Pilfer this horror plot seed. There was something of the night about them…

The zombie movie fans were quick to jump to the wrong conclusion, and governments had spent far too long trying to calm the populace down with misinformation to be taken seriously once they knew the truth.

It started as so many movies – both great and terrible – did; a few isolated incidents of what could have been an outbreak of an almost supernatural plague that were quickly hushed up and brushed under the carpet. No one was told what had happened to those who were infected, and no bodies remained but for piles of ash. The media were left to speculate, with most of them towing the line that those in power had laid out for them. In the digital age though, people were quick to find online videos that purported to show the real truth.

This “truth” was shocking, but for some, almost expected. The victims of this plague were not quite the zombies that so may would have expected, but something of a different mythology. The sun burnt them quickly, and they hungered not for the flesh that your common or garden walking dead seemed to crave. Instead they closed their jaws down on throats, looking for arteries to open and drink blood deeply from.

Early victims were those who were taken by surprise, but soon the file and video sharing sites were filled with moving images of those foolish to think that a bite would transform them; give them everlasting life at the cost of eternal hunger. Dozens, hundreds… Thousands were so naive as to think that the romantic fictions were true. They died twitching and pale in the shadows and the infected moved on to warmer blood.

Civilian militias sprung up around the same time as the army was ordered to keep the peace rather than tackle the blood drinking scourge. This should have given people a clue that there was more going on than they could know, but in a few very long days, the people were finding it hard to trust those whose job it was to keep them safe from such things.

And of course, the army is made up of soldiers, and soldiers are people too. Plenty of servicemen had seen what the infected could do, and were far from happy with their orders to bring down civilians who were trying their best to stop the outbreak over-running the cities.

It seemed like a lost cause. No matter how many infected were killed, the plague just seemed to spread further and further around the world. And the strange thing was, those who were bitten never got back up to join in the carnage.

This is where the player characters come in. In a world already on the brink of collapse, with the news channels that have managed to stay on air showing almost nothing but terror and death, stories are starting to emerge that the contagion isn’t acting like it should. At least according to every horror movie fan’s wet dream that is. The infection is acting like an airborne pathogen. It is virulent, to be sure, but it is far from effecting as much of the population as some would have expected. Not only that, but the infected – if left alone – begin to show signs of recovery.

Getting infected isn’t the death sentence that most gun crazed vigilantes and mainstream media outlets would have the populace believe. If they are isolated, and kept away from direct UV light, they could just recover. The only problem is, a significant proportion of the population don’t want to hear the truth. They are happy to have a target for their ire, and even happier that they are fighting against the authorities as well.

Scary stories have a lot of weight, especially when they come to life and tear the throat from the family dog. Of course people were going to take up arms, and that in itself is a problem. Could you imagine yourself being in their shoes? You’ve just killed Billy. A life long friend who you go bowling with, and his wife Janine, who you’ve secretly been having an affair with these past six months. Their son was by your side as you slammed an extra clip into your automag watching as their blood pooled around their shattered skulls. Would you want to hear that time was enough for them to get better? that if you’d just stayed at home and locked your doors like you were told to do, none of this would have happened?

Would you be able to look you Billy junior in the face knowing that if you had aimed for the knees instead the head – and everyone knows that if you shoot to the head, then they’ll stay dead – he would have a family come next Thanksgiving? No, it’s easier to claim that it’s all a G-man lie; an excuse to take your guns away, than admit to what you’ve done.

So the player characters have to go out into this ravaged world with all of this knowledge and try to save the population from itself. They could find like minded souls, or survivors without an ounce of mercy left in them. It’s going to be a hard road ahead, but the President is relying on them.