Walking Dead Broken World, Broken People

**Chapter 1: How to tie a hangman's noose**

Wanna know a sick and twisted truth? There were many people who were wishing for a zombie apocalypse. Some sick bastards sitting at their computer screens, hoping for a new start to somehow become the hero of the wastes. Become something that they should have known wouldn't have happened. Many of those people, in a sense of stupid bravado or self fulfilling prophecies became either die hard and stupid, or cowardly and easy prey. The real survivors were the ones who gave up hope of a 'new start' and simply settled for something called 'reality'.

One man knew this a little too well as his strides took him down the length of highway. Trees littered both sides of the road, blood stains that were both inconsistent yet common plagued the street itself. Chunks of meat made it look like a mobile butcher's shop had it's doors and storage explosively thrown open. None of this bothered the man as he peered through the darkened vision of his sunglasses. A balaclava covered his face and a urban camo military cap finished his look. Head to toe he was covered in black garments, a mixture of civilian clothing and riot gear taken unceremoniously off dead SWAT personnel. Armor fixed to his arms, shoulders, and most of his legs had saved his life more than once and wore the trophies of more than a few bite marks. Body armor that looked like it had also seen it's fair share of the bullet buffet and looked like it was better off as kindling than actual protection sat attached to his chest. The man was completely covered, not a single ounce of skin showing through the ultimate black that was his attire. On his chest, where a nametag would typically be kept, was a pin of a child's vision of a wolf. It looked much like something Disney would have put together back in the 80's, and was the only thing on him that didn't necessarily need to be there.

His hands rested on the butt of a rifle attached to his person via a sling. A M4 modified with a forward grip but otherwise barebones. A Beretta 92FS sat in a holster on his right hip, three combat blades fixed to the small of his back and one on each thigh, and a machete holstered to his backpack finished his total armament. At first glance, the man was a terrifying sight to behold, a veritable one man army. With that in mind, everyone in the world during today's time should know, that no one is an army. The hordes were a brutal reminder of such ideas. The man continued his trek down the lonely road, accompanied only by the reminders that many lives were ended on this very stretch of highway, he showcased what it was like to live in a reality where humanity is a concept best left at the entrance.

The man seemed unfazed by it all, even as his steps had him pass mutilated corpses on the road; brutalized to the point of being unrecognizable. The stench was overbearing and the sight was enough to make Hitler cry, yet this man carried on as if he didn't have a care in the world. In truth, he really didn't. There was no one beside him, behind him, or in front of him. As far as he could tell, there were no walkers anywhere near, and the entire setting was a serene illusion meant to make him lower his guard. If he were capable of such a thing anymore, it might have worked.

Farther up ahead, a small town loomed through the treeline. To be perfectly honest, he had no idea where he was. Canada was all he knew, but he had no idea which province or where exactly in the world he was walking to. A sign along the road, shot all to hell and riddled with enough holes to be a substitute for a metallic flavor swiss cheese mentioned a place called 'Hinton'. As he edged closer and closer to the town itself, Walkers started to slowly appear, shambling along the outskirts of buildings and moving without purpose towards whatever happened to make a sound. Luckily, his sight was a hell of a lot better than the dead, and took a moment to survey the scene.

Cars in varying degrees of damage covered the expanse ahead of him. A couple buildings on his left, what looked like a car dealership and a old fashioned house, and what looked like a public restroom on his right followed by nothing but forest. At the moment, there was enough walkers moving around to warrant caution, but nothing that couldn't be outsmarted and, worst case scenario, out ran. He was running a bit low on supplies, enough to warrant a little dangerous entrepreneurship into the house at the very least. Double checking to make sure his rifle was loaded and his pack was secure, he took off at a low and light jog towards the house.

Getting to the building wasn't a problem, the two story building looking remarkably well maintained despite the obviously present apocalypse plaguing mankind. The windows were still broken in places, and blood coated some of the outer walls, but all in all, still standing tall. The man tried the door to find it locked. Looking around to ensure there wasn't any walkers in the immediate vicinity and drawing his combat blade from the small of his back, he took a step backwards and gave the door a good firm kick right next to the knob. The wooden frame caved and the door slid open slowly as the loud crack from his preferred method of knocking forced him to get low and re-evaluate his surroundings. After a few seconds to make sure nothing was going to sneak up on him, he quickly entered the building.

He entered into a small hallway, old coats and shoes were scattered off to his left as the path in front of him diverged into several rooms. He held his ground for a moment, his combat blade at the ready. "Knock Knock...the big bad Wolphe is here." Wolphe stated in a normal voice. When he heard nothing, he started whistling as he moved forward, at first low and raising the volume as he moved forward. He couldn't get caught in the hallway, he had to try and draw out any potential walkers before they got the drop on him. As he approached the first room, he looked inside and barely missed a disfigured hand clawing for his face. A woman, or what used to be one, growled and clawed after him as her full body weight came crashing into him, forcing him against the wall while teeth clacked towards his covered face.

"Fuck off cunt biscuit." Wolphe whispered as he managed to get a hand underneath her face, grasping her by the neck and forcing her away. The walker was surprisingly intact, with only a few noticeable wounds and the obvious decay disfiguring her. She lunged forward again only to end up with Wolphe's combat blade dead center of her forehead. He pulled the blade from her face and turned down the hallway to see another two walkers shambling towards him. One had an obvious limp from what could be a broken bone, and the other's jaw was only half attached, an eye hanging limply from it's socket as it swayed with his movement.

Wolphe moved forward, delivering a strong kick to the one with a limp, forcing it to fall over onto it's back while he slashed at the other, creating a long and deep gash in it's face. On the return swing he reversed the blade and buried it to the hilt in the walker's temple. Pulling it roughly from the walking corpse, not bothering to watch as it crumpled to the ground as if it had no bones in its body, he briskly walked towards the downed walker who was trying to get up. A quick boot the head crushed it's hopes, dreams, and cranium. Not necessarily in that order. Taking a quick moment to look and listen for more walkers and not hearing anything, he dropped to a knee and wiped the blade on the curb stomped walker's shirt before returning it to its holster. He looked around at the three dead walkers, returning briefly to the woman to look in the room where she had come from.

A blood trail led into the bathroom, straight into the bathtub. A closer inspection of her revealed three jagged knife wounds in her chest. She must have been stabbed and crawled into the bathroom, barely making it to the tub before she bled out. Closer inspection led more evidence to him being correct as dried blood coated the inside of the tub. Whatever happened here happened long ago for the blood to appear more black than red. "Huh." was all he could say in response as he busted open the medicine cabinet, which got more of a reaction out of him than the possible scenario in his head did. "Cleaned...fuck." He whispered to himself, finding himself doing that more and more as his interactions with other living people either didn't happen or his friend the M4 did most of the talking. Checking the rest of the bathroom led to the same result, with not even a napkin being left behind. He walked out of the room, stopping once more of the dead woman walked before reaching into a compartment on his backpack and pulling out sticky notes and a pen. He wrote the words 'Cunt Biscuit' on it, drawing a couple of hearts on each end of the phrase before slapping it gingerly over the knife wound in her forehead. He gave the corpse a gentle slap on the cheek before standing up and continuing his trek towards the rest of the house.

The ground floor was devoid of anything useful, save for a pair of scissors which were holding up a note to someone named 'Frank'. Told him to go to such and such a place, that's where they would be waiting and blah blah blah. The scissors might come in handy as a backup weapon, or possibly a makeover tool. Hell, break the scissors down into bits and it has the potential to become a shrapnel bomb. Notes like that were all over, and Wolphe doubted that they ever actually helped anyone. He quietly went upstairs, retrieving his combat blade once more in case there were crawlers nearby who couldn't have made it down the stairs. Reaching the top revealed a large living area with windows overlooking the highway he had just come from. Dead center of this was a pile of bodies, five or six, with another hanging from the ceiling. As if to say 'Overkill' with images rather than words, a kitchen knife had also been buried into the man's eye.

The bodies were staggered and varied. Men, women, and even two small children most likely not above the ages of 5 or 6 were scattered over the floor. Carefully approaching, he saw what had killed them. Gunshot wounds to the head, each and everyone...mostly. A couple had a few rounds through the chest as well, and the staggered appearance of the bodies meant that this wasn't a mass suicide or even an execution...someone had wandered in here and summarily butchered the entire group. Looking up at the corpse hanging from his neck attached to the ceiling, he noticed a distinct lack of bullet wounds. Best guess? The man went crazy, attacked his group or family or whoever they were to him before ending it himself. "I guess you didn't know that we reanimate after we die, did you?" Wolphe whispered to the dead man as he double checked the bodies to make sure none of them were lurkers.

After ensuring that none of them were going to come back and make his face into a four course meal, he did a quick check of the rest of the rooms on the top floor. There was another bathroom, a couple bedrooms and a kitchen beside the living area. The bathroom was cleaned out again, same with the kitchen. There wasn't even a can of beans or bottle of aspirin left. The bedrooms were left surprisingly untouched, and it seemed like someone had even come in and made the beds while they were raiding the place. Immaculate, with only dust marking the fact that no one had been in here in quite some time. Clothes filled the dressers and closet, like one would expect, but Wolphe found something he wasn't even looking for. In one of the drawers, there was a hidden compartment in the back. Finding the latch and breaking it with his blade, he opened to reveal a sizable supply of heroin. Wolphe stared at the packet, his eyes incredulous behind his sunglasses. How had someone not stumbled across this stash of smack after they had searched the entire house was beyond him. Wolphe grabbed the packet, testing the weight for a moment before shoving it into his backpack. Might be good to bargain away at some point, he sure as hell wasn't going to use it.

He looked around one more time, and something dawned on him. Stuffed animals, the wallpaper had a cutesy look on it, the clothes were all fairly small. Someone had stashed drugs in a child's room. "Stay classy people." Wolphe whispered once more before wandering back out into the house. There was nothing else here, the entire place had been raided right down to the cutlery, save for the blade embedded in hangman's eye. Wolphe wandered over to him, cocking his head to the side as he pondered whether the blade would be useful or not before drifting his eyes upwards towards the rope. He grabbed at the knot for a moment, testing it before realizing that the rope was near the end of it's usable life. The signs of aging were apparent, and once he untied the knot, the rope itself would essentially be useless. "Good knot though." Wolphe stated as he grabbed the blade in the man's eye and yanked it out, spraying a bit of ichor onto the floor.

The blade was rusted and aged as well, not really useful in any situation. He tossed it to the floor before pondering whether he should cut the man down before deciding not to. Why ruin the chance of someone else coming in here and thinking up a great story for the dead that littered the house. He looked up at the knot once more before bringing out his sticky pad and pen once more. He wrote on it 'Boyscout', putting hearts at the beginning and end of the word once again, and slapping it on his forehead with a little more force than probably necessary. He smiled beneath his balaclava. He didn't get anything out of this trip aside from an adrenaline rush, a drug lord status, and a few good hypothetical stories, yet he wasn't worried. He had enough food and water to get him by for at least the next few days, along with some medical supplies.

He wandered out the front door, after making sure it was safe first, and walked down the stairs to the street. The Walkers were out in a bit greater numbers now, but they hadn't noticed him yet as he walked over to one of the cars and took cover behind it for a moment. He had to check some of the other buildings. He didn't know how to hotwire a car, and didn't have the time nor the patience to figure out through trial and error so finding one with keys conveniently in it was more than a hassle. He took a seat behind the rear tire of the vehicle, resting his elbows on his knees while his M4 lay straddled in between with the barrel hovering just above the ground.

Wolphe didn't smoke either, and at the moment he was unsure if that was a good or bad thing. He felt like he could use a slight stress reliever now, as a lone walker noticed him sitting by the car and started shambling over. A single walker wasn't much of a threat, at least, when he knew it was coming. It was another woman, this one with more than a bit of decay and disgust about her and few shreds of clothing still clung to the shambling excuse for a undead being. Its stomach was ripped open, and all it's internal organs seemed to have fallen out or were in the process of learning how to climb a rock wall as they swayed with each step she took. A large scar across her face left nothing to the imagination as bone could clearly be seen through it, half her teeth missing but still making the almost trademark 'clak' sound of a walker with tourettes syndrome.

Wolphe gave a sigh as she edged closer, slowly standing and drawing his combat blade from his holster once more. As she got within grabbing distance, he quickly shoved the blade under her chin, driving it upwards into the brain. She stared at him, seemingly taking time to process that she had died...again. Removing the blade and watching the bitch slump to the ground, Wolphe gave another sigh although this one more aggravated. "Can never just...keep you clean." He whispered to himself as he knelt down, wiping his blade on the remains on her dress before returning it to its holster and remaining a moment longer to look at the hole where her insides should have been.

He poked his hands in slightly, moving around the remains of what could only be the intestines and possibly a liver. "How do you...move? Live?" Wolphe asked himself aloud, grasping one of the intestines and holding it for a moment before dropping it back into the gut. "Science says you shouldn't exist, religion states you exist in a different manner, and reality just says 'fuck that, I'mma do what I want.'" Wolphe stated, his eyes almost glazed over as he stared into the lifeless eyes of the animal that used to be a woman and was now a corpse twice over.

He remained in this trance for a moment, before something loud caught his attention and forced him to stand and immediately turn. His rifle was brought to bear, scanning the surroundings and looking for the source. Another two loud bangs were heard, followed by frantic screaming. All the walkers in the area were already turning towards the source, shambling towards what had to be frightened and incredibly stupid people. Wolphe lowered his rifle, none of the walkers even bothering to look in his direction as he took a quick glance at his rifle. Fire mode was set to semi-auto single shot trigger, 30 round magazine fully loaded. More shots rang out, sounding like a small firearm, most likely a small caliber pistol or possibly revolver. As more and more shots rang out, he came to the conclusion that either there was only one gun, or one person stupid yet sane enough to use it at the same time.

"You know Betty." Wolphe stated, patting his rifle as he walked around the car to follow the herd moving towards the gunshots. "I remember people saying that the world needed heroes…" Wolphe crouched low as he crossed the street, doing his best to remain unseen as he could while figuring out a way to get ahead of the walkers. "I think the same guy also said he was adopted by aliens, cause really what the world needs is more intelligence. You know, the one resource this world seemed to run out of overnight." Wolphe worked his way around the horde, hopping a couple of fences and doing a mixture of ducking and running to get ahead of the hungry hungry people-shaped hippos. Soon enough, he saw what was causing the trouble.

A couple people were standing in a field, completely surround by walkers on all sides. Small groups of the cannibals were already munching on a few fresh corpses, most likely from the group that the remaining two were from. A man and a woman, both covered in so much blood that any discerning features were lost from the distance that Wolphe was kneeling. Currently, he was adjacent to a house, low enough that most of the horde was missing him but a couple were straining against the chainlink fence to get at him even now. The man of the duo was using a handgun, popping off shots and to his credit, had fairly good aim. However the consequence of this was making the situation worse. They were trying to hold their ground instead of run, most likely in some sort of shock or possible rage-suicide that Wolphe had seen before. The woman was beating walkers over the head with a tire iron, but it wasn't a matter of which direction to go for them, it was a matter of how many they could take before they were overrun.

Wolphe took a second to take a quick headcount, and he easily counted 30 and didn't get around to over half of them. Wolphe sighed as he looked down to his weapon, a disconcerting smile hidden behind his face mask. He raised himself from the kneeling position, his weapon mimicking his movement with the sights lining up to his face as he strode forward. With a quick hop, he was over the fence and the excitement started to wash over him as the two people frantically screamed at each other a few yards ahead of him.

This would be fun.


End file.
