Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Date: February 6
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana


Louisiana had always been a fan of horror stories and movies. Her home was a hotbed of legends of vampires and werewolves, ghosts and demons. America had used her home to film several of his movies, in fact, and it was perfect for that purpose. She was not afraid of these things the way that America was. She’d always been fascinated. She strove to preserve the supposedly haunted plantation homes with their hangman’s trees and ancient above-ground cemeteries and had always encouraged the propagation of ghost stories. They brought in tourist dollars after all.

Even before the outbreak, zombies were not unknown to her home. The original zombies were supposedly the product of voodoo of course, and no where in America had it been practiced more than in Louisiana’s backyard. Those sorts of zombies, however, had been reanimated servants that did the bidding of whoever cursed them. There had been none of this running around and eating people nonsense. As far as she was concerned, these fiends they were dealing with now were not technically zombies. But she wasn’t about to try to convince the world to use a more correct term. There were other things to worry about.

Her trip upriver from New Orleans had been largely uneventful. Since she’d left the Crescent City, she’d only seen once of the living dead along the banks of the river and she’d done her duty and used her rifle to take it out. She didn’t like the idea of those things getting into the water if she could help it. Bastards could survive for god knows how long under there and even the gators didn’t seem to want to eat them. Then they would wash up on the bank or the beach elsewhere, sometimes hundreds of miles away, and possibly spread the infection to new areas. But there was no preventing all of them from getting into the water. Not with as many rivers and bayous and marshes as she had.

Fucking pain, it was. Even if the monsters were seemingly gone tomorrow, she would have to worry about them walking out of the river or the possibility of the seafood carrying the infection if the water scavengers took to eating the undead remains.

Hurricanes, oil spills…shit never ended around here.

The infection in her capital was well under control. So far it had not reached here other than a few wandering in that had been quickly disposed of. Hospitals and law enforcement were on the look out for bite wounds or odd behavior and anyone showing even remote signs of infection were taken to quarantine. Not to mention that the vast majority of her citizens hand their guns at the ready and shot anyone who turned on sight. Thank god for the 2nd amendment. She was betting those liberal wimps were eating their words about gun control right about now if they weren’t already being eaten by the zombies.

She was only making a short pit stop before hitting the river again. She was going to get as much gas, food, and ammunition as her boat could hold. And since it was a fairly large vessel, that should have been quite enough to last until she’d located her siblings and America. She hoped Mr. Hero hadn’t gone and gotten himself zombified in some ridiculous stunt. His type had always been the kind to get eaten or turned early in zombie flicks. Though she wasn’t really certain that nations or territories could be turned. She supposed she would find out soon enough. Surely one of them had been bitten or something at this point. She just hoped it wasn’t anyone on her continent. She would be greatly upset if it was France or Spain, too.

She’d radioed ahead and an official in a state government pick-up truck was waiting for her when she docked with a load of filled gas cans. He helped her to load them and top off the boat’s fuel. He asked about her plan and she replied that it was simply to sail and keep on the radio and see if she could help out any other states. Once the boat was loaded, the next task was to go for the rest of her supplies: food and water. She left the official behind to run a check on the boat and make sure it was good for the journey, and she ducked into the truck and headed into the city, mentally making a list of the things she would need.

Damn shame she would be so limited in what she could cook aboard the boat. Cooking and eating good food was her favorite way to de-stress. She was going to in a bad mood the whole trip, she could see it now.


((Anyone in the area~))

Date: Evening, February 7
Location: Outskirts of Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Infection status: Uninfected

Ripped his heart out, right before his eyes, and he couldn't believe it. It was so strange how some so simple, trivial, the slightest mess up in technology could cause something as massive as this. A zombie attack. It was like Patricio was in a bad horror film, or in a bar with a bunch of drunks who have a problem with biting.

Seriously?

After scouting the areas in New York, he came to the conclusion that his brother was no longer there. Either he had high-tailed it out of there, or he was killed. Probably the latter. Since then, Patricio had been making his way down each state, searching for any of his siblings, and came up short in each state. It was almost depressing.

From what the signs read- and the rude people who had checked him- it appeared that he was just outside of Baton Rouge and was making his way up the state of Louisiana. So far, no dice when it came to finding his sister. This feeling of loneliness made him hurt, it was like a jab to the heart each time he came up short. No one was there. Patricio mostly stayed away from the large cities, opting for the longer route, and made sure not to go near any locals. He didn't want to see anyone but his family right then.

Feeling dejected, Nevada made his way upstream, wiping at his brow, and fingered his gun. He came across a city, or town, whichever it was, and started to look around. He needed food, and he needed water. He was doing well with being thrifty with the water, saving it and drinking only when necessary. Patricio made his way into a store, pushing a cart into another to make noise. If one of those things heard something, they'd likely check it out. He had his gun at the ready, looking around, and heard growling. When he turned, he saw a little girl, her mouth split from ear to ear, and she seemed a bit hungry. It seemed as though the people in this tiny town forgot to shoot a few people.. Great.

Patricio waited, watching the zombie, and when she made a move to come at him, he shot her right between the eyes. He walked over, shooting her once more for good measure, and made his way through the aisles. He picked up some water bottles, putting them in his bag, and then went to go get some food.

When he looked up and saw himself in the mirror, he was somewhat surprised with how he looked. His once snow-white hair now grey from the ash of burning bodies, and red from the blood. The bags under his eyes had turned from a purplish-black to a deep red color, signaling many nights without proper sleep. To put it lightly, he was filthy from head to toe. Dirt, blood, sweat, and more blood. Making his way to the bathrooms, he kicked open the door, checked each stall, before locking the door that led back out to the shop.

He started to wash his face and hair till the blood was gone, and the ash had washed out of his hair, leaving it a silverish color. Since he was in the bathroom, he decided to relieve himself before going back into the store. Patricio started to hunt for clothes, clean clothes were something that he hadn't had in a while.

Things seemed calm enough as Louisiana drove through her capital. The streets were empty except for a few citizens, shotguns over their shoulders, who were either working patrol or out for supplies for their families. It seemed that most people were listening to the advisories that stated they were to remain in their homes or in the shelters as much as possible. The pickings were going to be slim, Eva knew that much. Most of the grocery stores had been hit hard already and what was left would be needed for those citizens waiting out the disaster. For that reason, she bypassed the stores closer by in favor of one nearer to the edge of town where demand wouldn’t be so high. Of course, since that area wasn’t as closely guarded as the city proper, it would be more dangerous. But Eva felt prepared. Her shotgun was on the seat right beside her.

She pulled into the large and empty parking lot of a mom and pop grocery store on the edge of town. This looked like a good enough place to stock up. It looked deserted and since the window were not yet broken, it seemed like it had not been hit hard by people looking for supplies yet. She took a careful look around, making sure the sound of her pulling up had not attracted anything, and took her gun from the seat and stepped from the truck, pocketing the keys. She kept a watchful eye as she moved closer. The front door were already pried open, a fact which made her tighten her hold on the shotgun for there was no telling what she was going to find in there. The corpse of a zombie child laying upon the floor at the front of the building was not a positive omen in her eyes, for it meant that the undead had gotten this far into her territory. At least whoever had taken her out had done a good job of it. Good ole reliable headshot.

Slinging her gun over her back, she grabbed a cart and began loading it up. She began grabbing water by the gallon and then went for the stables that would sustain her on the journey. Her boat was only equipped with a little range top, so she was sadly limited in what she could prepare. This meant that non-perishables were the way to good, the less cooking required was, unfortunately, the better. Canned tuna, canned chicken, soups, fruit cocktail, veggies, ramen noodles… all grabbed by the boxfull when she could get it. Her cart was filling quickly and she had no idea how long her journey upriver would be, so she figured this would take multiple cart-fulls.

As she started to turn to bring this load back to her truck, she caught the sound of movement further back in the store. Tensing immediately, she readied her gun again and walked slowly towards the source of the noise. There were a few questions to be asked. First, were they dead or alive? And if they were alive, were they friendly? She frowned because there was really only one way to find out. She raised the gun, aiming down the aisle that anything lurking would have to take to come out at her.

“Alright come out of there!” she called, gazing down the sight of the double barrel. “If you are livin’, come out with your hands up and empty! If you’re dead then move slow so that I don’t have to waste too much ammo on you!” Of course, her words were pointless if it was a zombie, but talking out loud settled her nerves and her aim would benefit from it.