Below is the short story for my RPG project for Games design two.
The story sets up the backstory for the setting of the RPG game which takes place in a plague ravagedunnamed city somewhere in mid west America.
A full timeline of events, list of characters and other assorted information is available in my high concept document but the short story is unrelated to the actual plot of the game.
Instead I tried to focus on creating the sense of desolation and terror which is prevalent in the world after the crisis.
Unlike most apocalyptic fiction, instead of mutants and zombies being the main antagonist I chose to focus much more on the human element and show how people can become violent and dangerous when forced into crisis situations.
After the fall –
A post apocalyptic short story by Joe Steele
Prologue:
Throughout mankind’s short and bloody history, we have fell into ages of darkness; War, famine, plague; all of these cataclysms mired and outweighed our many accomplishments, all of which were left behind when mankind entered our darkest and final chapter at the beginning of the 21st century.
A black plague, unlike anything ever witnessed before, began to ravage the cities of Earth.
In the first weeks thousands died.
Those who did not succumb to the mysterious infection were left to deal with the crumbling society around them.
Streets full of dead, infected from the plague and hordes of zealous soldiers patrolling the ruins made life hell for those that were immune to the infection.
They had survived the cataclysm, only to be faced with a new and desolate future where violence and death were the norm; the remains of the old world were now nothing but ash.
For a time us survivors had banded together. It seemed only logical that we stood more chance of surviving if we travelled in groups and only by night in those first few months.
It was easier to find food and avoid the patrols when we stuck together, we were organised, diligent and completely diplomatic. We didn’t need a leader, our only concerns were unanimous and the choices we made were beneficial to the whole group.
We travelled the streets by night, foraging deserted shopping malls and corner stores. We camped when we needed to and always out of sight of the UAVS that monitored the skies by day and the watchful eyes of the military by day.
It wasn’t an ideal life, we were surrounded by death and disease every day but at least it was life.
The religious members of our group, and there were many, prayed every day that we had survived such a cataclysm.
But then food became scarce.
Endless hunger gave rise to rationing and not long after even the rations ran dry. It was difficult to cultivate food when we were constantly on the move, the majority of our meals were the MRE packs stolen from the military patrols we raided. But even he soldiers became few and far between.
We started to stumble upon outposts, deserted and the few remaining guards were long dead, no doubt succumbing to starvation, disease and depression. We took what we could. Tins of food and gunpowder, clothes and weapons; most of which were without ammunition.
I had never used a gun before the crisis, but now I had grown accustomed. I had a small police issue revolver, taken from the corpse of an officer in the first days of the collapse. There were five bullets loaded when I first acquired it, the one missing was planted firmly in the forehead of the gun’s previous owner when I found him.
I had used four on several occasions in acts of self defence. I kept one if the worst was to happen; if I got infected or wounded. Unlike the officer I had taken the revolver from, suicide was my last resort. Some small part of me hoped that the crisis would end one day, society would rebuild and life would return to normal.
I see now how naïve I was.
We had abandoned our night watch duty long before it had happened. We had become resolute in the fact that the only danger we were faced with was long gone. In the early days of the outbreak the military roamed the streets shooting on sight. Whether they had been ordered to by their higher command or not, I do not know, but the last line of defence for the people were now feared to be the last nail in the coffin for the survival of humanity.
I could hardly ever sleep anymore. The others felt the same, the hunger pains were so intense that it was difficult to sleep but most of the time the hard day’s walking had exhausted them. That night however I was awake by choice.
During the day we had camped on a warehouse roof. After a couple of weeks of rainfall the street below was flooded. The water, despite being only a couple of feet deep was rife with debris, silt and infected corpses. For all intents and purposes the street was impassable.
Conversation was forced. I had spoke to Sally briefly about our plans for the next few days but apart from that we were all far too exhausted to muster a the strength for speech. The four of us left were strained and exhausted, three men and one woman. Sally had decided to stay with us when the rest left the day before, she thought she’d be safer with us.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
The two men were ex soldiers. We had found them wandering the streets near our camp one night, unarmed and malnourished. At the time we still had plenty of food and many welcomed them with open arms. I, for one did not.
Ever since they had been reserved. They stayed together, away from the group and always ate alone. Some members of the group felt sympathy towards them, the religious members epspecially. They spoke of god’s forgiveness and asked sympathy, “Surely they had witnessed atrocities far greater than what we have been through?”
But then there was those of us who had our doubts. When the crisis first began I had been forcibly evacuated to a refugee camp like thousands of others across the country.
The camps were rife with disease and riots, starvation and overcrowding. We heard stories of other camps where women were separated from the men by the military. I did not dare confront the men with this fact, fearing a fracture in the group.
But now there was only four of us left.
That day I could see them, watching her. Sally sat alone most of the time, she had lost her son and daughter in the initial outbreak and had still not recovered fully. She slept alone that night, away from the flames of our dying campfire and the other two men in the group.
As I lay awake that night in my sleeping bag I could hear them whispering. It was silent for a while and then I heard the telltale sound of the roof gravel underfoot.
In the shadow and against the dull orange of the burning skyline I watched them creep toward Sally as she slept.
I knew their ghastly intentions.
I slowly drew my revolver from it’s holster under my sheets and braced for action
As they approached closer toward Sally I made my move. I leaped from my bag and levelled the revolver at the head of the nearest fiend.
One of them saw me and ran towards, the ruckus woke Sally.
She began to scream and the second man pinned her down, still in her sleeping bag.
As the man approached I reached out with my arm and smacked him in the temple with the butt of the gun, he staggered for a moment. I reached out again and struck him on the back of the head.
He dropped to the gravel, blood oozing out from a large pit in the back of his skull. He was dead.
The second man, his hands around Sally’s wrists looked toward me.
She writhed and screamed in her sleeping bag, her legs were kicking wildly sending gravel plummeting down into the water below.
“Get the fuck off her”
The muzzle of the revolver was an inch away from his head, his eyes crossed as he looked down the foresight.
“I said..”
I cocked the revolver’s hammer.
“Get. The fuck. Off her… NOW!”
Sally whimpered, her legs stopped kicking.
The man lifted his arms slowly, as he did Sally slapped at his face and slid out from underneath his legs. She shuffled back across the roof until she reach the wall of the adjacent building where she curled up, hysterical.
Tears began to stream down the man’s face, leaving dark trails where the saltwater cut through his mud encrusted skin.
“ We have to do…”
His sobs drowned out most of his speech. As he spoke he trembled violently,
“We have to do what we need to… to survive.”
He bent down, on his knees, his head nearly touching the gravel, his speech was muffled by his doubled over posture
“So.. hungry”
I slowly backed away toward her. With one had I scooped up my sleeping bag and tossed it onto Sally, the other held the gun; still levelled at the man’s head. He was upright again now. Tucked behind his head and kneeling on his knees with Sally’s sleeping bag underneath him.
For a split second I turned towards Sally
“You okay?”
I could hear gravel rustling, the man rushed toward me. I had no time to fire. I brought the gun down on top of his head but it wasn’t enough. I flew to the edge of the roof, the man landing on top of my chest, winding me.
His finger’s wrapped around mine, trying to prise the gun from my grip as I tried to turn it on him to fire.
I headbutted him once, twice, each time my head landing back on the hard concrete lip of the building with a dull thwack as blood exited my head. This threw him off balance, I brought my knee up to his groin, turned my weight and threw him off the building.
His hand was still wrapped around mine, trying for the gun. As he tumbled over the edge, taking mounds of gravel with him I slid over the edge too.
Together we plummeted down to the street below for what seemed like an age but then
CRASH
I landed on a car roof, glass exploded from the windows and metal buckled under my weight as I struck. Pain, excruciating pain shot down my spine and arms and legs. I let my head fall back over the side of the car roof. Upside down, a few metres from my head I saw the man.
He had landed on a police barricade, his grip had loosened during the fall and now he lay drooped over the metal barricade, his spine snapped in two. Blood soaked his military fatigues.
I lay there for a second in agony, looking up toward the sky. My body was frozen, I thought for a second that I was paralysed but a small flex of my wrist proved otherwise. I let my arms go limp and the gun flopped down a the side of the car with a metallic clang, still clutched in my hand.
Through the layers of smoke and pollution in the atmosphere from the many fires since the crisis I could just about make out the stars. Pin pricks of light in the velvet canvas of space. I had always wondered what it would be like to live among the stars, I had always thought that mankind would one day spread across our galaxy and inhabit the heavens.
But we would die here. Our arrogance as a race had consumed our only planet, scorched our Earth and decimated our species.
This was the end.
Through the blur in my eyes I could make out a face peering over the edge of the warehouse roof. It was Sally. Tears streamed down her face, she shook visibly from the ordeal.
At first she managed a weak smile and through the tears I could make out the words “Thank You”
But her smile soon warped to a grimace and her hand covered her mouth in shock. She began to cry once more.
Through the agony wracking my body I raised my head as far as I could and looked down at my chest.
A jagged piece of metal jutted out through my ribs, blood streaming down the metal and dyeing the waters of the street crimson red.
I looked up once more and Sally was hysterical. Her tears dropped the two storeys down into the street, splashing into the murky red waters.
For a second I locked eyes with her and forced a smile.
Everything will be okay.
With the last ounce of my strength I pulled the revolver up to my temple and pulled the trigger.
