You need to be prepared if you are going to kill them all. Cara you can use since she seems to trust you, Chris is a fool and wont be trouble. It is just the guards outside that you need to care about, you need a good opportunity to get to them before they can react.

You spend the next couple of hours resting and preparing. You try some fruit from one of the bags but it tastes bad and sits horribly in your stomach as your hunger grows worse, you'll have to eat them soon. Finally you sense their approach and put on your best happy and innocent face to greet them. You think about putting out some food for them but you aren't sure how they would react to you going through their stores so you just wait instead.

Cara enters first and gives you a big smile which you return with an equally big smile and nod, and you even greet Chris which somewhat surprises him but he seems happy about it. "lets get started then" You think to yourself as they sit down and Cara says that it is time for you to discuss your future with them.

"Shouldn't we all be present for this?" You ask, indicating the two men standing outside with your head, "I haven't even met them yet."

there is a pause and Chris replies "It's our rules, the guards stay on duty all the time and do shifts through the night time, it's the only way we have kept safe so far."
> You bide your time, you'll get your chance at them soon
There is no point blowing it by being pushy now

"Ah of course, that is a pretty smart precaution" You begin "But as to my future, you say that as if it involves options?"

Cara immediately replies with a smile "Well of course it does, we aren't keeping you prisoner or anything" she pauses "Anymore" She adds with a wink to which you grin. She then continues a little more seriously "Basically you can join us, or head on your way. I would much rather you came with us though" and you can definitely hear some hopefulness in her voice "Perfect, she completely trusts me, this will be easy now" You think you yourself, smiling all the while.

"Well I would love to join you all, it will be much better than being alone again after what happened." you carefully craft your voice to make sure they understand you are referring to the lost friends you spoke about before and you watch them both immediately react like proper normal humans, putting on their caring faces and trusting you more "Honestly this is too easy, they buy anything I tell them" You think as Cara takes you hand, leading you outside. "Well, you are with us now! She announces "And since you have joined us we can do a quick introduction before we head off to the compound!"

The guards chuckle and wink at the fact you are holding hands the moment you exit the hatch and Cara drops you hand, blushing, but berating the guards for being childish. They are now close together and distracted, but they said you were heading to the compound right now.
> You they are open, attack now! You can get the location from one of them after the guards are dead
There is no reason to wait. once the guards are dead, the other two are not even a threat and you can get all the information you need from them before you eat them.

You lunge suddenly and punch one guard cleanly in the jaw. You are not a trained fighter but with your superhuman strength and speed you still hit like a professional heavyweight. You watch the man go unconscious immediately but the momentum tips him over the rail and he falls from the silo. You are already spinning though. The other guard starts to react and the woman starts to scream but you are too fast and punch the guard in the throat before slamming him into the ground and snapping his neck, the haze around his mind vanishes instantly. Seconds later you notice the haze from the first guard vanish too "The fall finished him off then" You think as you turn back to a horrified and crying woman.

"Oh don't worry, I wont kill you right away, I will keep you and the other one alive for a few days, I need information afterall." You grab her and she is unable to resist your sheer strength ans you pull her through the hatch and toss her over the railing and into the silo. The man tries to intervene but you are again to strong and he is tipped over too. You leave them down there while you take the time to bring both bodies and guns inside, leaving no trace of your fight visible and begin feeding on one of them.

You vaguely hear sobbing from the woman below and the man alternating between cursing you and comforting her but what does it matter? They are just prey after all. Finally your hunger is sated and you look down at them, leaving the blood smeared on your chin from your feeding. "So our roles are somewhat reversed then?" You call down.

THe woman is clearly too distraught to answer right away so the man does "Harbinger, that's what you are!" he says it like an isult but it is a compliment really, you are better than them after all. "Indeed, that is one of my names" you reply with a smile "You made this rather easy for me too, trusting a stranger like that, tut tut."

THe woman then pauses her crying long enough to speak up "But you saved me, you were horribly wounded doing it!" You just smirk. "Random luck for you, I was actually intending to kill you when I noticed the mutants too late, had to kill them first or they would have torn me apart while I attacked you. Giving me enough time to begin healing up was nice though" you say as you remove your temporary bandage and show your wounds already well on the way to healing. "Now, you will be telling me where this little colony of yours is before you die. You'll find I can be fairly persuasive when needed.

The man clams up and the woman goes back to sobbing.
> You they have no food or water, leave them a day or two while you feast on the guards in front of them, they will be desperate soon enough
"Well be sure to rest now, you have a few days down there before I question you. although I might let the one who tells me everything go with your food and water. It's not like I need your fruit." You say indicating the partly eaten corpse. You then ignore them and go back to eating.

As night falls they still haven't said a word but you don't expect them to break right away and keep ignoring them, you've eaten all the good meat on the first guard so chuck what is left down into the silo and have a good laugh at the resulting screams, it is one thing to see some one die, it's another to have their half eaten and desecrated corpse thrown at you in the dark.

You settle down for a sleep and quickly fall asleep with your hunger sated for now, you are thinking about how to affect the normals haze when drift off. You are woken in the night by a thump and realize that you no longer sense the shambler in the silo, you call down "Killing it wont do you any good, not as if you could eat it!" You smile to yourself "And that should panic them more, the fact I know exactly what they are doing in the dark". You fall back asleep
> The silo painted red
You wake well before dawn and peer down into the silo, it is hard to make anything out down there even with your night vision so you wait until the light is shining through the cracks and wrench the hatch open, flooding the silo with light and blinding the humans. "Time to rise and shine!" you call down at them as they wake and cover their eyes "One of you might win a chance at going free to day by telling me what I need to now!" You then start eating the other guard, the hunger is never gone long.

You try and probe their minds while you eat but you are met with little success, it seems normals minds are much trickier than infected, you will need to practice. There is not so much crying today so you decide to taunt them a little more, maybe throw the guards head down once you have eaten the brain os something like that.

You tear the guards arm off to gnaw on while you lean over the railing to look down at them, you get a big surprise though and see the man holding a pistol pointed right at you. He immediately fires, giving you no time to dodge and you feel two bullets hit your chest before you stumble backwards, several more missing you.

"Where did you?" You manage before you feel blood starting to pool in your lungs and stumble toward the hatch to get outside, there is still a chance of you surviving if you can get to safety, the amount of fresh human flesh you have eaten should help you.

The man calls after you "We never mentioned that out friend down here still had his pistol on him when we lowered him down. I remembered and dug it out after killing him! And time to end this harbinger, you just showed me your back!"

You try and climb outside but the open railing gives you no cover as you hear the man empty his clip. Most of the bullets miss but some still hit and it is enough. You slump down inside and hear the woman crying again as things darken "Why is she still crying" You think "I was eating them".


There is no reason to wait. once the guards are dead, the other two are not even a threat and you can get all the information you need from them before you eat them.

You lunge suddenly and punch one guard cleanly in the jaw. You are not a trained fighter but with your superhuman strength and speed you still hit like a professional heavyweight. You watch the man go unconscious immediately but the momentum tips him over the rail and he falls from the silo. You are already spinning though. The other guard starts to react and the woman starts to scream but you are too fast and punch the guard in the throat before slamming him into the ground and snapping his neck, the haze around his mind vanishes instantly. Seconds later you notice the haze from the first guard vanish too "The fall finished him off then" You think as you turn back to a horrified and crying woman.

"Oh don't worry, I wont kill you right away, I will keep you and the other one alive for a few days, I need information afterall." You grab her and she is unable to resist your sheer strength ans you pull her through the hatch and toss her over the railing and into the silo. The man tries to intervene but you are again to strong and he is tipped over too. You leave them down there while you take the time to bring both bodies and guns inside, leaving no trace of your fight visible and begin feeding on one of them.

You vaguely hear sobbing from the woman below and the man alternating between cursing you and comforting her but what does it matter? They are just prey after all. Finally your hunger is sated and you look down at them, leaving the blood smeared on your chin from your feeding. "So our roles are somewhat reversed then?" You call down.

THe woman is clearly too distraught to answer right away so the man does "Harbinger, that's what you are!" he says it like an isult but it is a compliment really, you are better than them after all. "Indeed, that is one of my names" you reply with a smile "You made this rather easy for me too, trusting a stranger like that, tut tut."

THe woman then pauses her crying long enough to speak up "But you saved me, you were horribly wounded doing it!" You just smirk. "Random luck for you, I was actually intending to kill you when I noticed the mutants too late, had to kill them first or they would have torn me apart while I attacked you. Giving me enough time to begin healing up was nice though" you say as you remove your temporary bandage and show your wounds already well on the way to healing. "Now, you will be telling me where this little colony of yours is before you die. You'll find I can be fairly persuasive when needed.

The man clams up and the woman goes back to sobbing.
> The woman seems the easier one to break, Kill the man now in front of her too so she breaks sooner.
You want the information soon and you can easily dust off a human a day the way your hunger returns so kill the man now and eat him later. The woman should break easily enough and you will be headed off to the colony soon to have the feast of your dreams.

You pick up one of the rifles the guards was carrying "Been years since I used one of these! I was never great with them so you'll have to excuse my accuracy." You call down as you take aim at the man. It looks like he might be about to give a retort but you can't be bothered listening and fire right away hitting him square in the chest and knocking him off his feet. "Ah never mind, that was a great shot! You say as you chuck the rifle down on the walkway. The woman just startles then keeps crying.

"Well she will break soon enough" You think as you spend the rest of the evening sleeping and finishing off the rest of the guard. Once you have finished off the good meat you chuck the remains of the desecrated copse down into the silo and have a good laugh at how it would scare the woman before falling asleep.
> You morning in the red silo
You wake up bright and early and realize it is still well before dawn so you make a start of eating the second guard, the hunger is never gone for long. You make good headway before finally seeing light through he cracks around the hatch and wrench it open to let it all flood in and wake the woman up. You expect a startled sound but hear nothing and look down into the silo and see she is missing.

You swear and check everywhere you can see but you can only see the pieces of fencing, the half buried shambler and the dead man. You leap down, knowing you can get back out easily enough and start looking for the woman "If she killed herself I will tear her corpse apart before eating it" You think as you wrench up one of the pieces of fence while standing on the second one.

You realize too late that it is a little too heavy and you just lifted the woman up too as she held onto the under side.You might be faster than any normal human but when you loose several seconds to shock you can still be taken off guard and the woman lashes out with a knife, managing to plunge it into your chest before you can get away. You stumble back as you lash out in return, knocking her aside, but your usual strength is not in the blow and she quickly pulls herself back onto a piece of fence and gets to her feet.

"I'll kill you!" You manage as you take a step towards her but your one lung is already full with blood and it is leaking into the other. You can definitely survive this but you need to eat more flesh and rest very very soon to stand a chance.

The woman snarls back at you, a terrifying counterpoint to the smiles she gave you the morning before "Oh, you will? like you killed the others, leaving me alive? Did you think the woman would be the weakest?" She lunges at you repeatedly, slashing and stabbing. You could so easily defeat her normally, she wouldn't even be a threat, but you can't breath and you are getting weaker.

You land a punch as she cuts your arm and she goes down, but she staggers back up, dazed but still fighting and you know it is over. You don't have the strength any more and when she stabs again you cannot stop it. You simply watch as the knife plunges into your chest twice more before you fall to the ground.

The last thing you hear is the woman crying again.


There is no reason to wait. once the guards are dead, the other two are not even a threat and you can get all the information you need from them before you eat them.

You lunge suddenly and punch one guard cleanly in the jaw. You are not a trained fighter but with your superhuman strength and speed you still hit like a professional heavyweight. You watch the man go unconscious immediately but the momentum tips him over the rail and he falls from the silo. You are already spinning though. The other guard starts to react and the woman starts to scream but you are too fast and punch the guard in the throat before slamming him into the ground and snapping his neck, the haze around his mind vanishes instantly. Seconds later you notice the haze from the first guard vanish too "The fall finished him off then" You think as you turn back to a horrified and crying woman.

"Oh don't worry, I wont kill you right away, I will keep you and the other one alive for a few days, I need information afterall." You grab her and she is unable to resist your sheer strength ans you pull her through the hatch and toss her over the railing and into the silo. The man tries to intervene but you are again to strong and he is tipped over too. You leave them down there while you take the time to bring both bodies and guns inside, leaving no trace of your fight visible and begin feeding on one of them.

You vaguely hear sobbing from the woman below and the man alternating between cursing you and comforting her but what does it matter? They are just prey after all. Finally your hunger is sated and you look down at them, leaving the blood smeared on your chin from your feeding. "So our roles are somewhat reversed then?" You call down.

THe woman is clearly too distraught to answer right away so the man does "Harbinger, that's what you are!" he says it like an isult but it is a compliment really, you are better than them after all. "Indeed, that is one of my names" you reply with a smile "You made this rather easy for me too, trusting a stranger like that, tut tut."

THe woman then pauses her crying long enough to speak up "But you saved me, you were horribly wounded doing it!" You just smirk. "Random luck for you, I was actually intending to kill you when I noticed the mutants too late, had to kill them first or they would have torn me apart while I attacked you. Giving me enough time to begin healing up was nice though" you say as you remove your temporary bandage and show your wounds already well on the way to healing. "Now, you will be telling me where this little colony of yours is before you die. You'll find I can be fairly persuasive when needed.

The man clams up and the woman goes back to sobbing.
> You kill the woman and the man now, screw the information, you know where to find to compound alone
You look down at the two of them and run through a plan in your mind "The compound is about two days walk North, it is a walled community and still defended. That means it will be on a main road and I will see smoke from fires soon enough. I have no need for them to live."

You pick up one of the rifles and look down at them "Change of plans, I know where the compound is and don't need to torture you. Take this as a blessing, I'm really being rather nice considering the alternatives."

It takes you three shots since you aren't the best with guns but they lie dead in the silo, sources of food for once the guard is gone. You spend the rest of the day feasting on human flesh. and sleep through the night with no hunger bothering you for the first time in an age.

Morning comes with more feasting, as does the rest of the day, and the next. All in all you spend 4 more days there eating every good bit of meat and organ off the four before finally setting out North "This is the only road in the area and it heads North, I am practically guaranteed to find their little community just by following it" You think as you set out, pack on your back we a few leftovers and your bat swinging in your hand.
> You northward with killing on the mind
You start out North with a swing in your step. You are full to bursting with energy from eating the humans, all your wounds are healed up and you know where to find a whole group of humans just waiting to be eaten. "What more could a man want!" You say aloud to the surrounding fields.

Having gorged yourself over the past few days they hunger is staying low to nonexistent and you know it will stay that way for a few days more. Not that you would pass up another meal, best to stay ahead of these sorts of things.

After a few hours you begin testing your powers again. You were able to get your senses to reach further than before and had some fun controlling the shamblers in the barn while you feasted but you need to try something more difficult. Something like the mutants that you fought near the silo. If you can control them, then you will have a force to be reckoned with!

You keep stretching your senses out and find shamblers in small groups or singly but not anything stronger than that. You assume the mutants must be further off road and you might have to go searching for them.
> You it's worth the time and effort, go searching for mutants
Shamblers are not really fighters, those mutants you fought with however, those could fight.

You head off the road to the West, that seemed to be the direction the others came from and you know the humans were being most careful out that way. By lunchtime though you have found nothing new. Just the usual scattered shamblers and no signs of anything else. It is possible that the two you fought were the only ones in this area "Maybe they are territorial like before they died and killed off other mutants? Guess I should actually learn more about the infected if I want to control them all" You think as you take a break for lunch and eat more meat strips.

You decide that even if you want mutants, you may as well practice controlling some shamblers full time so reach out for the nearest ones. You stretch out your senses and invade the shamblers minds. It is so much easier than before and you take control of 8 of them, forcing them to follow you as you progress through the fields. 8 was a little tricky and after a few hours you find your headache growing and your nose starts bleeding again so you take a break, relaxing your hold on them while you snack on a piece of meat, wondering which human you ripped it off.

It takes a couple of hours for the headache to begin subsiding and you set out again, by nightfall you are exhausted and the headache is throbbing with a vengeance. You relax your hold once more and climb into a ditch to sleep, you are in too rough a shape you look for anything else.

You wake well after dawn, that means you slept right through the night again, you are going to have to be more careful from now on if you are going to be asleep for that long.

You do however notice two things; Your headache is gone, and your shamblers have not moved an inch. You gently feel for them and it's almost as if you still have a small connection to their broken minds, you gently push a command for them to walk and they obey instantly "I see, so I must force my mind over them at the start but once I am in control I can relax and they still follow ymy commands!"

Happy with the progress the sleep has given you, you set out again, once more having your shamblers following you from a distance, through the fields and ditches, but now you don't concentrate on them constantly, just gently send out commands and instantly feeling them respond to your will. You grin to yourself "This is going to be easy".

You keep going in a haphazard fashion to the West until nightfall and find the second floor of a barn to use as a bed for the night.You think about the situation and realize that without you  killing them off, that the scavenging team will be due back in a day or two at the most, and you wont beat that time back now so they will be suspicious either way.
> You keep searching for mutants, if they are going to be suspicious either way, you want good minions to fight them
You keep heading West the next morning and finally spot a large grouping of buildings in the distance. Once you get closer you see that it must have been a large farming complex before the infection. Several houses are spread out, surrounded by barns and various buildings you assume had something to do with raising farm animals though your lack of knowledge regarding farming prevents you from working out exactly what that was.

You start being more careful as you approach and sure enough you begin sensing something different than before. haziness in one of the barns that you do not recognize. "Jackpot, something other than humans and shamblers is here, it better not just be some Goram crazy though" You think as your edge closer and closer.

Finally things resolve. there are two things in there that you cannot identify along with a shambler. This confuses you at first but shortly after the strange things move closer and the shambler's mind vanishes "And now at least they have eaten" You think as you finally judge yourself close enough to try and take them over.

You reach out with your mind at one of them first and find it instantly. It's mid is definitely different from anything before, feral and pulsing with instinct but not the same emotions or remnants of intelligence as other minds you had sensed before. You force you will on it and find it fighting back. You can feel the headache starting and push harder as you feel it now trying to flee you attack, leaping around the barn. Finally though you force your control over it and it settles down as your slave. The other one has reacted too though and you realize it is headed your way. Once more you lash out, but this time completely confident of your ability to take it over and the confidence seems to matter and you take it over is seconds.

You now control two mutants, and from their minds, they are two more large mutant cats "Must have been the farm's ratters" You think as you command them to finish eating the shambler in the barn before following you back East. Your headache is terrible and with the accompanying nose bleed you would rather they didn't have hunger on their minds when they were looking at your back.

You have no need to worry though and the next morning they are behaving in the same way as the shamblers you control. docile and waiting your commands. You smile to yourself, this attack was going to be easy.

It is not long after that you notice the faintest hint of smoke in the distance
> You waiting for nightfall
You look carefully as you approach. The walls are High, maybe 10 foot high and 12 with the railings, the spikes on the top were surely ornamental before but they have been sharpened now into points and you can see men with guns looking over the walls at various points. They are clearly the guards as they are holding guns however they are also clearly relaxed. they probably haven't had any real excitement since the raiders died out a few years back.

It is not long before you have moved right around to the rear of the little community and see that the walls appear exactly the same the entire way around and that there are guards on every wall. You'll have to wait for nightfall. You spend the next few hours carefully maneuvering your shamblers in closer to the community and snacking on meat strips. "Almost out of meat, seems the more I eat humans, the more the hunger grows. Ah well, a feast is coming soon enough." You begin salivating at the though of eating all the humans in the community in front of you. Your senses tell you that there could be as many as 40 in there.

You will have to improve you abilities to number humans at a distance but for now the numbers match your expectations and you settle in to wait.
> You attacking in the moonlight
You wait as midnight comes and goes and give the new guards on the walls a couple of hours to get comfortable and sleepy before you make your move. The moon is out in a beautiful crescent, looking every bit like a blade cutting down at the little community ahead of you. The light it provides is more than enough for you to see clearly but you know it isn't enough for the guards who have lit torches on the railings "They have lit themselves up like candles but the light will blind them to my approach!" You think to yourself gleefully as you move closer with the six shamblers near you.

You are within a few metres of the first guard when you realize the problem. You can get over the wall easily but the shamblers will never make it. You hiss at yourself for being so stupid and take a few minutes to send them all round to the ditches near the front gate along with the mutants. You will have to open it to get them inside to fight for you.

You move to a dark spot between the torches and leave your bat and pack against the wall before jumping up incase they banged against somthing and gave you away. You reach the railings easily and swing yourself over in one smooth movement, landing quietly on a wooden platform behind the walls "Smart, they built a little walkway all the way around for their guards" You think as you sneak back towards the guard you were near before. He had seemed extra sleepy earlier, and sure enough, you find him napping.

Two steps into the light from the small torch and you have and hand clamped over his mouth and the other around his throat, crushing his windpipe. It gives way with a pop and you finish him off by snapping his neck. The hunger surges up but you have to ignore it for now. You can feast once you have control of the entire compound.

You start sneaking along the walkway toward the next guard and once more find a sleepy man, relaxing in his chair in the torchlight, you smile to yourself, they had become too lax in the peaceful times after the raiders all died. You once more move in close and before the man even wakes up enough to react you have you hand over his mouth and throat. You clamp down, crushing his windpipe but as you feel it give way, you hear the thump of his heel hitting his chair. You quickly snap his neck but the damage is done and the chair tumbles off the edge and into the compound before you can stop it.

You swear to yourself and you hear the noise it makes but you know it wasn't really that loud, You almost think you got away with it when you hear the next guard calling out "Hey Kiel, you fall asleep again!" You quickly drop to the ground, the guard wont take long to get suspicious when their friend does not reply so you need to get the gates open fast.

You sprint between the houses, luckily finding most quiet and dark and come to the main gate. there are two guards here, one either side of the gateway and they are awake and chatting to each other. But you hear the shout going up. The guard has found the body. "Kiel is dead! we have intruders! help!" You swear and rush towards the gate, leaping up and vaulting yourself onto the walkway behind one of the guards. He saw you coming and tries to raise his gun but you are faster and a punch to the throat sends him stumbling over the wall, only to get impaled on a spike before he can fully fall. the haze of his mind already gone by the time he hits the spike. You run and leap at the second guard, but this one has had more time and you see her with rifle ready. She takes the shot as you leap and you feel the impact in your side. You are certain she just got you cleanly in the kidney as you land and start punching her, not giving her time to work the bolt action for another shot.

She shot you though and the hunger fills your mind with anger as you punch her repeatedly in revenge, even though she was dead after the second hit. The shouts of humans running brings you back from your rage and you can sense the minds of several humans headed your way. You leap down and wrench the wooden bar off the gate, swinging it open.

"Time for vengeance!" you think as you order your horde inside and lean up against the wall for a moment to stop your own bleeding. You will easily survive this, but it is still not trivial, you will need a few moments to bind it before you move.

You simply order your horde to attack while you tear a strip off your shirt to stuff into your wound when you hear the shots starting and feel your horde reduce in number quickly. You look up to see the humans aren't all carrying bold action hunting rifles or pistols, several have assault rifles and they are tearing your shambler horde apart with ease, the mutants are doing damage in return though and each has already downed a human.
> You your wound has to wait, support your horde before it is too late
"Gorram automatic weapons!" you say as you drop you attempts to stop your own bleeding and charge the men shooting at the shamblers.You quickly pass the slow cannon fodder as see that two of those still standing have assault rifles and need to be taken down fast, your mutants have also easily killed a man each but they are stopping to feed and at risk themselves because of it. You quickly send to order to attack humans relentlessly, only feeding once they are all dead and leap at the closest human.

You clearly take him by surprise with your speed, bullets pass you by but luckily none hit as you plow right into the man knee first, feeling his ribs crack and sending him flying backwards. You can sense that he is still alive but you doubt that he will be moving any time soon. You spin and land a heavy punch on the next man, knocking him out cold before he can even get an aim at you. You feel two more human minds vanish behind you and glancing back you see the mutants mauling two more before moving on "No more automatic weapons now" You think as you shove the last man standing towards the shamblers as be desperately tries to reload his rifle.

Then you feel one on the mutants flash in pain then vanish. looking over you instantly see it on the ground, bullet wound to the head. You search for the cause and see two of the wall guards, one still aiming down her gun at your dead mutant. You snarl, they were going to pay for that. The second guard grabs the woman "Briar, you killed it, now let's go!" and the both start running along the platform to the rear of the compound.

You give chase and  know you can cut them off if you run through the buildings quickly enough. You start dodging through, hearing gunfire still happening and know that other humans had finished off the last of the shamblers at the gate, but your second mutant and 3 shamblers were already loose between the buildings, hunting for humans.

You rush out the side to see the two you are chasing jumping down and running for what looks like a bunker hatch where other humans are already gathering.
> You chase them down, then slaughter the others as well, they killed your new pet
You Rush after them "They die for killing my pet!" You snarl in your mind as you rush towards them, covering the ground inhumanly fast. You quickly catch the man and backhand him aside then lunge after the one he called 'Briar' she was the one who shot your pet. You even imagine how good your revenge will feel as you snuff her life out.

Sadly though you never consider that when you move with inhuman speed in front of humans with guns currently fighting infected that they will assume you are indeed inhuman.

The first bullet misses but the second catches you cleanly in the side of your chest right before you reach Briar and it knocks you off your stride. You stumble to your knee, feeling the internal bleeding start, you've been shot twice now and you are definitely reaching your limit even with your regenerative capabilities.

You sense a movement and looking up you see Briar turn to you and raise her gun "You killed claw!" She says as she is about to fire, but she killed your pet and is standing close to you. You lunge upwards as she fires, her bullet tearing through your chest but you have momentum and manage to punch her in the throat before you collapse.

You can feel the blood draining from you now and know you wont get up again but you are also looking right at Briars face. You both know you killed the other as you see her choke to death and she watches you bleed out.


"Gorram automatic weapons!" you say as you drop you attempts to stop your own bleeding and charge the men shooting at the shamblers.You quickly pass the slow cannon fodder as see that two of those still standing have assault rifles and need to be taken down fast, your mutants have also easily killed a man each but they are stopping to feed and at risk themselves because of it. You quickly send to order to attack humans relentlessly, only feeding once they are all dead and leap at the closest human.

You clearly take him by surprise with your speed, bullets pass you by but luckily none hit as you plow right into the man knee first, feeling his ribs crack and sending him flying backwards. You can sense that he is still alive but you doubt that he will be moving any time soon. You spin and land a heavy punch on the next man, knocking him out cold before he can even get an aim at you. You feel two more human minds vanish behind you and glancing back you see the mutants mauling two more before moving on "No more automatic weapons now" You think as you shove the last man standing towards the shamblers as be desperately tries to reload his rifle.

Then you feel one on the mutants flash in pain then vanish. looking over you instantly see it on the ground, bullet wound to the head. You search for the cause and see two of the wall guards, one still aiming down her gun at your dead mutant. You snarl, they were going to pay for that. The second guard grabs the woman "Briar, you killed it, now let's go!" and the both start running along the platform to the rear of the compound.

You give chase and  know you can cut them off if you run through the buildings quickly enough. You start dodging through, hearing gunfire still happening and know that other humans had finished off the last of the shamblers at the gate, but your second mutant and 3 shamblers were already loose between the buildings, hunting for humans.

You rush out the side to see the two you are chasing jumping down and running for what looks like a bunker hatch where other humans are already gathering.
> You pull back and wait to see what is going on, there is a lot of them
Chasing them down would be suicide and they would instantly notice your wound and that you are not one of them, pull back for now and observe.

You slip into shadows between a house and some old decorative tree and watch what happens. The two fleeing guards are welcomed into the strange bunker and as the door opens you realize that a bunker is exactly what it is. One of the old 'survive the apocalypse' things you always laughed at. Even at a glance you can can see it has solid metal walls, a solid metal door and lots of room inside with shelved stuffed with food. "They weren't messing around with that thing, I bet dynamite would barely scratch it!" You think as you watch a family running out of the houses to the right, two shamblers in slow pursuit. "Even with a toddler they can outrun them" You think as the family gets to safety and the shamblers fall to gunfire.

You send you mind out and realize the mutant has been doing its job though. there are no more guards on the walls and the gunfire has stopped although is is wounded, probably a single gunshot you think. You watch as the last humans run out from the houses toward the bunker and a man gets taken down from behind by the Mutant, you quickly change it's order from rampaging to surviving and feeding and it drags the body bad into the shadows, barely dodging the bullets from those at the bunker.

You watch the humans look around desperately before all retreating inside and sealing the door. You find yourself along in the compound with your pet mutant and a small pile of dead humans.
> You time to feast and heal
You grab the two nearest bodies and head into a house at random. You find a well kept little home and feeling oddly out of place in the clearly well-loved house you take the bodies into the kitchen and start eating there, feasting until the easiest to devour meat and organs was gone and you couldn't eat more without serious risk of your stomach splitting open.

You are about to take a limb with you but again the house puts you off and you head up empty handed after wiping the blood off your face with a cloth. You reflect on your own odd behavior, you have never respected property before but you guess that it might be different due to this clearly being a well loved home that was lived in literally until moments ago, the owners might even be alive just across the yard in their bunker, or they might be one of the dead you just ate. Either way you can literally feel how you are supposed to act here and find yourself obeying the old unwritten rules of a guest in another home without even thinking about it.

Almost out of spite to how you were just behaving you head into the master bedroom and use it for the night, leaving your mutant orders to guard you as wel as feeding during the rest of the night.
> You morning in the well loved home
You wake up feeling a little strange in the house again, but this was no time to be put off, You have started healing but you need to feed more to expedite the process and you head back down to the kitchen. This time as you feast you start looking around and find all the things that you might find in a normal home before the infection came "Seems like they avoided the worst of everything here" You think as you gnaw on a piece of tough muscle. "Must have had a low turn rate when it became airborne and killed those who turned quickly to stop it spreading, guess I give them credit for that" You keep looking around and realize that there is a note on the fridge, a chore list addressed 'To myself' and signed "Cara" You laugh aloud "This is Cara's house!" you smile to yourself, no longer caring about the house, only thinking about how you tricked and killed it's owner as you feast.

THe next three days pass much the same way, you feasting on humans and occasionally observing the bunker but nothing changes there when you are looking and you never sense any of the humans leaving it. Your wound is closing up already so you think it is time to start doing somthing.
> You test the bunker, there might be a way it if the company selling it were scammers
You can't sit around just healing for any longer so you decide to finally test out this bunker of theirs. You know there have always been companies selling these, some good and some scammers but also that the industry boomed as the virus first began to spread, and most of the boomer companies were frauds, installing the bare minimum for looks then leaving with the money before they had to be used.

You move closer slowly but sense no response from the humans inside, they are so close together is is very difficult to tell anything from them though. You finally edge right up to the door and still no reaction so you start your investigation properly, running through a checklist of possible obvious problems "Hinges are on the inside and the door edges form a perfect seal, walls clearly go deep underground, no windows or large panels, internal welding, the air filters are imbedded right into a 3inch steel plate..." You run through everything you can think of but find no weaknesses, only that it appears to be extreamly well made and large, the 25-30 people you estimate inside seem to have spare room.

You tut aloud as you plan your next move
> You leave and head back South, you have learned what you need to crush the Eastern colony
Time to get out of here and head East. No point wasting any more time now that you know you have the abilities needed to take out the entire Eastern colony. "Thousands, or even tens of thousands of humans just waiting to be eaten!" You think as you load up on some meat strips and Start the walk back South.

You grab a few shamblers at first but think better of it and send them to the compound instead to harass anything that tries to live there again and walk on South alone smiling to yourself. There isn't an infected now that you are scared of as you can control them all. Maybe another harbinger could give you some problems but you know inside that you are the strongest, the alpha predator.

You work out plans as you walk. A colony as big as the one you are heading too can't be handled the same way, even with only a small number of dead, the bodies started to rot before you could devour them all so you will need a smarter method. Maybe kill a couple of hundred at the start to make sure they know you are in control of their lives then trap the others with shambler and mutant guards. You can have them in little groups, each with their own guards or you could even ring the entire colony in a wall of infected, preventing any hope of escape. "I will need to increase my powers for that one though" You think.

"Going to have to keep the majority alive, maybe use them as slaves while I feed off them slowly. a population that big could sustain me for years to come, my own little herd of cattle waiting for the slaughter." You are enjoying the ideas  when night finally falls. You find a broken down building to camp in and sleep a few hours before setting off once more in the morning.
> You reaching the highway from the North
You move quickly the next day and cover a lot of ground by jogging and walking quickly, your hunger is already starting to return and you want to reach your goal as fast as possible. You think about grabbing the minds of some infected you pass but again decide against it, you can get stronger and better fed ones in the city. You could even grab a few mutants before crossing the bridge if you wanted as there should be a couple around there.

As dusk begins you can make out the highway in the distance and keep jogging and hour into the night until you finally get back to the furniture van with the sofa in it. You lock yourself in once more and eat a few of your meat strips, as long as you keep eating those, then the hunger seems to keep itself at bay. It never truly vanishes though unless you consume fresh flesh.

You consider this for a time, it used to be that your meals would come days apart, then weeks apart and you would have to horde scraps of human and animal flesh to get by. The hunger stayed away though, but now the more you eat, the more the hunger returns, getting stronger each time. Feasting on the humans in such numbers recently has made it stronger than ever and you can feel it constantly weighing on your mind, pushing you to kill more and eat more.

"It's like a second voice where a conscience used to be, but the opposite, telling me to kill and feast on humans, which then makes it stronger. Maybe this is a curse harbingers face, each human they devour feeds the hunger inside which then drives them to kill more an more. I will have to be careful I don't let it influence me too greatly."

With those thoughts you drift off to sleep
> You east with the dawn
You set off with the dawn as you know you have a few days walking ahead of you at the very least and wanted to relish the sofa for a few more hours.

You keep heading East and don't find much food on the way but your powers increase even further, with you able to control and direct large groups of shamblers from a distance

You learn to differentiate the minds of shamblers and fast types, even a mutants to the South easily fall under your control as your range increases. Your tests let you control several infected at once and direct them as you please individual without lessening your grip or concentration on the others. "They will have no idea what hit them when I reach the Eastern colony" You think to yourself. Your physical abilities have also improved. You were already faster and stronger than any normal human but that has increases along with your mental abilities, you know there isn't a normal human alive who could face you in a fight and you can rip a car's door clean off its hinges with only a little effort.

It's not long after that you finally reach the bridge across the river. There are infected on it but this wont stop you now as they are just shamblers and you direct them over the sides of the bridge to fall into the deep flowing water below. After a few moment you realize that either the fall or the drowning has actually killed most of them but shrug it off as another test, they are just prey after all.

Then the pain begins. A sudden sharp stabbing right into your mind forces you to your knees. You try to fight it off and feel it diminishing, like you are holding a barrier up against it, protecting your mind with your powers, but you feel just how much strong the other force is. It feels like a glacier bearing down on your mind, slow but inexorable.

You lash out at it with your mind, trying to force it away and almost imagine your attacks as flames striving against the attack. Then the attack pauses, it cannot gain any more ground against you. The pressure is still there and the pain is throbbing in your head but you stopped it in it's tracks. You grin as you stand up as straight as you can, they probably cannot see you but if another harbinger is going to attack you then you will destroy them while standing tall and showing your superiority. You do however feel the blood streaming down your face from your nose and realize that this is the worst nosebleed you have ever had "But of course, they launched a surprise attack on me, anyone would take a small hit but I held them off, I stopped their surprise attack easily and now I can destroy them!"

Then the second weight hits your mind and your defenses shatter, this one felt different, almost ethereal but once it hit, your already stretched defense shattered instantly, letting the original attack succeed, the pain spikes suddenly . But then the pain suddenly stops.

"Sorry about this, I really am, but you are far too close to being red to get in here alive. Only a matter of days before you went fully over so it is much better you are killed now before you actually become a threat worth worrying about."

You try and respond but find that everything feels fuzzy, you are sure the voice in your head is female though

"Oh yes, might have damaged a few things there, attacking really isn't my strong suit so I might have used too much strength, well either way it doesn't matter now. Bye"

You feel a slight pain then everything fades out to black


You can't sit around just healing for any longer so you decide to finally test out this bunker of theirs. You know there have always been companies selling these, some good and some scammers but also that the industry boomed as the virus first began to spread, and most of the boomer companies were frauds, installing the bare minimum for looks then leaving with the money before they had to be used.

You move closer slowly but sense no response from the humans inside, they are so close together is is very difficult to tell anything from them though. You finally edge right up to the door and still no reaction so you start your investigation properly, running through a checklist of possible obvious problems "Hinges are on the inside and the door edges form a perfect seal, walls clearly go deep underground, no windows or large panels, internal welding, the air filters are imbedded right into a 3inch steel plate..." You run through everything you can think of but find no weaknesses, only that it appears to be extreamly well made and large, the 25-30 people you estimate inside seem to have spare room.

You tut aloud as you plan your next move
> You wait it out, you have enough food for a while and you can observe more
There is no rush and you don't want to waste your time bashing your head against some stupid bunker so you simply make yourself at home and keep feasting for the next week. The time passes slowly but happily as you feast on the best humans and have your pet mutant feed of those who start to rot of the bits you don't want. It's the perfect pet, bigger than any normal dog should be, eats your leftovers nd can literally tear a group of humans apart in seconds.

Time passes though and still nothing happens, even with so many humans in there you saw a lot of food and that was just a glimpse in the doorway, there is no telling how long it could take for them to come out. You pass the next week in the same way and finally have enough. You are basically fully healed, you have eaten all the good human flesh available and you need to do somthing
> You test this thing properly, you have guns and access to gunpowder afterall
You head back to where all the guards died and collect all their weapons and ammo before taking it back to in front of the bunker. you start but simply shooting a few of the guns at it and get a clear reaction from those inside but the bullets just bounce right off leaving barely a scratch on the metal.

You then start taking them apart using tools in one of the sheds, someone here obviously made their own ammo and between their spare powder and that collected from bullets you dismantle you gain a fair sized bag of explosive to test. You once read something about needing to contain he blast until it built up enough so you find an old heavy duty pan with a sealing pressure lid to use and take everything over to the door of the bunker. You place the bag inside, slip in a makeshift fuse and light it. You seal the pan up as fast as possible then run for it. You dive behind a building but nothing happens.

You wait a few moments an nothing is happening so you get to your feet and peek around the corner of the building as the explosion goes off. It's rather impressive if you say so yourself with lots of smoke and bits of metal flying everywhere but when it clears you can see the bunker clearly un-moved. You head over and find that it scorched the door a fair bit and there are some obvious scratches from the pieces of metal but that is all. You clearly aren't going to get inside this way.

You turn to head away when you see hear the faintest humming noise and notice something blinking near the edge of the bunker. You find a small indent with a camera sunken into it behind a tiny thick piece of glass "They have a generator and cameras in this thing? where the hell do you buy something like this!" Frustrated you give up and start walking back over to the house.

Unfortunately now that they took the risk of turning the generator and cameras on the humans can see you, and can see you are alone.

You sense them moving before you hear the door open and have time to spin around so that you can clearly see when it opens and there are 4 humans already pointing guns your way. You try to dive to the side but two of the bullets still hit you and you hit the ground hard. You see you mutant rushing them from the shadows but they simply turn nd fire at it, automatic weapons tearing it apart and killing it before it even got half way to them. THen they turn back to you and fire again.


"Gorram automatic weapons!" you say as you drop you attempts to stop your own bleeding and charge the men shooting at the shamblers.You quickly pass the slow cannon fodder as see that two of those still standing have assault rifles and need to be taken down fast, your mutants have also easily killed a man each but they are stopping to feed and at risk themselves because of it. You quickly send to order to attack humans relentlessly, only feeding once they are all dead and leap at the closest human.

You clearly take him by surprise with your speed, bullets pass you by but luckily none hit as you plow right into the man knee first, feeling his ribs crack and sending him flying backwards. You can sense that he is still alive but you doubt that he will be moving any time soon. You spin and land a heavy punch on the next man, knocking him out cold before he can even get an aim at you. You feel two more human minds vanish behind you and glancing back you see the mutants mauling two more before moving on "No more automatic weapons now" You think as you shove the last man standing towards the shamblers as be desperately tries to reload his rifle.

Then you feel one on the mutants flash in pain then vanish. looking over you instantly see it on the ground, bullet wound to the head. You search for the cause and see two of the wall guards, one still aiming down her gun at your dead mutant. You snarl, they were going to pay for that. The second guard grabs the woman "Briar, you killed it, now let's go!" and the both start running along the platform to the rear of the compound.

You give chase and  know you can cut them off if you run through the buildings quickly enough. You start dodging through, hearing gunfire still happening and know that other humans had finished off the last of the shamblers at the gate, but your second mutant and 3 shamblers were already loose between the buildings, hunting for humans.

You rush out the side to see the two you are chasing jumping down and running for what looks like a bunker hatch where other humans are already gathering.
> You pretend to be a human fleeing the vilence like the others to get inside whatever it is they are running for
You have the blood on you to look like a wound and you do look human so why not?

You quickly start jogging out, clutching your side where you were shot and waving for help. You even pull the nearest shambler to 'chase you' to add a little realism to your drama. You see the group at the strange bunker entrance point at the two fleeing their way and welcoming them in. Then you see them point your way "Perfect, I get inside during the panic and they have no-where to run" You think as you close the distance.

Shots ring out but you know they are aimed behind you and you feel the shambler go down, You glance behind then toward the men with guns "Thankyou! oh thankyou!" you start as you get close. Then the girl looks at you again, the one the man called 'Briar' "He is working with them, I saw him kill Claw at the gate!" she shouts and immediately the guns ring out again, this time at you.


You wait as midnight comes and goes and give the new guards on the walls a couple of hours to get comfortable and sleepy before you make your move. The moon is out in a beautiful crescent, looking every bit like a blade cutting down at the little community ahead of you. The light it provides is more than enough for you to see clearly but you know it isn't enough for the guards who have lit torches on the railings "They have lit themselves up like candles but the light will blind them to my approach!" You think to yourself gleefully as you move closer with the six shamblers near you.

You are within a few metres of the first guard when you realize the problem. You can get over the wall easily but the shamblers will never make it. You hiss at yourself for being so stupid and take a few minutes to send them all round to the ditches near the front gate along with the mutants. You will have to open it to get them inside to fight for you.

You move to a dark spot between the torches and leave your bat and pack against the wall before jumping up incase they banged against somthing and gave you away. You reach the railings easily and swing yourself over in one smooth movement, landing quietly on a wooden platform behind the walls "Smart, they built a little walkway all the way around for their guards" You think as you sneak back towards the guard you were near before. He had seemed extra sleepy earlier, and sure enough, you find him napping.

Two steps into the light from the small torch and you have and hand clamped over his mouth and the other around his throat, crushing his windpipe. It gives way with a pop and you finish him off by snapping his neck. The hunger surges up but you have to ignore it for now. You can feast once you have control of the entire compound.

You start sneaking along the walkway toward the next guard and once more find a sleepy man, relaxing in his chair in the torchlight, you smile to yourself, they had become too lax in the peaceful times after the raiders all died. You once more move in close and before the man even wakes up enough to react you have you hand over his mouth and throat. You clamp down, crushing his windpipe but as you feel it give way, you hear the thump of his heel hitting his chair. You quickly snap his neck but the damage is done and the chair tumbles off the edge and into the compound before you can stop it.

You swear to yourself and you hear the noise it makes but you know it wasn't really that loud, You almost think you got away with it when you hear the next guard calling out "Hey Kiel, you fall asleep again!" You quickly drop to the ground, the guard wont take long to get suspicious when their friend does not reply so you need to get the gates open fast.

You sprint between the houses, luckily finding most quiet and dark and come to the main gate. there are two guards here, one either side of the gateway and they are awake and chatting to each other. But you hear the shout going up. The guard has found the body. "Kiel is dead! we have intruders! help!" You swear and rush towards the gate, leaping up and vaulting yourself onto the walkway behind one of the guards. He saw you coming and tries to raise his gun but you are faster and a punch to the throat sends him stumbling over the wall, only to get impaled on a spike before he can fully fall. the haze of his mind already gone by the time he hits the spike. You run and leap at the second guard, but this one has had more time and you see her with rifle ready. She takes the shot as you leap and you feel the impact in your side. You are certain she just got you cleanly in the kidney as you land and start punching her, not giving her time to work the bolt action for another shot.

She shot you though and the hunger fills your mind with anger as you punch her repeatedly in revenge, even though she was dead after the second hit. The shouts of humans running brings you back from your rage and you can sense the minds of several humans headed your way. You leap down and wrench the wooden bar off the gate, swinging it open.

"Time for vengeance!" you think as you order your horde inside and lean up against the wall for a moment to stop your own bleeding. You will easily survive this, but it is still not trivial, you will need a few moments to bind it before you move.

You simply order your horde to attack while you tear a strip off your shirt to stuff into your wound when you hear the shots starting and feel your horde reduce in number quickly. You look up to see the humans aren't all carrying bold action hunting rifles or pistols, several have assault rifles and they are tearing your shambler horde apart with ease, the mutants are doing damage in return though and each has already downed a human.
> You get out of here, if your horde is loosing, you have to save yourself
"Gorram automatic weapons!" You think as you quickly move out of the gate and into the night. You glance in all directions before heading South, the guards on the walls are too distracted by the fighting and you slip right past, jogging for nearly an hour before finding a small shed just off the road to collapse into for the night. You wedge the door shut then relax back against the wall to check your wound.

The bullet is still inside and it is bleeding a lot, you'll have to keep it closed for it to heal and the jogging did you no favors, increasing your blood loss. You feel around the back and locate the bullet close to the skin on that side so you quickly cut the skin with a nail you find on the floor and pull the bullet out before finally using a strip of shift to bind yourself up. "Good thing I'm not human or that really would have killed me" you think as you fall deeply asleep never even wondering how far you had gotten in your jog.
> You morning in the shed
You wake with a headache and in pain from your wound but you can already feel it beginning to heal. This one would take at least a week to get healed enough to act normally but you got out alive and that is all that matters. You did however loose your horde and that angers you. You were going to have to get revenge on the humans another way, maybe once your wound heals up you can go for a new plan. Either way, you'll need to get a nice safe location to lay low for a bit.

You retie your temporary bandage then force the door open to head out into the morning sunlight.

You stop immediately when you find a ring of humans about 20 feet away with guns pointed at you. One calls over "You nearly had us that time raider, getting them inside the walls, don't know how you managed that but they are dumb and stop to feed letting us kill them easily. Then you also left us a blood trail all the way here, must be quite the wound you got." He says this last piece with a huge grin. He is obviously very happy that you are wounded.

You spit and reply "I'm no raider, and I'm going to have my revenge on you all for killing my pets." you reply as you start forward, hunger and anger getting the better of you. Mere humans taunting you like this.

Sadly anger is not a great way to think and the man replies as you take your first steps "Oh no, we will be getting our revenge on you, and we really don't care what you are." The humans all begin firing at once.


Shamblers are not really fighters, those mutants you fought with however, those could fight.

You head off the road to the West, that seemed to be the direction the others came from and you know the humans were being most careful out that way. By lunchtime though you have found nothing new. Just the usual scattered shamblers and no signs of anything else. It is possible that the two you fought were the only ones in this area "Maybe they are territorial like before they died and killed off other mutants? Guess I should actually learn more about the infected if I want to control them all" You think as you take a break for lunch and eat more meat strips.

You decide that even if you want mutants, you may as well practice controlling some shamblers full time so reach out for the nearest ones. You stretch out your senses and invade the shamblers minds. It is so much easier than before and you take control of 8 of them, forcing them to follow you as you progress through the fields. 8 was a little tricky and after a few hours you find your headache growing and your nose starts bleeding again so you take a break, relaxing your hold on them while you snack on a piece of meat, wondering which human you ripped it off.

It takes a couple of hours for the headache to begin subsiding and you set out again, by nightfall you are exhausted and the headache is throbbing with a vengeance. You relax your hold once more and climb into a ditch to sleep, you are in too rough a shape you look for anything else.

You wake well after dawn, that means you slept right through the night again, you are going to have to be more careful from now on if you are going to be asleep for that long.

You do however notice two things; Your headache is gone, and your shamblers have not moved an inch. You gently feel for them and it's almost as if you still have a small connection to their broken minds, you gently push a command for them to walk and they obey instantly "I see, so I must force my mind over them at the start but once I am in control I can relax and they still follow ymy commands!"

Happy with the progress the sleep has given you, you set out again, once more having your shamblers following you from a distance, through the fields and ditches, but now you don't concentrate on them constantly, just gently send out commands and instantly feeling them respond to your will. You grin to yourself "This is going to be easy".

You keep going in a haphazard fashion to the West until nightfall and find the second floor of a barn to use as a bed for the night.You think about the situation and realize that without you  killing them off, that the scavenging team will be due back in a day or two at the most, and you wont beat that time back now so they will be suspicious either way.
> You head back quickly so you can attack before the party is too long overdue and alarms are raised
You can take out the small compound alone easily enough so having some shamblers under your control will be more than enough. Also if you take too long they will be suspicious if their team does not return but you turn up instead. You stretch out your senses and invade the shamblers minds. It is so much easier than before and you take control of 8 of them, forcing them to follow you as you progress down the road. 8 was a little tricky and after a few hours you find your headache growing and your nose starts bleeding again so you take a break, relaxing your hold on them while you snack on a piece of meat, wondering which human you ripped it off.

It takes a couple of hours for the headache to begin subsiding and you set out again, by nightfall you are exhausted and the headache is throbbing with a vengeance. You relax your hold once more and climb into a ditch to sleep, you are in too rough a shape you look for anything else.

You wake well after dawn, that means you slept right through the night again, you are going to have to be more careful from now on if you are going to be asleep for that long.

You do however notice two things; Your headache is gone, and your shamblers have not moved an inch. You gently feel for them and it's almost as if you still have a small connection to their broken minds, you gently push a command for them to walk and they obey instantly "I see, so I must force my mind over them at the start but once I am in control I can relax and they still follow ymy commands!"

Happy with the progress the sleep has given you, you set out again, once more having your shamblers following you from a distance, through the fields and ditches, but now you don't concentrate on them constantly, just gently send out commands and instantly feeling them respond to your will. You grin to yourself "This is going to be easy"

It is not long after that you notice the faintest hint of smoke in the distance
> You approaching the target, horde following behind
You slow your pace a little to match that of a normal human's walking and soon your keen eyes pick out a grey smudge below the thin trail of smoke. As you get closer the smudge resolves itself into a large grey wall topped with small spiked railings. The gated community.

You keep your pace slow, you aren't sure if a normal human could have noticed the smoke and walls yet so you play it safe and wait a few more minutes before obviously turning your attention to the wall. You have your shamblers take more care and move slowly closer on either side, you picked up a few more that morning so you have a dozen of them now, 6 on each side.

You look carefully as you approach. The walls are High, maybe 10 foot high and 12 with the railings, the spikes on the top were surely ornamental before but they have been sharpened now into points and you can see men with guns looking over the walls at various points. They are clearly the guards as they are holding guns however they are also clearly relaxed. they probably haven't had any real excitement since the raiders died out a few years back.

You look carefully at them and realize that none of them is actually reacting to you at all. you look around and realize that most of you is covered by farm hedges and gates so that unless they were being vigilant they wont notice you for a few minutes yet. You still have time to decide on your best plan of action.
> You head on up the road openly and claim the scavengers sent you so you can get inside
The scavengers move a lot slower than you do so they might not even be expected back yet, time to use this to your advantage!

You quickly check yourself over, your arm wound is already healed to the point that it looks more like an old injury than a frsh claw attack from a mutant, that will be easy to pass off. There is some blood on your clothing along with mud and other stains but honestly who doesn't in this world. You set out for the gates.

As you walk you carefully maneuver all of your shamblers into ditches and under hedges, you are going to abandon then for a day maybe two before you attack so it is best if they are hidden properly, and it is not as if they complain about living in a hole for two days.

You walk slowly, trying to emulate a weary human on a long walk and finally get close to the gate. You are in full view of the guard on the wall for a while before they finally notice you and the shout goes up to mark your presence "Lax guards, they should have seen me miles back. This will be easy if they are all this bad" You keep walking until you finally halt in front of the gate.

The walls either side are clearly a solid 10 feet tall with the 2 foot railing spikes above and they are clearly maintained, the gates are large wooden affairs with metal banding, probably to emulate old castle gates but they will be strong. You see several humans looking down at you from either side and having seen them move there from around the walls you know they must have a walkway on the inside.

You see several guns level at you but no fingers on triggers just yet, you also note that two of the guns are assault rifles, you will need to be careful. You know it is best to wait for them to speak first and do not need to wait for long before one of the men calls down "State your business, then prove you are human!"

You lay your pak and bat down carefully then show your hands are now empty as you reply "Well I met your scavenging team a couple of days South and they sent me here to find sanctuary." you pause "I don't know how much they know about my kind so I'll play it dumb" You continue "As for proving I am human, well erm, I am talking?"

The man stares at you "Show us your skin, no recent bites, that sort of thing. Then when we clear you, you can prove you were sent by our scavenging team." He keeps his gun up so you know you have to comply now.

You slowly take your shirt off, revealing your muscular body and see a couple of approving looks from the women, then do a slow turn with arms raised to show you don't have any bites "Do I remove the trousers and underwear out here too?" You ask the man who is clearly in charge but he simply waves at your shirt and you put it back on. Realizing he is waiting for you you think quickly about what you had learned before you killed them, it occurs to you that they made a couple of jokes about a man called "Boring" who kept trying to be all official with the gate so you gamble on that.

"Well when I was with Cara and Chris they did tell me what to do when I got here" You begin, and note the positive reaction when you gave their names "They said I should come to the gate a report to mr. Boring, well they just said 'boring'" You immediately see the man turn a little red and look displeased "I will have words with them!" The other guards clearly start chuckling and grinning behind him I have told them not to nickname me 'boring', they can use 'Fire' or 'Lion' but not Boring! what I do at the gate is important!"

You can see you touched a nerve but from every ones expressions you know that you are safe, this is obviously a running joke so you keep going "Erm, sorry? Thats kind of all they told me to do,.." You trial off and know you are successful when you see the man sigh and wave behind him before replying "Yes, well you can't be blamed for their pranks, Chris is too easily influenced by Cara and her pranks, Welcome to 'Safe-Haven', the name might not be original but it fits."

The gate opens and you head inside.
> You safe-Haven
As you walk in through the gate you get your first proper view of the little community, apart from the surrounding wall and wooden walkway you couldn't even tell that the world ended outside. There is a group of nicely laid out houses in the centre, a play park, a couple of mechanical looking buildings with tools and machinery inside and even a generator next to them.

The people are the same, clean clothing and all smiling and chatting as if the most horrific decade in human history wasn't still fully underway just past the gate you had walked through. One of the guards hops down behind you and several of the people come over, one is even carrying a toddler. The guard starts introducing everyone and you give short pleasant responses before realizing the thing that was bugging you the most. You look like a hobo, a hobo who had something die and rot on it's clothing recently and everyone around you is clean and well dressed for a rural community.

Your realization and glances at your torn and stained shirt must have registered as one of the women cuts the guard off "Let the man rest and get a change of clothing first before he gets embarrassed!" You are about to object when you hear a whoop from behind you and a female guard from the gate comes running over "I'll help, just wait till you see him with his shirt off!" The older woman tuts at her "Briar, behave yourself!" but she just grins and turns to you "Ok lets get you out of that shirt so I can burn it!". You don't actually feel embarrassed about anything around your prey and you definitely don't care what they think since you are about to eat them but you do find it strange that the social conventions still hold sway over you "I will have to break myself of these stupid old social compulsions, they get in the way" You think as you pull your shirt off and hear another whoop from Briar as she takes your shirt and heads off to a fire-pit near the walls. You also get some approving looks from the other ladies and glance down at your perfectly muscled self, "I am a bit of an Adonis thanks to the virus, makes sense I guess" you think as you let the crowd of women take you over to a shed and hand you some new clothing.

You do change in private though, despite seeing them as prey to be eaten at the first opportunity, you mind still pulls you away from certain acts.

When you finally come out there is a larger crowd, including men ready to greet you and show you their little community. They take you on a whirlwind tour, showing off everything like proud parents showing off their firstborn child. It is all as you first saw, nice well loved little houses and a couple of old barns used as machine shops, The one thing that catches your eye is at the back. A huge metal door leading into a metal corridor that seems half buried at the back of the compound.

"That's our bunker!" One of the men proudly announces "If everything else fails, we can all live in there for months without any worries!" You mke a mental note to check it out, it would be problematic if you entire food supply was locked in a giant steel box after all.
> The night and the next day
You are shown to a house that looks less well kept than the others and are told you can use it as your own "An old member, called himself 'Playa' used to live here, sadly he was on a scavenge when they got attacked, him and his partner never returned so now it's yours." You thank them and head inside, finding yourself automatically wiping your feet as you do so "Oh come on, I haven't wiped my feet in years, what am I doing?" You head upstairs and find a nicely laid out bedroom complete with a full bead "Although I really can't complain about this!" You hop onto the bed and relax "Even better than my van-sofa!" You think as you begin making your plans.

You start by stretching out your senses and trying to count the humans, you find that they are often too close together to count perfectly but at least 30-40 which fits your initial guess. Several act as guards day and night and they have a fair amount of guns including at least two automatic weapons. They also have the bunker but there are ways of dealing with that too.

You slowly fall asleep as the sun sets, thinking about all those walking meals, just feet away and battling the hunger that always comes with those type of thoughts.
> You well before dawn
You wake after just a few hours sleep like you used too, hunger eating at your belly and pressing on the back of your mind. You are going to have to make your plans soon or you might snap and just outright attack someone.Then you pause "I'm not normally this bloodthirsty, I used to be able to control my urges much better. Guess this is what happens when I feast, luckily I know I can hold it at bay for a few days if I need too"

You roll over in your bed and send out your senses again before finally heading over to the window to check the time "The moon says it's around 3 or 4 am and there are definitely guards still on the walkway but they are not moving at all. Probably sleep right now if not fully asleep from how lax they were when I approached.

You head downstairs and peak out all of the windows, sure enough you see little to no movement anywhere in the compound. You cannot see the gate from your new house but if the two guards there are anything like the others then they will be fast asleep too.

You think things through again "The scavengers are due back tomorrow I'd guess, I could play it out for one extra day if I say they had an extra large amount of food but people will get suspicious quickly. My other option is making my move now, I have the shamblers outside and ready to invade the second I kill a few guards and let them in."
> You hold off one more day to plan and prepare
Waiting it out one more day while you investigate the bunker and guard numbers is the best plan so you head to the kitchen and see what you can find to eat. You find it empty "They must have cleared it out after the last bugger died" You think s you head back upstairs to wait for dawn to arrive, it wouldn't be smart to be caught wandering about outside right now if you didn't plan to kill them all tonight.

When the dawn finally comes, you have decided that the bunker is the key, even if you got half the guards dead and lat the shamblers inside, a large number of the humans could get to the bunker and hide out there if they were smart. You head out into the dawn light with a plan in mind.

But first you have to act nice to the walking meat-sacks.

You spend some time exchanging pleasantries with the members of the community and finally Boring heads you way with questions clearly on his mind "So friend, you survived long enough to get here and join us and you say Cara's team sent you but there are some things you need to answer". You give your best 'I'm not planning on ripping your head off and eating you' smile and reply "Of course, whatever you need to ask"

"Two things" He begins "Firstly, everyone here earns their keep, even the kids, well, once they are able, anyway, if you plan to stay you'll need to do your share. Second, we were expecting Cara's team back before dusk yesterday and they haven't arrived, what do you know?" He immediately gets some disapproving looks from the others nearby but you reply quickly to them as well as him "They are fair questions, I will of course do my share where-ever I am needed, I will let the community decide my role and I will happily do it, you are the ones who know what is needed here. As for Cara and the others... I don't know, they did have a large number of sacks full of fruit and veg though, they said they had been extra successful?" He thinks for a moment then nods and heads off back to the gate while you force the bowl of gruel down your throat. It tasted liek ashes in your mouth and felt like it was kicking you in the gut it sat so badly but you had to keep the act up or they prey would get suspicious too quickly.

After breakfast and the pleasantries you head for a walk around the inside of the wall, waving and saying hello to the guards before finally coming to the bunker, finding it open.
> The bunker
You grin at your own good fortune and immediately try to act like an innocent but curious visitor "Hello there?" You call as you slip through the door and down the ramp inside, finding yourself in a much larger room than expected. The walls lined with shelves packed with food tins of all varieties and bottles of water. You even see a generator with its vents plugged into the wall in one corner "They weren't kidding when they said they could survive here for months" You think as a man steps out of a far corner and simply asks "Can I help you?"

You put on your best smile "Ah erm, well I just arrived yesterday and everyone was talking about the bunker so when I saw the door open I thought I should come and look, I did should hello?" The man simply nod and goes back to his clipboard "Ah yes, I saw you briefly as you were swarmed by the more excitable members of our little community. Luckily with the relatively recent loss of two members you will not throw our plans off at all.

You are about to question his 'plans' when you realize he must be referring to the stores down here, he must be in charge of the rationing so he would be the one knowing exact numbers of people and things. "Well it seems very safe down here." You try.

"Ah yes, safe indeed, out community all put in together to fund it from a specialist company I used to work for! We were not like the scammers that came after the infection began spreading. We were very expensive but with build with great care, our minimum standard was would we feel safe in it ourselves, and in this case I planned to use it myself so I made double certain of every detail." He seems keen on the subject so you keep asking questions "So you knew something like the virus was coming?"

He pauses and looks at you "The virus?" Then he seems to reach some conclusion you can only guess at and brightens up before continuing "Oh dear me no, the virus was a shock indeed, we expected nuclear war. The world was headed towards it and we expected the biological attacks to get worse and worse until someone finally launched the first nuke. It seems that at least one country had other plans and released a virus that was a little too effective. Once it started mutating even their own vaccines were not effective.This beauty is a full community nuclear fallout shelter. You could house a small number safely for years without ever opening the door, the entire community could easily last" He glances down at his clipboard "5 and a half months before needing to make a run for more water, then they would have another 5 months!" excellent design and it could be hit directly by  a tank and barely take any damage! We were remote enough to avoid the main hordes but close enough to the city to get the vaccine once it was developed and only lost a handful of members." He goes back to smiling to himself as he marked things off on his board "Well thanks for the info" you say as you head back out.

Either you need to be in here when the door shuts of you need to stop anyone else getting in, you don't see any weakness at all in the design.
> You waiting for nightfall
You spend the rest of the day checking out all of the defenses as subtly as possible and being nice to all the humans as they taunted you with their flesh and minds, just waiting to be eaten, but you hold the urges off for now. You cannot act prematurely and let the hunger control you, that will just get you killed.

You force yourself to stomach the horrendous food they give you and finally retire to your own house for the night and count the hour passed as you watch the moon. at midnight you sense the guards change over and watch the new ones settle in and get relaxed, leaving them long enough to get nice and sleepy before acting.

But the ones at the gate keep moving, they clearly are not sleepy and might be a small problem tonight.
> You gate open first, then while the shamblers get killed, you hide in the bunker with the others
You slip quickly out of the house and head for the South West corner of the compound "No time like the present!" you think as you sneak close to the first guard and see he is isn't moving "Time to reduce the number of humans with guns so my shamblers will have free reign" You think as you move further along the wall. The guards have lit torches on the railings, helps them see nearby things but makes them night blind to anything more than a few feet away. You find a spot between torches and gently swing yourself up onto the walkway. You sneak back towards the guard you were near before. He had seemed extra sleepy earlier, and sure enough, you find him napping.

Two steps into the light from the small torch and you have one hand clamped over his mouth and the other around his throat, crushing his windpipe. It gives way with a pop and you finish him off by snapping his neck. The hunger surges up but you have to ignore it for now. You can feast once you have control of the entire compound.

You start sneaking along the walkway toward the next guard and once more find a sleepy man, relaxing in his chair in the torchlight, you smile to yourself, they had become too lax in the peaceful times after the raiders all died. You once more move in close and before the man even wakes up enough to react you have you hand over his mouth and throat. You clamp down, crushing his windpipe but as you feel it give way, you hear the thump of his heel hitting his chair. You quickly snap his neck but the damage is done and the chair tumbles off the edge and into the compound before you can stop it.

You swear to yourself and you hear the noise it makes but you know it wasn't really that loud, You almost think you got away with it when you hear the next guard calling out "Hey Kiel, you fall asleep again!" You quickly drop to the ground, the guard wont take long to get suspicious when their friend does not reply so you need to get the gates open fast.

You sprint between the houses, luckily finding most quiet and dark and come to the main gate. there are two guards here, one either side of the gateway and they are awake and chatting to each other. But you hear the shout going up. The guard has found the body. "Kiel is dead! we have intruders! help!" You swear and rush towards the gate, leaping up and vaulting yourself onto the walkway behind one of the guards. He saw you coming and tries to raise his gun but you are faster and a punch to the throat sends him stumbling over the wall, only to get impaled on a spike before he can fully fall. the haze of his mind already gone by the time he hits the spike. You run and leap at the second guard, but this one has had more time and you see her with rifle ready. She takes the shot as you leap and you feel the impact in your side. You are certain she just got you cleanly in the kidney as you land and start punching her, not giving her time to work the bolt action for another shot.

She shot you though and the hunger fills your mind with anger as you punch her repeatedly in revenge, even though she was dead after the second hit.. The shouts of humans running brings you back from your rage and you can sense the minds of several humans headed your way. You leap down and wrench the wooden bar off the gate, swinging it open.

"Time for vengeance!" you think as you order your horde inside and lean up against the wall for a moment to stop your own bleeding. You will easily survive this, but it is still not trivial, you will need a few moments to bind it before you move.

You simply order your horde to attack while you tear a strip off your shirt to stuff into your wound when you hear the shots starting and feel your horde reduce in number quickly. You look up to see the humans aren't all carrying bold action hunting rifles or pistols, several have assault rifles and they are tearing your horde apart with ease.
> You take them down fast before they kill too many of your shamblers
Your wound will have to wait, you sprint towards the men, watching them take down two more shamblers with easy shots spread between the chest and head. The stupid shamblers were just not fast enough to get in close. But you are fast, very fast. You close the distance and pass your last 4 shamblers as you leap at the front human with an automatic weapon, Your knees hits him in the chest and you send him flying backwards. You felt his ribs crack but can feel that he is still alive "Out of action for now though"  You think as you spin and punch another guard in the face, knocking him out cold.

Then you feel the impacts in your back and stagger forwards. You turn slowly as your lungs fill with blood to see on of the men calmly pointing his rifle your way "Hey this one is a lot tougher than the normal ones at least!" He calls to his comrades as he pulls the trigger again and three more bullets tear into you.


You spend the rest of the day checking out all of the defenses as subtly as possible and being nice to all the humans as they taunted you with their flesh and minds, just waiting to be eaten, but you hold the urges off for now. You cannot act prematurely and let the hunger control you, that will just get you killed.

You force yourself to stomach the horrendous food they give you and finally retire to your own house for the night and count the hour passed as you watch the moon. at midnight you sense the guards change over and watch the new ones settle in and get relaxed, leaving them long enough to get nice and sleepy before acting.

But the ones at the gate keep moving, they clearly are not sleepy and might be a small problem tonight.
> You wait one more day, it wont hurt to be cautious now
With the guards at the gate still active it is too risky, they could raise the alarm and ruin everything before your plan every really gets underway.

You sleep for  a few hours and wake with the dawn, heading down to the kitchen you find a couple of the guards there. You are immediately on alert but one smiles at you and waves you to a seat "So we decided you'll be joining the guards!" seems best suited for you if you survived this long out there along you'll know something about killing infected right?"

You relax a little and nod your consent as he continues "We came to get you but then felt bad for waking you before dawn since you aren't a guard YET. so we let you sleep, but come on Boring has asked us to show you a few things." The guards all get up and head for the door and you follow, you notice they are all carrying their guns but think nothing of it, it is their job.

They take you right to the bunker and lead you inside "So this is the bunker, our last line of defense. Our main job is not so much to hold off the attackers at the walls, but to delay them until everyone gets in here safely then we can simply wait it out!" You smile back and pretend to look around interested as you walk inside.

"Yeh I met someone in here the other day and he told me about it..." you begin as you turn to see the guards backing out of the door and locking you in as he says "And we can also use it as a prison for those we suspect, since there is no way out without a key." You rush the door but it locks in place before you can do anything.
> You prisoner in the bunker
Your hunger pushes you to rage against the door, and you are about to give in before you calm yourself and step back. You try to call to them to profess your innocence for whatever they suspect but it seems like the door blocks the noise out too so you wander over to a fold-out chair and take a seat. It is several hours before you hear the door moving again. You jump to your feet but as it opens you see at least 6 men with guns pointed at you on the other side, no way you could get out the door before they shot you.

You see Boring stepping out from where he was obviously opening the door and move up to the entryway but not inside. You note that he never blocks too many of the gunmen from your view though, probably to make sure you still feel intimidated when he speaks "That wont work on me though, I am better in every way then him, I could easily crush his skull with one hand. But I will play along for now, then enjoy slaughtering everyone he cares about the second I get free."

He finally begins talking to you as you sit down again on your little folding chair "Well I am sorry to have to do this since several of our little community seem taken with you but things are looking suspicious right now and you wouldn't be the first raider to try and get our guard down this way."

You think carefully before replying "Oh come on, I have behaved perfectly, I was even sent here by Cara and Chris!" You see the man smiling in response "Yes you joked around the fire about saving her life and spending time chatting with them, but now they are two days overdue on their return. I sent out a couple of our fastest men yesterday to find out what happened to them. It might be a freak accident or problem, or they might just turn up late but we must be careful and until we know the truth you will be living here."

You try and protest but he backs out and closes the door again.
> You judgement day
You have two more nights in the Bunker and open a couple of cans of meat to eat while you are there "Can't blame me for eating if they were the ones to lock me in here" You think, but the canned food taste horrible to you and barely does anything for the hunger, if it wasn't slightly better than nothing you wouldn't even bother.

Finally the door opens again and once more you see boring and the men with guns outside. This time though there are a few more of them. "Come on out now, there are people wanting to chat with you to work out the truth." You are confused at first but this is better than expected, maybe they didn't find the remains or thought that infected got them, there were two mutant carcass near the silo after all.

They look nervous though so you will have to be careful "Of course" you reply "I can clear my name that way and get back to helping out here". Boring simply nods in response and starts walking away, several of the men follow him off to the side, leaving only a few near the entrance and they stop actively pointing guns at you.

You walk up happily "I can play on their doubts, play the sadness card, pretend I am broken up about my new friends deaths bla bla. They will trust me again in no time, then I can tear them apart and feast tonight!" You think as you reach the doorway and notice that boring and the other guards had simply looped around as soon as they were out of sight and were now just a few metres away with all their guns pointed right at you.

"Heralds must die, that is the first commandment for survivors!" Boring shouts as the others all open fire. You go down in the hail of bullets "Ah, they must have worked it out from the bodies then" you think