Zombie virus takes minimum 20 minutes to turn after death. Death must happen to turn. You can survive with the infection inside you given medical care, will turn after death though. Slow moving. Society is fractured, depending on the place and their response, some faired better than others. Island nations and states remain mostly functional, though without trade most collapsed anyways. The USA federal government collapsed, though several states, including Texas, California, Washington, Oregon, and Florida maintained their government despite loss of life and city centers. Many survivors created new settlements aways from population dense areas with fortified outposts and villages. Few cities remain.
All payment is barter and trade. Money is worthless, metals and gold and luxury items maintain worth. Sewer systems are mostly defunct due to lack of maintenance. Farming is still industrialized thanks to repair and farm equipment surviving because rural areas were hit the softest.
LOCATIONS
HISTORY & EVENTS
Two years prior, in December 18th, 2019, the Chinese Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China created a bio weapon meant to create super soldiers. Instead it raised the dead. Seeing potential, they unleashed it on Taiwan but something went wrong behind their own lines in Mainland China that spread across the land swiftly. The zombies are slow moving, but relentless and tireless. They can only be stopped with destruction of the brain or severing the brain stem. The first viral cases of the zombie virus showed up in the Americas in March 1st, 2020 starting in South America. It eventually ended up migrating north following the large Migrant Caravans, ravaging the nations it passed by. Initially it was held back by Mexico, but eventually it got through and ravaged Mexico as well. The USA was in a better position due to armed civilians, but by the US government under Biden failed to properly halt the spread due to a break down in government hierarchy, creating several hot zones in high population density, with new settlements popping up with the states breaking up to take care of themselves and contain the zombies. Xander was a historian and at work in a museum when the city experienced it's first breakdown in San Antonio Texas. He grabbed an old officer's revolver from the Mexican-American war and a shovel from the groundskeeper's shed to try and make it to his family. He found them being eaten alive by zombies. He lost his daughter and his wife in one day. Now he despises the undead and trusts no one besides those who he ends up caring for as his family. He now works as a scavenger for the Central Texas Outpost #4, a settlement freshly made with several dozen survivors from the Dallas Center, the capital of the Texas Remnant Government or, The Republic Remnant of Texas. He never remarried.