Chapter 1 "Emergency Broadcast"
Summary:
The exact date of the initial outbreak is unknown. The military quickly set up an "exclusion zone" around Louisville before it managed to spread further, the military established a blockade surrounding the infected areas of Muldraugh, Riverside, West Point, and Rosewood, dubbed the Knox Exclusion Zone. 9 days has passed ever since all of this started, these were the end of times, there was no hope for survival...
Featuring: Scotty (Fourzeroseven) , Marcel (BasicallyIdoWrk), Brian (Terroriser), Daithi de Nogla
The garage smelled like gasoline and rust, and there was a faint hum from the generator in the corner cutting through the silence. Marcel adjusted the knob on the improvised radio transmitter. It was a mess of wires and duct tape holding it together like everything else in his life over the past days. A flickering lantern on the workbench cast long shadows across the walls, bouncing off stacks of canned food and water jugs. The garage door, reinforced with planks and scraps of metal, creaked softly in the wind, its strength untested but unyielding for now. He took a deep breath and pressed the transmission button.
“Good afternoon survivors! I am your host BasicallyIdoWrk, and it’s been 9 days since whole hell broke loose! crazy how time flies, no matter how shitty they are, and if you’re hearing this. Congrats! you are alive and you made it this far, give yourself a pat on the back”
He stopped for a moment to clap near the microphone, but as soon as he was going to continue, Scotty entered the garage, his lab coat was very dirty and worn out but it still stood out in the dark environment. He didn’t say anything, just crouched near the generator doing his daily check up to make sure it is working properly. Marcel turned back to the microphone:
“Anyways, I’m in one of the five houses from the gated community of Rosewood. It's not perfect but we got some fences to keep us safe, we got food, clean water and even electricity thanks to my lovely friend Scotty”
“You’re welcome!” Scotty called across the garage.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that he is a bad cook, so if you’re nearby, come by for a taste of burned canned soup. Or, you know, just say hi. Zombies not invited tho”
Scotty rolled his eyes but chuckled. "At least I’m cooking, Mr. ‘I’ll just eat chips again.’"
Outside, the streets of Rosewood were quiet, the only sounds being the occasional groans of the undead and the soft rustling of the wind. the two had already gotten used to this sound. But they knew that danger was always there…
"Think anyone’s actually listening to your little comedy show bud?"
Marcel slightly moved the microphone away and placed one of his hands in front of it. "I don’t know. Maybe. But even if nobody hears it, it keeps me sane. It keeps us sane." he whispered.
“Fair enough” Scotty said as he turned back to check on the generator.
Marcel brought the microphone back, but static sounds began to echo through the garage. Scotty looked at the small, rudimentary radio on the table.
The static continued for a few seconds that seemed like hours, but then it stopped, and a voice came through the radio.
"This is addressed to those unaffected by the second wave of the Infection. The disease will not spread to you as it has to others, but through fluid contact, by which I mean bites, It surely will. The time has come to bear arms against this threat. They may be your family, They may be your friends. DO NOT hesitate to pull the trigger. These are dark days, but as a nation we can and will prevail. You have not been forgotten.”
“Oh this again, It’s been a whole week and guess what? we are still in here, trapped in this shithole YOU provoked”
Scotty said, completely frustrated. He was obviously tired of his new routine and soon continued with the generator maintenance procedure. “And guess what? Earlier a helicopter flew by. You flew right past us while we waved like idiots!, So what’s the fucking point of this message?”
“Hey at least the zombies that were following its sound headed to the north with it,I wouldn’t want to deal with that many zombies,” Marcel said as he stretched out in the chair. “And now they are far away”
“We will come for you. General John McGrew, Out."
The static returned, permeating Marcel’s ears. Pushing the radio equipment away, Marcel slowly laid his head on the table and hid his face with his hoodie, soon beginning to think.
He was safe. His shelter was completely barricaded. He was hydrated and fed. But what now? He hadn’t found anyone other than Scotty, who seemed to be slowly losing hope. He had been trying to contact other survivors for a week, and for all he knew, all his friends could be dead. It was only a matter of time before all his resources ran out. There was no sign of help. There was no way the world he once knew would return to what it was before…
These were the end times. There was no hope of survival…
Scotty tried to reach for his shoulder to comfort him but was interrupted by loud grunts from outside. Marcel then grabbed his sword, tightening his grip. He motioned for Scotty to keep quiet.
Then they heard it- A human scream
He stood, his heart pounding. “Someone’s out there.” Marcel said
“Who 's screaming? don’t they know the zombies are heavily attracted by sounds?!” Scotty whispered
“I don’t know but can’t you see? We are NOT THE ONLY ONES!” Marcel said with a bit of hope
“Could be a trap.” Scotty muttered while grabbing a golf club
Marcel stepped to the garage door, carefully peering through a narrow gap in the barricade. What he saw made his stomach twist. Two figures were limping down the street, illuminated by the fading sunlight. One of them, a man, was carrying another man who was missing his right leg below the knee. The stump was wrapped in a bandage soaked with blood, the red staining the asphalt beneath him as they stumbled forward. Behind them, a horde of at least fifteen zombies shambled in pursuit, their guttural moans growing louder.
“We need to help them” Marcel said looking back at Scotty
Scotty hesitated. “If we let them in, the horde will come down on us. The barricade won’t hold against that many.”
“We can’t just leave them. If we don’t help, they’ll die.” Marcel looked at Scotty with a look of determination.
“Fine. But we do this smartly, or we’re all dead.” Scotty sighed
Marcel nodded and they opened the garage door enough to get out. He slipped out into the streets, crouching low as he darted toward the edge of the street. Scotty followed close behind
“Hey!” Marcel hissed as loudly as he dared, waving his arms to get the survivors’ attention. The man’s head snapped toward him and he could finally see his face
a metallic texture, a shining red eye and then he realised.
“Brian?!” The word left his mouth before he even realized he had spoken it.
The figure froze. recognition flashed across his worn features. Then, in a voice hoarse from exhaustion but unmistakably his, he responded:
“Marcel?! How the hell are you alive?!”
“Over here! Come on! we can chat about this later” Marcel yelled as he pointed to the garage
Brian adjusted his grip on the injured man, dragging him towards the open garage door. Marcel rushed forward to help them, throwing the man’s arm over his shoulder to help. and as he looked, he recognized that the man was none other than Nogla
Marcel carried Nogla through the house's gate and into the garage. Brian followed, Scotty pushed two zombies away before slamming the garage door shut behind him.
“Help me put some weight here!” he yelled.
Marcel lowered Nogla onto a pile of blankets in the corner and rushed to Scotty’s side. Together, they shoved a heavy shelf against the gate as the first zombies slammed against it from the other side. The metal rattled violently, but the barricade held for now.
Breathing heavily, Marcel turned back to his friends. Brian was kneeling beside the injured Nogla, his hands pressed against his bleeding stump.
“Scotty!” Marcel called, his voice sharp.
“I’m on it!” Scotty grabbed the first-aid kit from the workbench and knelt beside Nogla, his movements swift and precise. He unwrapped the soaked bandage, grimacing at the raw, mangled flesh beneath. he looked away for a few seconds but knew he had to do the job
“This isn’t great,” he muttered. “He’s lost a lot of blood, and we don’t have the supplies for this. I can try to stop the bleeding, but...”
Marcel crouched beside him. “What do you need?”
“Something to cauterize the wound,” Scotty said. “A fire, a hot blade, something. If we don’t stop the bleeding now, he’s not going to make it.”
Marcel stood and scanned the garage, his eyes landing on a propane torch that Scotty had been using to sterilize tools. He grabbed it and handed it to him.
“This will work,” Scotty said, already flicking the igniter. The torch roared to life, the blue flame casting harsh shadows across the garage.
As Scotty prepared to cauterize the wound, the sound of the horde pounding against the barricade grew louder. Marcel glanced toward the door, his grip tightening on the sword.
“I need ten minutes, maybe less if you can keep those biters off us!”
“Is there another exit here? I can hold them down and buy us time” Brian said as he grabbed a metal pipe
“There are way too many zombies you won’t make it ali-” Marcel's protest is soon interrupted as soon as he notices Brian pointing at the robotic part of his face
“Oh…Ooooooooooooh…that makes sense.” Marcel muttered “Well, there’s a door that leads to the backyard but…I’m going with you, there’s no way i’ll leave you alone on this”
both of them made their way to the backyard, there was a brief moment of silent:
“I’ll be honest,” Marcel said, breaking the tense silence. “I thought you were dead.”
Brian’s red eye glowed faintly as he turned to Marcel. “Likewise. But here we are. Fancy reunion, don’t you think?”
As they approached the horde, Marcel yelled getting the zombies attention away from the garage door and he surged forward, his sword slicing clean through the neck of the nearest zombie. “First kill is mine!” he called out, adrenaline pumping.
Brian followed, swinging his pipe. The first hit sent a zombie flying into a concrete wall with a sickening crunch. “Two!” he counted.
“I missed this,” Marcel admitted, kicking a crawler back before driving his sword through its skull.
“Missed what? Killing zombies or me carrying you?” Brian quipped, impaling a rotting torso against a metal pole.
“A bit of both” Marcel laughed, narrowly dodging a grab from behind. “Plus you never carried me”
The horde kept coming, and the two friends didn’t falter. Marcel vaulted over a car hood, decapitating a zombie mid-leap, while Terroriser ripped the jaw clean off another before stomping it into the ground.
“That’s eight!” Marcel yelled, sweat dripping down his face.
“Eleven, twelve” Brian corrected, swinging his pipe like a baseball bat to take out two more.
“I wasn’t counting yours!” Marcel shot back, grinning.
“Oh wow thanks…It's good to know that you consider me so much” Brian responds in a sarcastic tone
meanwhile in the garage, Scotty worked quickly
“This is gonna hurt, but it’ll save your life,” Scotty muttered, turning to Nogla.
Nogla looked at him, his expression stricken. “Just do it man. Do it fast for God’s sake!”
Scotty took the torch and moved to Nogla’s leg, his hands steady as he positioned the flame near the wound. Nogla’s body twitched slightly in response to the heat, his entire body going rigid as the flame touched his flesh. The smell of searing skin filled the air, and the blood flow slowed as the flesh sealed. Nogla screamed through clenched teeth but the sound was drowned out by the chaos of the fight outside.
“We’re almost done!” Scotty shouted, his voice strained. “Just hold them off!”
Marcel and Brian exchanged a glance, a mix of exhaustion and determination in their eyes. They faintly heard Scotty’s words and they turned back to the remaining zombies, their movements growing more savage as the last few zombies staggered toward them.
Marcel’s sword cleaved through three at once, and Terroriser smashed the final two into the pavement. The street fell silent, save for the sound of their heavy breathing.
“That’s fifteen,” Marcel said, leaning on his sword tired. “Wow i’m that good at slaying zombies"
Scotty finished tying off Nogla’s wound and said “Are you guys done playing? I don’t hear anymore zombies”
“For now,” Marcel said, sheathing his sword. He turned to Brian and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good to see you again, man. Really.”
They entered the house again, making sure it was locked as the night falls, they quickly make their way to the garage where they see Scotty and Nogla who was very weak
“He needs to rest, could any of you carefully put him in one of the bedrooms upstairs?”
Marcel raised a hand weakly. “Hard pass. I just killed, like, a hundred zombies.”
“Fifteen” Brian corrected as he leaned against the wall, the metal pipe resting on his shoulder.
“Whatever. Feels like a hundred,” Marcel shot back, waving him off.
Brian sighed, his glowing eye narrowing as he stepped forward. “Fine. I’ve got him. I will take the damsel in distress to her bed”
With almost no effort, Terroriser lifted Nogla like he weighed nothing. Nogla groaned dramatically. “Oi! Go easy on me, ya muppet! I’ve already lost a leg!”
“Quit whining, or I’ll drop you,” Brian replied, his tone deadpan as he went up the creaky stairs. Nogla muttered something unintelligible, but for Nogla that was pretty normal and a good sign that he was ok, but the sound of his voice faded as Brian carried him to the bedroom.
Downstairs, Marcel sat on the ground leaning his back against the wall, staring at the ceiling as Scotty sat at his side, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Man I can’t believe out of all the people we found them” Marcel said, breaking the silence. “We finally found some people of our crew”
Scotty shook his head, chuckling bitterly. “I didn’t even know they were alive. I’m surprised to see them”
Scotty smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “ I mean, Now that makes us four. We’ve got a shot. But…” he looked down “Do you think the others are still out there?”
Marcel kept looking at the ceiling
“I don’t know, It’s hard to say…But this is why I still do the transmissions, If we keep trying to look for them, we can find them, or maybe they can find us”
“Just hope not as zombies” Scotty jokes
Brian’s heavy footsteps then echoed down the stairs, and he appeared in the doorway, his glowing eye scanning the room.
“He finally fell asleep,” he said, leaning against the wall. “After complaining about everything instead of thanking me that he is alive”
“Good.” Scotty said, standing up. “Because tomorrow, we start figuring out what’s next. If there’s even a chance that some of the crew’s alive, we'll find them.”
“So since when are you a doctor Scotty? What did I miss ever since the Knox event started?” Brian asked
“Oh, I’m not a doctor. a real doctor could’ve done better, I just use this for style ya know” Scotty responds while brushing some dust off his lab coat.
"Could’ve fooled me!" Brian gestured at the old bandages and the pile of bloody rags on the ground "You just saved Nogla’s life like it was no big deal. What’s next? Brain surgery?!"
Marcel Chuckled. "He’s just been reading medicine books nonstop since the TV broke."
Brian blinked. "Wait, what?"
"Yeah. Back when the power went out and we lost the TV, Scotty needed something to do. So, while I was building this little radio station he started raiding libraries and bookstores for medical books. I’m talking anatomy, first aid, surgery, you name it."
"Figured someone had to know how to handle this stuff. Can’t exactly call 911 anymore." Scotty chuckled
Brian threw his hands up. "Unbelievable. I’ve been out there dodging zombies and scavenging, and you’ve been sitting here reading?"
"But hey, thanks to Scotty and his newfound doctor skills, Nogla’s not a zombie food. I say that’s a win."
"It’s not like I’m good at this. I’m just doing…what I can."
Marcel stood up "Alright, we saved Nogla. He’s not turning into zombie food anytime soon. But now what?"
Brian furrowed his eyebrow. "What do you mean ‘now what’? We bunker down, keep quiet, and let him heal. right?"
Scotty shook his head "We can’t just sit here. We’re low on medical stuff, and Nogla’s gonna need more than just rest. If we leave his leg as it is, he’s screwed. Infection, immobility... he’ll be a sitting duck."
"Great," Brian muttered, rubbing his face. "So what are you suggesting?"
Marcel leaned forward, his tone unusually serious. "We need to hit a clinic. We find antibiotics, painkillers, and something we can use as a prosthetic for Nogla’s leg. Hell, even crutches would be a step up from him crawling around."
Brian blinked at him. "You want to go to a clinic? Every survivor in the area probably hit it already, and if they didn’t, you can bet the dead did! It’s in the center of Rosewood! there’s a lot of zombies out there"
Scotty shrugged. "Got a better idea?"
Brian opened his mouth to retort, then shut it. He sighed, leaning back against the wall. "No, I don’t. Damn it."
Marcel stood, cracking his knuckles. "Alright, then it’s settled. Tomorrow morning, we gear up and head out. Scotty you stay here and keep an eye on Nogla we’ll be back as soon as possible”
Scotty exhaled, shaking his head. “You’ll have to be careful. Too many open streets, too many blind spots. If the horde’s anywhere near that place, we’ll be in trouble.”
"Don’t worry, Scotty. Brian and I have this under control. Quick in, quick out, just like every bad heist movie."
Brian rolled his eyes. "Except instead of security guards, we’re dealing with zombies. Great plan."
"Same principle, fewer rules," Marcel quipped.
“Alright, just... be careful, okay? The Rosewood Medical Isn't far, it's in that strip mall nearby, but it’s still dangerous. If you see a horde, don’t play hero. Get what you need and get out."
Marcel gave him a mock salute. "Yes, sir, Captain Cautious."
Brian pointed a finger at him. "He’s not wrong, Marcel. Don’t do anything stupid."
"Stupid? Me?" Marcel grinned "I’m the king of smart decisions."
Scotty and Brian exchanged a look, neither of them convinced.
The three of them shared a quiet laugh, their tension easing for a moment. Outside, the occasional groan of a wandering zombie reminded them of the world waiting beyond their barricades.
As the others headed upstairs to sleep, Scotty went back to the garage and sat at the workbench, pouring over the military notes by lantern light. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something important hidden in the documents and books he’d found while scavenging a nearby military outpost. Inside were fragments of data, mentions of a vaccine, well not a cure, but something that could lead to one if he searches more
"If there’s even a chance this could help," he whispered to himself, "it’s worth the sleepless nights."
The quiet of the night was broken only by the faint rustle of papers and the distant groan of a lone zombie wandering the street and for some snoring upstairs.
