Post by Sophie on Mar 9, 2013 12:28:18 GMT -5
The Delmarva Peninsula. Most people didn’t know it by that name but rather by the states bordered by the Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, Atlantic Ocean and Elk River. This flat and sandy coastal plain is the home of Maryland, Delaware and a part of Virginia. In the seventeenth century, it was realized that a canal connecting the Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River could facilitate trade. Over a century passed, and in the early 1800s, the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal was built; taking what was a peninsula and turning it into an island.
Between natural geography and the works of man, the Delmarva Peninsula has an unprecedented level of safety for the residents after the initial tide of walkers passed. This had been a huge boon for the residents of New Haven and Edgewater Farms. People could make it into the safety in dribs and drabs, but not en masse. At least not for a time.
All things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
Time. In the time before the plague, teams maintained the bridges and tunnels. They kept the decks clear, the metal painted, the rails aligned and usable. Cars of all sorts rolled over and under the water. Until the plague. As massive traffic jams blocked the carefully maintained roadways, panicked people fled, leaving their cars in hopes that foot power would succeed where mechanical horsepower failed. Needless to say, in all but a few rare cases, it wasn’t a successful venture.
Time continued, and seasons passed. With each season new weather challenges came to life – hurricanes, winter storms, smaller storms, unending heat, freezing weather and snow. With those storms, flooding filled the tunnels of the East Coast, rendering those rat holes unusable; impassible. Never again to be used by the living or the undead. But, those same storms worked on the thousands of cars that blocked the bridges. To the South, connecting mainland Virginia to Virginia, the Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge experienced enough wind and water and tides to clear a reasonable path along the battered planks of the road bed. To the East, Maryland connected to Maryland at Annapolis via the William Preston Lane Jr. Bridge. And then to the North, a quintet of bridges crossed the C&D Canal.
More ominous though, and far from the safety of New Haven – other bridges were clearing as well. The masses that had been interred in Manhattan no longer found the steel and fiberglass partitions a barrier. The bridges across the Delaware River that had kept the hordes in New Jersey and out of Pennsylvania fell into disrepair, allowing those flocks of undead to migrate in search of their overwhelming need. The need to feed.
In the higher brain, the only sign of the disease process were the grossly enlarged Amygdalas – the center of the brain that controlled rage. This area was firmly dead; however, sparks of ‘life’ kept the hypothalmus functioning. Driving the ravenous hunger. Yet, the feedback loops found in a normal brain were conspicuously absent, resulting in a constant need to feed, to satiate the hunger. The brain stem still functioned in a fashion as well, seemingly immune to the soft tissue decay, allowing certain sensory pathways to continue to function in a rudimentary fashion. It connected to the Cerebellum which of all parts of the undead, seemed to be the most alive as the Walkers could still walk and grab their unwitting prey.
Why the simple review of the brain? It’s because of these tiny sparks of unlife that the Undead could focus on sounds. Could focus on the low thrum of a motor as it passes, or could localize the rhythmic thump of helicopter blades cutting through the air. Those sounds drove them as much as the few molecules of blood that lifted on the air.
Spring is a time of birth. And birth, while a miracle each and every time, is a bloody, messy process.
As new life begins in New Haven, former life found those slight molecules of blood on the air and combined with the traffic to and from the new civilizations, a new food source was found. One that had been safe…until now.
Between natural geography and the works of man, the Delmarva Peninsula has an unprecedented level of safety for the residents after the initial tide of walkers passed. This had been a huge boon for the residents of New Haven and Edgewater Farms. People could make it into the safety in dribs and drabs, but not en masse. At least not for a time.
All things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
Time. In the time before the plague, teams maintained the bridges and tunnels. They kept the decks clear, the metal painted, the rails aligned and usable. Cars of all sorts rolled over and under the water. Until the plague. As massive traffic jams blocked the carefully maintained roadways, panicked people fled, leaving their cars in hopes that foot power would succeed where mechanical horsepower failed. Needless to say, in all but a few rare cases, it wasn’t a successful venture.
Time continued, and seasons passed. With each season new weather challenges came to life – hurricanes, winter storms, smaller storms, unending heat, freezing weather and snow. With those storms, flooding filled the tunnels of the East Coast, rendering those rat holes unusable; impassible. Never again to be used by the living or the undead. But, those same storms worked on the thousands of cars that blocked the bridges. To the South, connecting mainland Virginia to Virginia, the Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge experienced enough wind and water and tides to clear a reasonable path along the battered planks of the road bed. To the East, Maryland connected to Maryland at Annapolis via the William Preston Lane Jr. Bridge. And then to the North, a quintet of bridges crossed the C&D Canal.
More ominous though, and far from the safety of New Haven – other bridges were clearing as well. The masses that had been interred in Manhattan no longer found the steel and fiberglass partitions a barrier. The bridges across the Delaware River that had kept the hordes in New Jersey and out of Pennsylvania fell into disrepair, allowing those flocks of undead to migrate in search of their overwhelming need. The need to feed.
In the higher brain, the only sign of the disease process were the grossly enlarged Amygdalas – the center of the brain that controlled rage. This area was firmly dead; however, sparks of ‘life’ kept the hypothalmus functioning. Driving the ravenous hunger. Yet, the feedback loops found in a normal brain were conspicuously absent, resulting in a constant need to feed, to satiate the hunger. The brain stem still functioned in a fashion as well, seemingly immune to the soft tissue decay, allowing certain sensory pathways to continue to function in a rudimentary fashion. It connected to the Cerebellum which of all parts of the undead, seemed to be the most alive as the Walkers could still walk and grab their unwitting prey.
Why the simple review of the brain? It’s because of these tiny sparks of unlife that the Undead could focus on sounds. Could focus on the low thrum of a motor as it passes, or could localize the rhythmic thump of helicopter blades cutting through the air. Those sounds drove them as much as the few molecules of blood that lifted on the air.
Spring is a time of birth. And birth, while a miracle each and every time, is a bloody, messy process.
As new life begins in New Haven, former life found those slight molecules of blood on the air and combined with the traffic to and from the new civilizations, a new food source was found. One that had been safe…until now.