Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Fast or Slow

Well, we didn't know what to expect. The first day was mass hysteria, and fortunately we had the heavy gates that protected the SunnyStay Motel, and no one was interested in going out. But we learned something quickly. There are two basic types of undead, not that you need to sort them out, but you need to know what you are dealing with.

Once someone is bitten, it seems like there is some sort of incubation period before the virus takes over. We have seen it anywhere from 24 hours to 5 minutes. I think the incubation period was longer at first, and why it was able to spread so quickly, more and more, people aren't taking long to go from thinking to unthinking.

No matter what you are dealing with, they are all unthinking. If it's your brother, your mom or your green grocer. It's not them anymore. You can't reason, coerce, cajole or even frighten, which is sometimes a good thing. It's just one of "them". It's best not to think of them as human.

Then you see them in two different categories. We call them the bloaters and the roamers.

The Bloaters:
These guys are fast, and strong, and seem to be still living. It makes us think that this thing attacks the adrenal system first. They have high fevers, and they slowly bloat and swell. They look like what I thought when I first heard the word "Roid rage", not really muscley, just bloated. I think they just have a boost of adrenaline that runs their body. They move fast day or night, they are loud and they are angry and they want you. Specifically, they want to eat you. More specifically they are after your nervous tissues. The good news is this. They are still alive, or somewhat alive, so though they are stronger, faster and angrier, you can kill them, or sort of kill them. These are berzerkers, these are living tantrums. Feral, individual, and interested in one thing.

Let me explain. A bullet to the heart will kill one, but not really kill it. All you are really doing is popping the big pimple that is their life. They don't really die, but they reboot. they slow down, and they lose all of that adrenaline. They don't really die, they transition to a roamer. Some of them will do this eventually. The first few nights it was hard enough to sleep, but even harder with the occasional popping sound coming from outside. We woke up and thought they were dead, but that's when we began to learn about the roamer.

The Roamers/Creepers

There has got to be a better name for these, but these are the desiccated shells left after the bloaters pop. They are the frames left by the recently departed that have something pulling their strings in the brain stem. They don't want to eat you. They want to scratch you, bite you, infect you. It doesn't seem like they even really need to feed, they just need to spread.

The Creepers seem to be cold blooded. When it is cold, they slow down. At night it's almost safe to go out, except you can't see anything, and they don't seem to mind the dark. However they sense you, they come quickly.

There are a couple of things I have started wondering about. These creepers tend to cluster. More often than not, it is not one of these things that gets you, its a herd, a hive. I don't know if they are communicating, because they don't go after each other, but they are a bother by themselves, but in the throngs, they can tear down fences, knock down walls, and stop a car.

We are not sure if they can stop a Bus, but we may need to find out, sooner than later.

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