Roadkill: a Post-apocalypse idea

[Old Man Sweeny]

(This is the back ground to a few one shot adventures i whipped up for AFMBE. It was inspired by Mad Max, Carmageddon, Death Race 2000, Interstate 76 and 82, and oddly enough, the vanishing point ost. Enjoy!)

Somewhere on the open road....

The long stretch of desert highway was deathly quiet, save for the shuffling and moaning of the walking dead. The ragged group of the undead slowly staggered up what was left of I-95. Slowly, almost teasingly something that raised a lot of dust appeared in the horizon. The dull footsteps of the dead were slowly drowned out by a new, unmistakable sound.

The roar of a big block V8 . In fact, the roar of two V8 supercharged engines being pushed to the limit. Suddenly from a dip in the road, two battered and dirty muscle cars tore across the road, one only slightly behind the other. The lead car, a white and red Desoto showed no respect for the rules of the road and ploughed through the zombies. A sickening wet crunch and a spray of dirty blood cut one of the dead in half, covering the windshield of the lead car in brains, guts and gore. What was left of the now splattered zombies torso smashed into the windscreen, causing a large series of cracks. The panicked driver jammed on the brakes. The lowrider went into a small fishtail as the back end almost slid out. Almost comically the undead thing on his bonnet kept feebly beating the windscreen with dirty fists.

It was the chance his pursuer, in a dull grey GTO was waiting for. The gas pedal fully to the floor, he quickly drifted out to his prey’s left side. For good measure, he wrenched the steering wheel and slammed into the Desoto. The sharp impact threw the zombie clear off the bonnet and tumbling across the desert in a cartwheel of blood and guts..

The driver caught unaware almost lost control, veering off the road and into the desert. To get a better view, he stuck out his head from his driverside grilled window and was surprised to see his pursuer pulling up level with him. What he saw next didn’t help. He was staring down both barrels of a twelve gauge sawn off shotgun. As his foot went to slam on the brakes, both triggers got pulled by a steady finger that was no stranger to killing.

Double Odd buckshot blew out the windshield as a thick red sheen sprayed the dashboard, and a lump of what was brainpan got blown clean out the other window. The lifeless driver slumped, his hands still clutching the gore drenched steering wheel. Almost drunkenly the Desoto lurched towards the side of the road.

Moments later, the stricken lowrider smashed into a long totalled wreck, sending two tons of metal spinning through the air. The impact threw up gouts of thick red dust.

The Pursuer slowly skidded to a halt. A tall and ragged figure got out, clutching a shotgun and a 2 litre Gasoline Can. He would have to be quick, god knows what else was roaming the desert these days. Besides he needed all the juice he could get, it was a long way until he was out of the zombie filled wasteland. Plus, ammo was awful hard to come by out here. Somehow, the driver knew that the long desert highway didn’t care.

Background

In the Early 1970s , what was once called the United States of America was in trouble, as it stood on the brink of a fuel crisis. Truth be told it was in trouble a long time before that. An unpredicted and unprecedented economic depression scoured the country destroying whole towns in its wake. Each state tried to regain a measure of control but the rising tide of crime and unemployment rendered local attempts all but useless. While Washinton talked a good game, many could see that they were as powerless as everyone else to stem the tide of decay. Some states angrily threatened to break all ties with federal authority, becoming independent city states.

The turning point came, when a brushfire war started in Eastern Europe over a fast dwindling supply of natural gas and oil. The USA, who stated it had no interests in that region unfortunately backed the losing side in a clandestine coup and in doing so lost a huge amount of money and resources. Adding insult to injury, the only refinery capable of processing the spoils got blown to hell in the attempt. Outrage followed when this became public knowledge. Money that could have been used to turn around the nations fortunes was squandered in a land grab.

Massed Protest soon followed. Essential services slowly ground to a halt as once dedicated public servants went weeks without pay. In the midst of this civil unrest the rising crime rate soared. Disorder turned into looting, looting turned to rioting. During this, martial law was declared countrywide. When this could not stem the flow of anarchy, what was left of Congress rushed a new bill into law almost over night. The Suspension of Human Rights Act 1973 effectively erased all rights a certain type of person could have.

Although none knew it at the time, the government wasn’t wholly responsible for the act. They were motivated by the interests of the very rich, and the powerful few still left in the country. This small group of people had long been called the “Privileged” and now in this mediocre time they really came into their own. When they suggested that the major cities still left untouched by the collapse be fortified and walled, congress quickly saw both the money and the merit of such an idea. The city of Los Angeles was the first to construct a massive perimeter around the richest part of the city.

Soon, New York and Washington followed suit. While chaos swept through the rest of the USA, the privileged enjoyed a life of luxury. Anything outside of the walled cities was now designated “The Controlled Zone”.As the Old Government finally fell apart the Privileged formed the New America Collation. This new order took the remnants of the Army, National Guard and state police forces and created the Uniform Military Police, the single most draconian fighting force in human history.

Armed to the teeth and with a shoot to cleanse policy, the UMP began a systematic cull of the cities overrun by rioting and disorder. While brutally successful at the outset, things began to turn against the UMP. Whole fireteams disappeared in the

Controlled Zone, worse yet entire companies got ambushed by army deserters or large bands of civilian looters. The powers that be at the NAC thought long and hard. If the scum in the zones ever got organised they could easily march on the Privileged Cities and overthrow them with sheer numbers. What was needed was a fell swoop, a means to finally bring the scum to heel. They didn’t have long to wait.

“Indigo” was a new type of Agent Orange developed shortly before the collapse. Not only was it a mass defoliant, but it also acted as a viral contaminant. Tests on lab animals showed that it could almost completely destroy the immune system, meaning that simple and once treatable ailments were now lethal to the vast majority of the “zone scum”. Production stepped into high gear and “Test Subject Volunteers” got kidnapped in the dead of night. The results were not pretty; Indigo attacked and destroyed pretty much the entire range of higher brain function in human subjects. It also increased aggression, reduced the feelings of pain and produced a brain dead psychotic cannibal. The later irony of these findings would not be appreciated.

The elite were quick to see the “Long Term Gain” factor of people like this. They projected that upon initial infection, the scum would turn on each other like rabid dogs, and in a twisted Darwinian nightmare scenario would exterminate each other.

The ink on the orders wasn’t even dry when a flight of bombers loaded with an Indigo payload began carpet bombing the remainder of under-privileged Americana back to the stone age.

When the dust settled and the toxic green clouds of Indigo cleared. The elite sent out well armed forward recon teams, out to have a look see and census. After the third team failed to come back home (much like the first and second teams) the elite realised that just like they projected, a mass of rabid psychotics now prowled the desolate wasted sprawls of the controlled zone. However just like Darwin, the survival of the fittest rang true. Too true in fact.

A badly mauled and bloodied trooper made it back to the wall of New York City. He babbled and raved about hundreds of people that couldn’t be killed by gunfire. People that roamed in ragged packs, people that ate human flesh. To prove this, the trooper showed multiple bites on his legs and forearms. The injured trooper was rushed to a field hospital where he died some days later. Cause of death? The common cold said the report.

Meanwhile, the rest of America wasn’t caught on the back foot. Most people fled the highly populated areas when the rioting started. A lot of them took to the highways, far from the controlled urban zone. Once again, Darwin’s laws took effect. This time on the asphalt roads who ever hit hardest and drove fastest walked away with the spoils.

For common protection, people banded together. Groups became convoys. Convoys became road gangs. Thus went natural selection in the wastelands

Then things got really, really bad. Its 1976. Welcome to a white line nightmare.

[Dredj]

I like it. Thank you for posting it:thumb:

[Kloster]

Nice. Too bad I can't play anymore both Interstates games.

You should play Car Wars. Your version of the universe (very Mad Maxian) is closed to the 'Chassis and Crossbow' model, originally described in the Dueltrack supplement.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[grakklthorp]

Sounds something like "Damnation Decade" for d20 modern.

[bobapple]

We are doing something similar with the Savage Worlds rules, though we have made some modifications to the vehicle rules:

You can see some of what we've done here:

White Line Nightmare

We are approaching as more of a miniatures/skirmish game.