The next few missions go a lot smoother and there are no casualties, your physical condition gives you advantages over some of the others and you become a fairly popular scavenging partner. You actually begin enjoying living there and even feel like you have begun to properly adapt to their rations and pass your weapon handling so can take a gun with you, though you still prefer the trusty bat for shamblers.


Life goes pretty well for another week or two and you even think that settling here might not be so bad after all even if that wasn't close to your intent when you first walked in the doors.


Sadly things do not last that way for long.


It's barely been a month since you arrived in the stadium ruins when the scavenging team fails to return. They decide to send a larger squad after them so find out what happened and ask for volunteers.

You keep quiet, you know full well what happened and don't want to be next

You remember what happened on your first mission, going after them will be suicide and probably a trap.


Luckily 8 men volunteer quickly enough and no-one blames those who don't so you get away with no shame from it, you head off to your normal duty for that day, you're on balcony 6 for the next 4 hours or so. You'll be the only one there since it isn't really an important one, kind of to the side of the main entrance and not looking at anything of interest.


Its half way through your shift when you hear some muffled sounds coming from over the city and it seems another sentry heard it too, you report hearing it then head back up. Once you get off duty though and come back down it's not to a pretty sight. It seems that they worked out that the noise was gun fire and the 'rescue' team was now also overdue.


You think back again to your first mission and what seemed like a trap, your starting to get a bad feeling about the city now. Seems like scavenging too close to the city center isn't such a good plan anymore.


You have to choose whether to dump these guys and head out alone now or hold out until they are ready to make a larger push for the colony to the east, sure you have lost men recently but true to their word, they have recruited nearly a dozen in the last month. You had no idea there were so many survivors up in this area or you'd have come North a lot sooner.


You're also pretty sure that the Capt. is going to order a push East soon too, even with the losses, their numbers are still good and they have the guns and equipment for a full military push through the open streets, the scouts have everything planed out route wise with backups for it things go wrong.

You leave them, their tactics aren't working

You really can't work out why people keep using tactics right out of old movies when they never work. You have to get out of here before you get taken down with everyone else on their suicide mission.


You start your preparations, gathering spare food and supplies and get your bag ready to leave when your friend from the first mission approaches you about leaving with some others who share your opinion. You sign on immediately and get ready to sneak out.

You sneaking out

You've been thinking the same for a while. If an even larger group of military couldn't hold the infected at bay, then what will this small team do? Especially if the harbinger from before COULD control the infected, you'll have to think about that more later, for now it's time to get out.


"I'm in, betting a small team can move a lot quieter than a large group too. Let's go."


You grab you pack and bat, leaving the gun behind as you never liked using it anyway and head for a North-East balcony where you all climb down some piping and Begin heading East. There are 5 people in your little team including yourself. A few brought guns, but everyone needs something to make them feel safe you guess, even if all it does is draw more infected.


The plan gets laid out as you walk. Seems that you are heading East along a route further North of the route the jeep will be taking, getting up to a highway that should take you most of the way to the river. It was too clogged with cars for the main group for no problem for 5 guys on foot.


You all walk quietly for the next few hours before stopping to eat having covered a good distance. You pick a low rooftop that you think once belonged to a barber shop to rest. One of the men finally speaks up.


"We are a few hours clear and this roof is pretty safe, shall we break for the rest of the night and head out again at dawn?"


You all agree and settle down for the rest of the night on the rooftop. You spend the next few hours thinking about getting to the safe colony to the east and why you were originally heading there before getting so caught up with the stadium people before eventually falling asleep.

You morning hunger

You wake with the dawn and find two of the others already up. "We couldn't sleep so great being exposed out here." One of them says to you.


As the last two get up, you realize just how hungry you are and remember that you didn't eat anything last night. You dig in your bag for your meat strips but find nothing there, remembering that you finished them off on the third day in the stadium. You accept some rations from the other guys but it seems to do little to your hunger.  You think back to when you used to feel this hunger practically all the time, seems your days of living happily in the stadium and not feeling hungry are over for the time being.


You all check your surroundings but it's all clear and you head off again about an hour after dawn.


"Won't the others catchup to us at this rate?" one of the others asks out loud. It's your friend that answers. "Nah, we are a few roads North of them and will be heading up to the highway by lunchtime, so even if they do move faster than us, they will pass right by us to the South and never see us. Hey if all goes well we will meet up with them in a few weeks at the colony and have a great laugh about this all!"


The mood seems to lighten a little after that and you all keep moving with some quiet chatter going on. You even join in some of the joking and in the light atmosphere begin to forget about feeling hungry again.


It's a few hours later and you are getting close to the on ramps for the highway when you begin hearing the noises.


Its very faint but you call it out anyway. "Low rumbling to the South." The others pause and listen for a time before one turns and says. "I hear it now, sounds like the Jeep, they will be passing us soon. Those are some ears you have mate!"


"Seems they are making great time if they are passing us already, they might actually do it at this rate!" one of the men jokes as you all start walking again, listening to the low rumble get louder, then start to get quieter as they pass you a few roads to the South.


Its only a few minutes later that you hear a crashing noise and the rumbling stop.


"Gorram Harbinger! They are being ambushed aren't they, we should go help them!"

You agree to run and help, they aren't too far away after all

You immediately agree. "Well we can't just leave them there and even if it's the harbinger, he won't expect us. Your friend reluctantly agrees as do the others. You all set off at a run. There hasn't been any other noise yet and you start to hear the Jeep again. "The jeeps just idling! They were probably just clearing a car off the road!" one of the guys says when you are only a couple of blocks away.


Almost on cue you hear the 50cal. Starting up and blocking out any other noise. Swearing out loud you round the corner a couple of blocks behind the stadium group and find a bus between you and them, as well as a horde of the infected.


One man with you drops to his knees. "It's just like when the stadium fell. It's the harbinger."


The 50cal. Falls silent, looking through the buss's windows you see the infected swarming towards the jeep. "It's already over, let's get out of here!" You drag the kneeling man to his feet but he breaks free, rushing towards the buss firing his rifle.


"We can still save them! It's not too late!" He barely gets 20 feet before you see a couple of fast types sprinting from an alleyway, taking him down and beginning to feed on him.


"Everyone run!" You hear someone shout. You don't even check who it was and start sprinting back in the direction you came as you see  3 more fast types headed your way. You never even notice your friend and one other falling behind and getting eaten. You only stop once you are several blocks away and turn to see the last member of your group some distance behind trying to keep up.


"Forgot how much faster I was" You think to yourself as you wait for him.


"Where are the other two?" You ask, thinking about your friend.


"Got, taken, down…" He stammers, out of breath. "None of us could keep up with you and the fast ones don't tire like us. I only got away because they stopped to eat the other two."


"AAHH Gorramit!" you say out loud, you know it was only the 3 fast types and if you had helped then you could have easily taken them down, it's not as if a bite of two would inconvenience you much, you've had enough before to know they will have no more effect on you.


"Let's just go before more come. We know what the plan was at least."


You head North and quickly get to the highway without further signs of pursuit. The lighthearted atmosphere from before has vanished leaving you and the last remaining survivor from the stadium walking in silence and brooding. You can feel your hunger returning with a vengeance now that you have little else good to think about and eating a trail bar doesn't help at all. Your mind keeps wandering to how anyone you try and get close to dies anyway.


You both walk until night when you find a van to climb into and shut the door behind you. "So they are all dead." You mutter out loud as you both check for what food there is left, your hunger is killing you. Seems that between you, you have enough basic rations for a few days.


"Right, I REALLY need to eat, let's have a proper meal then we can scavenge more as we go." Your new partner seems too depressed to argue about anything so you divide the food into two big meals and 1 day's rations. You both eat up quickly and he curls up into a corner of the van to sleep.


You spend the next few hours awake thinking about all those dead people and about talk of harbingers being able to control the infected. You hunger hasn't gone down at all despite the meal.

You late night munchies

It's near midnight and the old hunger is eating at you and you come to a decision. "I tried, I tried for weeks. No-one can blame me now, since everyone around me dies, it may as well be to my plan like it used to be."


The other survivor doesn't even move as you take out your bat and kill him with a single blow.


Your hunger is finally sated and like returning to an old addiction, everything feels better than ever. You pack up what's left of his remains to take with you as food for your journey and fall asleep happy in the fact that you have made you mind up at last. You will reach the colony to the East. And once there you will eat them one by one, you are a harbinger after all, it's what you do.

You morning in the blood stained van

The morning comes and you wake happy again, not the relaxed happiness of the stadium, a happiness with an edge. You have great things to do after all. You check that the other survivors remains are carefully wrapped up and in your packs, the last meat strips from that crazy you killed and ate had run out so you have to make sure you bring enough with you. You almost laugh out loud that the idiots in the stadium never thought you were a harbinger and the strips of mean were from a human.


But time to move on. You need to test out these ideas of controlling infected.


You walk slowly East on the highway, from memory this thing circles most of the city so it will be a much longer way round to the bridge but you still don't want to be near the city centre. Mutants are still mutants whether you admit to yourself what you are or not.


After a few hours you see a shambler down below, slowly making its way down a road. You pause and concentrate for hours on it. Concentrating, trying to feel its mind, trying to order it to do something mentally but to no avail. It slowly keeps walking down the road and eventually you give up following it, starting to walk along the highway looking for a closer target to test your theories on.


You finally come across a car which had crashed into the van in front leaving the driver trapped. You thought it was dead at first but once you are close, it twitches a little and makes a weak movement with its arm.


"Seems you've been trapped here a really long time little shambler." You say to it, looking carefully in the car you see from all the bones that there must have been at least one other passenger in the car which the shambler was eating to have sustained itself this long. Either way it was still trapped and near death. A perfect test subject.


You decide to use the van it crashed into for your bed and spent the next couple of hours concentrating on it. Still no luck, no reaction at all really. It seems the same as always, it wants to eat you and you have no effect.


You sigh as you settle down for the night in the back of the van.


You might have to give up on the stupid rumors, you've been a harbinger for years and never had an inkling of controlling infected with 'mind powers' sure it's the apocalypse but its not some stupid movie. You've already seen the infected swarming towards noise and that jeep could be heard for miles, they just made too much noise and attracted everything in the area to them so when they stopped to push cars around, they got swarmed, they probably tried to use the bus to block the infected from getting to them and failed.

You give it up. Who are you kidding that you have amazing mind powers that you simply never noticed before?

You head East, following the highway for several days and strangely find it mostly deserted, like someone had cleared it out some time before and only the occasional straggler came back.


The going is easy and the worst you are left to contend with are the occasional shambler amidst the parked and crashed cars. Its not long before you see the bridge ahead of you. There are a few shamblers visible on it but it looks clear enough for you to make a try at getting across, "Then its right onto the Eastern Colony!" you say to yourself.


You're a harbinger through and through and you're going to enjoy infiltrating the colony then eating everyone inside, one by one.


Unfortunately as you take your first step onto the bridge you feel a sudden pain hit your mind, like the worst migraine you ever had described to you. You collapse gripping your head but the pain vanishes just as suddenly, leaving a strange numb feeling in your mind.


A voice suddenly appears in your head "Too close to being red my friend, we can't have you coming here to try and destroy us now can we?" You feel a second wave of pain then nothing more