink from the long irrigation canal.
When he was just a child, Abu remembered the long, tedious job of digging and cleaning the long canal linking the water source to the poppy field, but since his uncle had acquired solar pumps 5 winters earlier, that had all changed: the time and effort saved was enormous, eliminating much of the grueling labor at the same time - if only we could have done the same with the Taliban and the coalition "kafirs"! thought Abu as he sipped from the stream.


A sudden creak from his left alerted his attention, and he barely had time to stand up before he saw the source of the noise, a resurrected man wearing a Pakistani army uniform stained with dried blood and dust, crawling through the poppy plants towards him.
Abu panicked, and instead of logically backing away with care and precision, the man caught his feet in the jumble of stone and pebbles, falling on his buttocks and crashing into some of the plants, which began to bleed a lovely whitish liquid.

Abu desperately fumbled for his weapon as the resurrected man gained on him, revealing at the same time that both his legs had been snatched up by the detonation of a mine, the dead man placed his grotesque right hand on Abu's leg, causing him to let out a yelp that would have been comical in other circumstances....it wasn't looking good for him.


Finally Abu managed, with his fingertips (his legs were busy grinding and beating the face of the other bulbous moldy) to grab the butt of his gun and bring it back into his lap, he immediately grabbed it and aimed at the resurrected...the trigger pulled into the void, and instead of a bloody, inert mush, the Pakis' purulent face bent over his left leg, Abu took a few moments to realize that:
His last conscious thought was to close his eyes.... only to reopen them on Mullah's face and his assault rifle bent over the zombie he'd just shot.
Not a word was spoken between Abu, smeared in a thick mixture of sweat, urine and crushed poppy latex, and his savior; the latter helped him to his feet and led him to the small promontory overlooking the valley slightly below.

Hundreds of grotesque figures, caricatures of men, some complete but many with limbs torn off, could be seen heading towards the village and its poppy fields, with the sole aim of sowing death.

A prosperous year, eh? finally thought Abu.

Now imagine Abu would be high on poppy while fighting the zombies.

What would remaining U.S. and NATO forces do with the poppy? 

[ukron]

The believer, the brute and the zombie (part one)
Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran on the second day of the apocalypse.

Mehdi had crossed the block to fetch bread and food, braving the curfew to feed his family, and ended up just a few yards from his home, shot without warning by a police patrol. It was the second time that day that a neighbor had tried to stick his nose in, ending up dead.
Mahsa cautiously drew aside the curtain and risked a glance at the road, so familiar yet so distant: the first thing she saw was the lifeless body of the man who had been their neighbor for over 17 years now, left to scavengers and the elements,
This vision gave her a bad taste in her mouth, firstly that of fear and finally that of a secret desire to rise up against a repression which today had once again exceeded the limits, including that of the simplest morality, that of not leaving a body, abandoned by its loved ones, to rot in the street.
But on the other hand, there wasn't much she could do except take advantage of the darkness and wait for one of the neighborhood's kind souls to pick up the neighbor's body and drag it home.
Mahsa closed the curtain and returned to sit on the sofa, to keep company with her father and mother, transfixed with fear and dread.

The wildest rumors were circulating about what was happening in Iran for several days: the most optimistic spoke (in hushed tones) that a coup d'état had broken out in Tehran, the most pessimistic (unless they were the most warmongers) spoke of an invasion of the Zionists and their American lackeys, the strangest spoke of last judgment, of the dead rising from their eternal sleep to curse the living and their sins.
National television was silent this morning, leaving only one test pattern; the radio broadcast patriotic messages and invited people to stay at home and respect the national confinement, the only reliable information that Masha and the inhabitants of Qom had been able to have was that the capital had been bombed and that the road connecting it to Qom had been cut off by the army.
No one knew more and frankly Mahsa didn't need to know more, for now she would have to make sure her family could eat tonight...

Colonel Amir had ordered soldiers Vahid and Javad to guard the building but they had obviously decided, like good provincials, to take advantage of the absence of their superior to desert. Who could have blamed them after everything the 6th Brigade had experienced over the past 4 days? However, Vahid and Javad were not very smart and were caught at the first checkpoint....the colonel had ordered that they be hanged in front of the entire 6th brigade as an example. Corporal Sadeq, too, had cherished the hope of deserting at the first opportunity, to join his young fiancée, but the simple threatening presence of the colonel and his eagle gaze was enough to send shivers down his spine. The colonel was even more frightening than the officers of the guards, probably even more hungry for human flesh than the resurrected ones that the 6th Brigade had to fight to make their way to Qom. What made the men move was not respect but fear, the same irrational and instinctive fear that pushed Sadeq to cling to the armored plates of the M113.
He knew that if he didn't find a way to escape Qom, he wouldn't escape the Colonel.

[ukron]

Summary of the UN Investigation Group into the events of the Morning Star and Operation Primrose (September 2019) - Confidential.

This summary was written at the express request of the Secretary General of the UN and the head of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Mission for the Infected (UNAMI), unless otherwise instructed, it is prohibited to reproduce or disclose any information present in the said report, under penalty of a heavy prison sentence.



The wreck had been drifting for several days before washing up on the beaches of the small island, its crew long ago consumed or turned into zombies, there was probably no one on board and the ship would have been sunk if the Surveillance by the Indian navy and coast guard had been maintained but New Delhi had judged that the protection of North Sentinel Island and its inhabitants was no longer relevant while a large majority of the Indian peninsula was in the hands of infected.
Without the slightest contact with the outside world, the inhabitants of the island were unaware of the threat that could hover over them but were not known to be friendly with those who landed on their island. New Delhi therefore considered that if the infected people landed on the island by chance, there was a chance that the locals would manage to get rid of the scratches before they even had time to take a few steps on the beach.
Many of the Indian officials who made this decision would not survive the fall of the Indian capital, or even the retreat of the civil administration into the Himalayan mountains, but they would have been delighted to find that their assumption was correct. perfectly accurate.

The account of events could only be established by cross-checking information provided by the Indian Navy, passenger ships and aerial surveillance provided during the human counter-offensive by a P-8A of the American Navy.

It is known that the Morning Star, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, was docked in the Bengali port of Chittagong at the start of the pandemic and that much of its crew was on the ground during the first bloody days, with the collapse from the Bengali government to Z+2, millions of refugees stormed the country's ports and ships, thereby aggravating the spread of the virus on the Indian and Burmese coasts.
Captain Caine and his officers, the only ones left on board, urgently ordered them to leave, even though they knew full well that the ship's machinery required an overhaul and that the tanks were not sufficiently full.
Readers are reminded that this type of decision, commonplace during the 2018 pandemic, created large "dead" zones in the Indian and Pacific Ocean, requiring the establishment of the international "Sea Shield" mission to sink /clean up the hundreds of thousands of ghost/infected ships.
What Captain Caine did not know was that a large group of refugees stormed the ship and seized it. We do not know if the original crew survived this "hijacking" but it is certain that it was at this point that the infection took hold on the ship.

Satellite images taken by the European Sentinel satellite showed that the ship had immediately broken down on the Burmese coast but that, unlike other ships which would run aground on the North Andaman Island (importing the virus there ), the "Morning Star" would be deported straight to the island of North Sentinel, due to lack of analysis of the wreck it is still unknown whether the ship was still headed at that time or if all of its occupants had already been transformed.

It is estimated that at Z+15, the Morning Star ran aground near the main lagoon of the island on its north face, the ship capsized to starboard and emptied part of its cargo (several containers, still buried in the 'water on this date), we cannot estimate precisely when the infected came into contact with the local inhabitants, or if it was the reverse which first occurred but we conclude, from the fact other satellite images taken at Z+18 and Z-23 show that the ship was partially burned and that around ten graves had been dug on the beach nearby.
The analysis then adopted was that the infected had established a foothold on the island and that sending a rescue mission would be a blatant failure and a considerable waste of resources, it would be necessary to wait for the emergency meeting in Ottawa in June 2019 to prepare for an international mission involving several US Navy aircraft, a Thai Navy frigate and Philippine naval commandos, then involved in securing the town of Manglutan.

Operation "Primrose" (in homage to a ship stranded on the island in the 1980s) aimed to assess the infected threat on site and to report the presence or absence of survivors.
The disembarkation of Operation Primrose personnel took place on the morning of August 24 at 6:10 a.m. local time, in the immediate vicinity of the "Morning Star", which was inspected without finding the slightest trace of an infected threat, only dozens of burned bodies. carriers of the KV-3A viral strain responsible for the “zombie infection”.

Inspection of the beach revealed the presence of numerous objects exogenous to the Sentineli cultural sphere, most of them burned and gathered near what was described as a large pyre.
Applying the Standard Procedure for Handling KV-Infected Bodies (SPB-KV) dated December 25, 2018, Operation Primrose officers determined that the buried bodies were not the remains of Sentineli but those of Bengali refugees.
Further analysis determined that all of these bodies were positive for biological markers of KV-3A infection.
During the search, an interesting fact was noted by the forensic doctors showing that the trauma carried out on the bodies presented direct blows to the head, either from throwing weapons or from blunt weapons.

By focusing on the analysis of different burials of infected people found within isolated communities (notably the Nama of Namibia), we do not find any familiar patterns (blows to the body, injuries resulting from personal defense), suggesting that the Sentineli were, for some reason still unknown, familiar with the idea of blows to the head.
The retrospective analysis of the various human contacts with the Sentineli carried out from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 2010s does not however show any posture or strategy not targeting the head or the sensory organs, but it implies an extreme "quarantine" policy ( as shown very well by the contact incident of 1974, where several gifts were destroyed by the Sentineli).

This analysis allows us to question whether the indigenous people of North Sentinel Island were not in contact, in one way or another, with primary KV infection during the 50,000 years of their occupation of the Andaman archipelago, resulting in unprecedented cultural and social practices, allowing them to survive the 2018 crisis.

We recall that Operation Primrose was withdrawn on August 24 at 11 a.m. when the operation personnel were attacked, fortunately without casualties, by a group of Sentineli using bows.
This operation, if it successfully determined the survival of the island's inhabitants, poses a series of questions for the pandemic study of KV.
We therefore recommend the creation of a specific mission to study the case of North Sentinel Island.

Scientific leaders of Operation Primorse: T. Diana, G. Balaclyon and M. Ramos.

[gillan1220]

Oh God, so the North Sentinelese were almost affected? Sure they would have attacked any zombies but only headshots would take them down for good. The North Sentinelse may not even have regards for their safety when it comes to engaging the zombies.

[ukron]

gillan1220, there is an another conclusion to the story: what if North Sentinelse have yet encountered infected? (this is was a kinda WWZ storyline).