Louisiana Biohazard

There is a certain strand of parasites that the first Monsoon after the war brought to New Orleans.

The exact cause of the first monsoons are unknown but it brought a rapidly expanding carnivorous biohazard that only exists in extremely wet environments, underwater. Draining the water away causes the biohazards to shrivel up and wilt, dieing, without constant or near-constant exposure to water. Any other liquid cannot sustain the parasite. Without water, the biohazards tend to die on their own, but being in direct sunlight or being dried by a heat source greatly expedited the process.

During monsoons, where the air is constantly wet and damp, the second stage Biohazards roam freely in the mist.

The biohazards mainly exist in three forms but are all the same part of the family. There are noted alternative forms, but these three are the most common.

### Stage One (Infected, Zombies)

The parasites are the smallest form of the biohazard, spread out so far and thin that drinking unboiled water is likely to infect the drinker with a form of pseudo-rabies. It’s not a full-blown infection, but it’s actively eating your brain from the inside, and makes you crazy if you drink a lot of it at once.

Your body is capable of fighting off one sip, but a full cup will eventually drive a man to insanity because your body can’t handle fighting off so much of the hazard at once, and drives you to injure and maim anything around you capable of being hurt, and consuming raw meat as nutrients which the virus inside you breaks down. The human body becomes a host for a micro-colony version of the stage three biomass that essentially uses human brain functions as a host body. If the body is injured enough, it’ll drag itself near water before it dies so the parasites can escape the human body to a larger water source.

The only guaranteed way to remove parasites from the environment when dealing with an Infected is to burn or entirely destroy the body. The blood of an Infected itself is dangerous- you have to be extremely careful with how you kill them.

They’re commonly called Infected or just Zombies.

Upon closer inspection, you’ll find that the host is entirely awake and aware during the entire time of infection. The infection keeps them ‘alive’ but takes hostage of their body to ensure that normal body features like breathing and blinking still happen, as these aren’t natural things that the virus understands. Once the body is rendered incapable of moving does the person inside ‘die’ and the infection attempts to escape the now-corpse.

### Stage Two (Hulks, Golems)

The middle-man form are humanoid shapes of the biomass. They’re only seen during monsoons on land or at the very edges of water- they all vary in shape and size and seem to exist as extensions of a further hivemind or ‘mother’ biomass existing in stage three. The humanoid biomass have many names but the most common one is ‘hulks’ or ‘golems’, varying from settlement to settlement.

It’s theorized that they are human corpses with enough of the infection inside them to vaguely mimic normal human tendons and movement. None of them ‘move’ naturally, but they’re capable and strong enough to wrestle with humans. They consist almost entirely of a human skeleton inside as a blueprint and masses of flesh that sort of resembles a person, with no distinct head- just a ball of flesh.

The only way to kill a hulk is to completely eradicate it, same as smaller infected. You can blow pieces off of it to slow it town, but so long as one part of it still exists, it’s capable of dragging itself back to the water, or crawling towards you. In the rain, they will constantly seek prey, trying to injure them so the parasites have access to the human’s bloodstream and turn them into stage one infected. Unlike stage one, hulks aren’t actually alive, and serve completely as walking masses of biohazard that transmit the infection.

One weakness they have that Stage One doesn’t is that Hulks can’t exist outside the water or monsoons for more than about an hour- once the monsoon is over, they stop attacking, even if they’re about to kill someone, so they can retreat to the waters they came from. If exposed to open air without constant water, they wither, which is also why they (usually) never try to follow people indoors. They have been known to attempt to break walls or holes in roofs, however, if they know someone is inside, to let the water in and give the Hulk an avenue inside without withering.

Hulks resemble walking humanoid piles of flesh and some sort of solid plant/fungi life. Red vines with leaves on them hang off of the Hulks, a mix of accidentally dragging up actual kelp out of the water with them, and growing in stands to have ‘feelers’ out in the water that become useless once they start walking. They have no outward features like mouths or eyes, and tend to rely on brute force to drag or break humans, dragging corpses or screaming victims out into the water. It’s unknown how they find their way around.

### Stage Three (Piles, Biomasses)

Stage Three, also just called Biomasses by the ‘intellectuals’ or ‘piles’ by locals, are giant lumbering masses of parasitical flesh at the bottoms of lakes and certain parts of swamps, taking hold to every single crevice they can.

From above the water, they look like lumps of red on the sea floor. If you drop a pile of ground beef in the water and stare it at for five minutes, imagine it with a bunch of tentacles, and you’ve got your Biomass.

Piles usually have some form of tendrils extending out, capable of reaching out of the water. They can’t bring boats down as they aren’t *that* strong, but they’re capable of dragging swimmers who are already in the water down. Unless you manage to cut the connection somehow, you’ll be brought down, down down to a roving mass of teeth- and by that time, even before you die, you’ve already been infected by being in the water too long and choking when you run out of breath.

There’s no documented method of removing biomasses. They simply grow bigger, and bigger, and the only way to stop them is to stop letting them eat. You cannot drain enough water- you cannot heat the water enough to destroy them entirely. The parasites that are already naturally in the water will keep flocking to the biomass to repair it.

The Stage Two infected usually act as extensions of a single Biomass, each Biomass having it’s own form of connection with it’s Hulks. Depending on location, multiple Biomasses can be capable of attacking the same settlement with Hulks.

The biomasses themselves aren’t dangerous unless you fall overboard in their waters, but they are seemingly responsible for the Hulks and the constant pollution of water. The Pile may not get your boat, but if you sail over one, Hulks may find their way to the top of the water, clawing at the sides of your boat and trying to put holes in it. Biomasses are the reasons why you only sail in certain parts of the swamps.

They’re more prevalent in the corrupted areas, with very few being too close to major settlements or the urban zone.

*“I.. I saw it drag away Steve. It was this.. it didn’t look like a person, it was just person shaped. Couldn’t tell how much of it was shit it dragged up from the bottom of the seafloor and how much of it looked like.. meat. Like what’s inside a person but spread out all over the inside. That’s all I could see- there was too much rain and mist in the monsoon, but it had one big long arm, and it was just dragging Steve down into the water. Steve wasn’t saying but I saw his eyes, he was still looking around, it’s like he wanted to scream but couldn’t- I think it smashed his ribs up before it started draggin’ him away. I didn’t even see any bubbles or nothin’ when he got in the water, and as soon as the big thing got in the water, Steve got whipped in, like the big thing suddenly got a lot faster. I.. I could’ve saved him, but my fuckin’ lighter didn’t light and my molotov didn’t spark. God, I tried, I tried and it didn’t have eyes but I swear it was looking at me when it drove him away. I felt it staring at me. I know it was- I don’t care if it has a face or not, I know it knew I was there. I think the only reason i’m alive is because it only had one arm.”*

### Weaknesses and Defenses

Being exposed to open air causes the semi-fungal plant based biohazard to ‘wither’, or wilt like a plant, becoming gray, losing it’s color and vibrancy, and slowly shrivelling up, becoming void of life, and crunchy like stepping on dead leaves.

The virus, specifically the zombies and hulks, are not very smart. Simply closing your blinds and turning the lights out so they have nothing to look at is enough for smaller communities to survive monsoons.

Fire is the ultimate deterrent. Instead of hiding, the larger settlements have their own distilleries, having flame traps and molotovs ready. One molotov is enough to scare Hulks away from their defenses- walls with guards and molotovs can survive a monsoon if they’ve prepared enough. Lanterns, or heat sources that aren’t stopped by the rain, can be placed around well-defended locations to further ward off Hulks because the heat scares them. There are rare cases of crafty wastelanders breaking lanterns over the heads of Hulks to scare them long enough for them to escape their clutches, running away or simply hiding.

And of course, Hulks need water. If you’re inside during a monsoon and nobody’s trying to break in, they won’t find you, and they won’t come looking. Dry places are dangerous because it makes the Hulk wilt. Regular zombies, however, don’t have this weakness- although they’re definitely slower in the heat.

Molotovs are extremely valuable, but having a reasonable way to light them isn’t common. Some settlements have to have a bonfire in a sheltered area just to have something to light the molotov with before they run out and throw it. Lighters are here and there, but it’s hard to get them to work off the bat during heavy rain, unless it’s one of extreme quality. Good luck getting a match to light during a rainstorm. Most groups of guards on walls will have one ‘lighter’, a guy with a pilot light, or blowtorch, to light molotovs for the rest of them. You better hope your lighter stays alive, or else you aren’t going to be able to light your best defense when you need it.

Of course, the blowtorch itself might be the best possible weapon against the Hulks- light it in front of them, watch them recoil. Torches are extremely good at scaring them off but you must douse it in extremely flammable liquid to make it last more than minutes in the monsoon if that. Those with access to oil are capable of leaving traps, or setting lines of fire to create firewalls and ward off Hulks with great success- this is seen more commonly in the urban cities and environments. Most people that survive Hulk attacks during monsoons are because they hide or use cheap tricks.

Molotovs full of gasoline or motor oil create lasting fires on the ground and brighter explosions, while alcohol molotovs create one flame explosion which is quickly doused by the monsoon. Gas molotovs are rarer and more expensive to create, however.

And of course, if you have a flamethrower, you’ll never need to worry about anything ever again. Good luck finding one though. And keeping it stocked with fuel.

### City VS Backwater VS Bayou Zombies

The Hulks and Piles are the same everywhere, but zombies- normal infected humans are different.

In the Backwater they’re likely as you’d guess, with plenty of wetland and space. Hordes of zombies find themselves wandering between the trees.

In the City, which is drier, zombies have less access to food. Some City folk call them ‘starved’- they’re not as strong, but they’re quicker, and have a thinner look to them.

In the Bayou, Zombies have redder skin, with entire patches of the infection spreading across their bodies, making them tougher, but still as fast. Bayou Zombies have had time to gestate, and have plenty of support, greatly increasing the strength of the infection spreading across the inside and inside of their bodies. Bayou Zombie hosts are in constant excruciating pain, capable of feeling the infection having wormed it’s way through it’s very organs but not allowing them to die.