Zombie poison

**Zombie poison**, also known as **Zombie booze** or simply **poison**, is a toxic chemical compound that plays a catalyst role in the events of the *Guns, Gore & Cannoli* franchise.

The Zombie poison is a highly lethal substance, originally intended to counteract the bootlegging operations of organized criminals and anti-Prohibitionists. Due to being unable to put a stop to the supply chains of the alcohol production, becoming increasingly more frustrated at combating the ever-prospering whiskey peddling gangs and generally having failed at preventing the harmful effects of hard liquor from taking a detrimental toll on society, the government, in a desperate attempt to actualize the Prohibition, financed a secret project tasked with designing a toxin to be used to adulterate the ingredients used to distill alcohol and cause a lot of alcohol deaths in order to regain public support, as this would prove the necessity to practice abstinence for the sake of one's own health. While initial testing was promising, the government halted the production of the liquid because of its 'extravagant' effect. Frankie then struck a one-sided deal with the former head of the project and used the poison for his own malicious plans. Frankie and his Zombie poison were eventually disposed of, in a twist of irony, by a wanted mobster.

## Background

It's the Roaring Twenties. A time to be marked by a booming economy and cultural progress. Most veterans of the Great War had reintegrated back into society and while it still had a lingering presence, everyone was now enjoying a time of liberation in norms and entertainment. The patriotism that brought the country together was still binding them, made them appreciate the freedoms they enjoyed. All that however was soon to change and all the jazz, fashion and art of the decade would not shape the years following nearly as much as the incoming National Prohibition Act. Fueled by both temperance movements and the desire to curb social issues, Prohibition, also called the Volstead Act, went into effect on January 17, 1920 and is now known as the start of the "Prohibition Years". While massively successful in flattening alcohol-related deaths, the American public was starting to get thirsty. Secret venues and establishments were opened, and the ever-increasing involvement of the growing criminal underground of bootleggers, smugglers and moonshiners would soon turn the illegal alcohol trade into a profitable business, with criminal gangs often taking control of entire districts. It wasn't long before gangsters infiltrated the ranks of local governments, even the national government was rumored to have ties to the mafia, creating a cesspool of corruption. The act failed on its purpose for the people and the growing number of feuds between various crime syndicates and the government only worsened the Great Depression that had hit the nation near the end of the decade.

## Creation

As one of many drastic last-ditch efforts, the Bureau of Prohibition hired a German scientist to help them put an end to the crime ring of alcohol traffickers once and for all sometime before early 1928. The Bureau provided the scientist with a Secret Lab in the Sewer underneath Thugtown, as his base of operation and ordered him to find a way to effectively poison the entire alcohol supply discretely, as to ruin both the production and reputation of the moonshining gangsters and further scaring the public off of illicit drinking. The scientist experimented with a number of substances, most corrosive, acidic, toxic but most importantly deadly in nature. In the end, the scientist came up with a chemical solution, that as he claimed would be perfect in not only laying waste upon the gangs of bootleggers, but would also make the culprits easy to identify, "very recognizable" as he put it. After his experiments were finished, the Bureau conducted testing with the substance, apparently with human subjects, which showed the effects very prominently, fully revealing what the scientist had meant with "recognizable", as the subjects would transform into violent erratic corpses with a hunger for flesh. Realising that the man they had employed had come up with such an unethical, not to mention dangerous and difficult to control toxicant, the government shut down the scientist's production of the poison and taking all of his funding, bankrupting him.

Unwilling to destroy the hard work he had produced, the scientist decided to keep the produced barrels and vats of the poison in storage. Eventually, sometime after the feds left, a local mobster came to him in his time of need and, impressed with the effects of the liquid, offered him a large sum of money for his life's work and further voiced his interest for more, asking he could produce gallons of it. The gangster, a man named Frankie, was very enthusiastic about acquiring the poison, one time mentioning that he had plans with it on St. Patrick's Day, calling it crucial for his "Perfect Diversion". Unconcerned with his seemingly nonsensical ideas, he uses all of his money on manufacturing more of the poison in the shut down laboratory, his thinking clouded over the promised payment. It wasn't long though, before he found out about Frankie's real intentions, showing that Frankie didn't actually have the money. The scientist was still forced to hand over all the poison to Frankie, when put under the threat of his own henchmen. Frankie ended up locking the scientist in the facility and unknown to him, went topside to taint Thugtown's breweries with the toxic liquid. Through unknown means, the scientist also discovered Frankie's plans for the city, now petrified in fear, both in worry of the punishment by the government if they found out about his involvement and Frankie, who was surely not going to leave him as a witness or let him run free.

## Guns, Gore & Cannoli

It was in March, 1928 when "The Drunken Riots" struck Thugtown. Frankie had successfully contaminated the stills of every major brewery in town, turning a vast number of the annual St. Patrick's Day's goers into ghoulish bloodthirsty cannibals, that attack the rest of Thugtown. The police proves no match for the unstoppable mindless hordes, which is shown to be the straw that ended up breaking the camel's back, with the Army being sent in after weeks of unconfirmed rumors and quarantined the city, unbeknownst to the public. The scientist was trapped in the underground lab for days, weeks, perhaps even months before he saw another human soul. When he saw that the person was dressed in fedora and coat though, weapon in hand, the scientist, scared for his life, made a run for it, thinking he's been sent by Frankie to take him out or capture him for nefarious purposes. He tries to stop him by kicking levers that activate electric machinery that obstruct his path, but to no avail. The scientist is soon cornered by the gangster, who vehemently denies being one of Frankie's goons, instead demanding answers from the scientist. The scientist tells him everything, from his being hired by the government to Frankie's role in the outbreak. Seemingly feeling genuinely guilty, regretting his participation in the destruction of Thugtown, he pleads with the mobster to take him with to the surface to help, but he coldly refuses, stating that the town was going to be destroyed by the army to get rid of the zombie infestation, though that wouldn't matter them him, as he was going to punish him for his . The man ruthlessly kills the scientist by dropping him into the poison, drowning him. The mobster, a wanted man named Vinnie Cannoli, went on to go after Frankie, having ostensibly killed him only a couple hours after leaving the sewers, during an escape attempt, which ended with Vinnie by throwing him off his stolen blimp.

## Nazi involvement (Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2)

In 1944, it is shown that the underground facility, along with the stored poison was left relatively undamaged from Thugtown's bombing. Frankie, meanwhile had managed to escape Thugtown after his plan of fleeing on his own with his boss's blimp was foiled by Vinnie, as he was able to hold onto the anchor of the aircraft and dropped down onto a passing building, surviving the gas released by the military with gas masks he scavenged from the dead troopers he found. Years later, he heard that the Nazi regime was looking for special weapons, so he returned to Thugtown and offered some of the leftover Zombie poison, which they were very eager to buy from him. The Nazis made a deal with him in exchange for the poison, giving him a private army and mountain base, which he would later use to set up his own perverted experiments with the poison, transforming unfortunate prisoners, civilians and POWs into zombies, also creating a new breed of giant monsters. He planned on ruling over his own empire with the help of a giant battalion of soldiers and controllable zombies, also working on a cure so that every country in the world would have to answer to him for salvation, essentially enslaving them.

Vinnie was kidnapped to get a hold of his blood, as it was reportedly the only known source of immunity, but he escaped and later came to Thugtown, where the rest of the Zombie poison still was, waiting to be loaded and shipped to Germany. All further attempts at capture failed and Vinnie eventually arrived at Frankie's mountain base in Bavaria and put an end to his villainy. While Vinnie was able to leave Europe unharmed, the poison remained in the Bavarian mountain base and the sewers of Thugtown, leaving the future of the Zombie poison uncertain.