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.