Chapter One: The Seat of Power

Downtown Washington D.C, 12:36 PM

An ear-splitting roar filled the air as the corpses came. They leapt from windows and burst out of doors, came spilling out of alleyways in their dozens, all of them sprinting with wild abandon for the ivy-covered office building at the end of the street. They leapt over abandoned cars and rubble, gnashing their broken teeth with slavering hate, pushing each other out of the way to reach the front of the horde.

Down the street, the three tall figures standing guard outside the office building moved into ready stances. They were humanoid, tall and lithe, androgynous and supernaturally beautiful. They were dressed in fine leather and chainmail, with cloaks made from autumn leaves slung over their shoulders, and each one wielded a double-ended glaive made of wood and some strange, shimmering metal. They were the foot soldiers of the Fey, the beings commonly known as elves.

The dead horde made contact a moment later, and combat was joined. The elves moved with inhuman grace and speed, weaving among the zombies with spinning glaives and cleaving them asunder. It was as though they had some supernatural sense for danger – they would dodge bites and scratches without even looking at their attackers, separate a zombie’s head from its shoulders as if they were wiping a bug off their shoulders. Three minutes later, it was over. When the last corpse fell, the elves wiped off their blades and returned to their sentry positions as though nothing had happened.

From his vantage point on a nearby rooftop, Charlie cursed with a mouthful of beef jerky. He’d been rooting for the dead on that one – as unpleasant as they were, it would have been much easier to get into the ivy-covered office building past a horde of zombies than a force of the Fey. Not getting into that building, of course, was largely out of the question; he’d spent most of the morning watching elves, satyrs and werewolves bustling in and out of it, as well as dragging several unconscious humans inside. He’d heard a few rumors about the way the Fey treated their prisoners, and it wasn’t a fate he intended to leave anyone to. Still, mounting that rescue operation was going to be an almighty hassle.

Taking on the elves in three-on-one hand to hand combat was, of course, completely suicide; he wasn’t sure he could handle even one of them in a straight up fight, and the numbers made it completely impossible. Trying to sneak into the building was equally stupid. It was generally accepted by the other club members that he’d spoken to that elves possessed some sort of super senses, and even if he did manage it, he’d be alone in a building full of fey without any plan or exit strategy. That left him with only two options he could think of – find help, or cause a distraction.

Charlie rose into a crouch, making sure to stay out of sight of the street below, and pulled a can of blue spray paint from his pack. Working quickly, he marked the floor with a broad I and an arrow pointing towards the building down the street – the club marker for ‘important’. He stowed the paint, pulled his axe out in its place, and set off towards the stairway that would lead him back down to street level, hoping against hope for a miracle.

Colin was standing inside the manager's office yet again. His father stood before him, a pleading look in his eye. He reached for his son's hand. Colin grabbed it, but as soon as he did, the hand decayed, his father biting his arm. Colin wrenched his arm away. "Dad?" His father growled as he transformed into the monsters that killed him. "You...Left...Me..." His voice was guttural, and somehow off. Colin was still thinking about the change in voice as his father devoured him.


Colin woke up in a start, drenched with sweat. "Goddamnit." He crawled out of his sleeping bag unceremoniously, looking around the hideout he currently lived in. Ever since his father's death, he hadn't been able to stay at the warehouse. It wasn't a logical decision, but Colin could only think about his father's face when he pleaded for Colin to go. It wasn't any warehouse, but at least it was warm.

The store was barricaded with empty shelves, covering the windows and doors. Colin didn't have much to set up, other than his sleeping bag and some comics, so those were strewn unceremoniously around the store, along with his clothes. There was just enough light streaming in for visibility in the day, but when night fell it was pitch black. He stopped admiring his shelter and changed quickly into his clothes, opting for a t-shirt and some jeans. It's not like he had many other options anyways.

He grabbed his supplies, stuffing them into his backpack just as he did every day. His baseball bat was propped up by his sleeping bag, and he glanced at the dried blood caked on the blunt weapon. Colin hesitated for a second, before grabbing it all the same. He walked out through the back entrance, a heavy metal door that he doubted would give way any time soon. And with that, he began his scavenging for the day.


It was a rather unfruitful attempt. He didn't find anything of use except for some new batteries. However, he soon noticed a couple of sentries. Two, wait...No three fey were standing guard of an office building. He quickly ducked out of sight, dashing into an alley. He went deep into the recesses, waiting thirty seconds for any sign of movement from the office. Once the coast was clear, he heard a roar. It was the very roar that haunted his dreams every night. The roar of the dead. The two sides clashed As he weighed which was more of a threat, he ultimately decided that he would rather the fey. It wasn't because he believed that they were easier to deal with. Not by a long shot. Colin just didn't know if he could deal with those...creatures that used to be men, women, children. Now drooling monsters, filled with bloodlust.

Colin stood watching the horde of dead face the group of fey. "C'mon. Sheer numbers doesn't always work." He said, praying that the fey would prevail with their skill. Funny how he was favoring things that contributed to the destruction of humankind, as opposed to things that contributed to the destruction of mankind, that killed his father. The fey made short work of the invaders, and Colin pumped his fist. "Yes!" He said, scooting back into the safety of the shadows. He scooped up his backpack, noticing some movement on the roof above him. He puzzled over it, carefully entering the building. The coast looked clear...Colin moved on to the stairwell, his bat at the ready as he pushed open the creaky metal door. He walked carefully up the steps, ready to fight if necessary.

Colin stopped at the top, peering through the window. As he saw a man walking towards the stairs, he fell backwards in surprise. He hadn't seen anybody else (who was living) since his dad had died. It was a nasty tumble, and he banged his arm on the railing, but he quickly recovered and was able to right himself before he hit the cold steel stairs. Colin couldn't contain his excitement, and got ready for the man to walk through. "Hey, I'm Colin. No, too informal. Hello, sir! No, too formal."

He went through this process many times before finally settling on something. As the door opened, he said what came to mind first instead. "Lovely day for the end of the world." It was only at that moment that something obvious occured to Colin. What if this guy isn't so friendly? Unfortunately, it was too late for Colin to correct his blunder, and he could only settle with raising his bat clumsily in a strange fighting pose.

Downtown Washington D.C., 12:25pm

A trading post, or so the markings outside would lead one to believe. Whatever... this was it certainly wasn't any trading post, at least not anymore. The carcass that was once a small store had been all but picked completely clean, with broken glass and fittings now scattering the floor. Jake trod carefully as he attempted to manoeuvre his way around without sounding like a one animal stampede, occasionally he'd shuffle his foot gently to push shards of glass or metal along the floor to create a makeshift path. With a soft sigh he negotiated his way to the store counter before swinging his backpack off of his shoulders. These leftovers were better then finding nothing at the very least, the sort of things people were willing to part with these days.

One item in particular caught his attention as he scooped up the small LED flashlight, bargain find. He twisted the flashlights head and at the first sign of life switched it back off before sliding it into his pocket. This if nothing else indicated that whoever had once manned this post had clearly left in a hurry, having left their prizes behind. That's if they left willingly, the place was a dump but trying to identify if that was just the natural appearance these days or a sign of a fight was never clear. But blood... blood was always a clear giveaway. Jake frowned softly as he found his evidence across the counter, no body meant that it was unlikely the blood of a killing wound, but it mattered not. There was no point letting any of these trinkets go to waste, even as useless as they currently looked.

Jake had gathered the odds and sods of items as he flipped open his bag and dropped the pieces in. Mainly pre-end collectables that some still obsessed over even now, you'd think people would have their priorities in order when it'd been over a month since this all started. Then there was the finest currency, or nearly finest, casings. Useless to Jake but it could come in handy to keep those, never know when someone has some useful supplies to trade. Having taken the leftovers like a magpie picking up glistening trinkets Jake craned his head around to try and look for anything else amongst the rubble, wishing thinking it would seem, clearly looters prior to him had taken all the food and drinks that once would of bought money here.

Preparing to leave Jake wrestled free his scarf from his back as he wrapped it round to cover his mouth and grabbed on of his spray paint cans before sliding the bag back on to his shoulders. As he headed for the door there was a sound, almost like a rumbling... getting louder. It was evidently coming from outside, it wasn't heavy enough to be machines but something was moving and a lot of them. It took Jake a moment to scoot behind a battered section of shelving as he saw that all to familiar sight of rotting flesh charging past the store front. Such large numbers, all heading the same way, clearly heading somewhere they'd shown little interest in the store thankfully. Seeing what seemed the last of them Jake stood back upright as he jigged his crowbar free from its lodging before heading for the door once more.

A straggler, the beaten corpse had struggled to maintain the pace and fallen behind but was close enough to be an issue. The natural reaction had been the jab outwardly with his crowbar as the makeshift weapon pierced through the corpses throat like a hot knife gliding into butter. Jake gagged, he had hoped he'd gotten used to that by now before pulling through upward, freeing the head from the rest of the body, rotten innards spilling from both wounds. A heavy outward breath forced Jake's small breakfast to stay firmly in place. He could see the tail end of the horde further up the street but there was something to take care of first. Jake quickly shook the can of aerosol paint before spraying a cross over the previous trading post markings to prevent unfortunate souls wasting their time.

His task complete Jake began to make his way in the same direction as the undead were going. The opposite way would likely lead him toward their higher ranks, which he'd rather avoid if possible. On another note those mindless monstrosities were clearly after something or going somewhere, and he wanted to find out what that was. Perhaps this so called relic that he'd been hearing about being around here. He sure hoped it wasn't one of those 'I heard about this...' 'well we heard that...' situations. Last thing he needed right now was bad intel.

Mary pivoted, looking back through the woods, the back of the sign that marked their edge's grey steel was little more than a silhouette at this distance even through her scope. It was still an option though, abandon the park and go around, she brought her scope back around to look at her predicament. It was one man, well not actually a man, he moved with a supernatural grace that betrayed his true nature. She'd seen his ilk before, the Fey were faster, stronger... better than human, herself included. If it knew she was sharing the woods with it she would have no chance of surviving, and she didn't survive this long by allowing such risks to carry on. She followed it through the scope, she had spotted a gap in the trees that would afford her about five seconds of a clear shot at it if it didn't change course quickly. Mary had recognized his garb, it matched that of a Fey she had seen cut down an armed group of five, though that one was accompanied by a construct, glittering in a way that made it truly difficult to pull one's attention away, almost every shot they had fired had landed upon it, or maybe that was a delusion, it didn't matter, the Fey was coming into the clearing. Luckily he didn't alter his course and came into her window of opportunity completely unawares. About two hundred yards, a light western breeze, the target was moving at an angle from her largely negating the significant speed with which he was running within a second she had her crosshairs set just ahead of his picturesque head and squeezed the trigger. Thirty-nine Mary took a mental note as she watched the Fey collapse to the ground almost immediately.

One gunshot shouldn't raise any alarms, or so she hoped, she was after all in the DC Metro area. Still it was probably best to double the pace and make her way to the park's eponymous creek, she could follow it to the city's center, find somewhere to stock up some supplies, and hopefully rejoin it to the Potomac and be out of the city by nightfall. Of course not before visiting the National Mall, she'd never been and though she had heard that it really wasn't what it used to be the promise of no other tourists meant it would still be worth it.

A few hours later...

The woods began to thin out as office buildings began to come into view, Mary climbed the bank of the creek to get her bearings straight. She thought back to an installed map she had come across about an hour ago near a cobblestone bridge that crossed the creek. She would have to cut through the mass of steel and concrete that represented downtown DC to get to the Mall. She took a moment to lay down in what was ostensibly a ditch and brought her scope over her eye. Mary scanned slowly across her sight lines, not a damn thing came into sight. That was somewhat disconcerting to her, D.C. was supposed to have been hit hard by the undead, she hoped their absence in this area had been more of a fluke than a sign that they'd been evicted by something more formidable.

Mary kept to the sidewalk as she broached the grid of downtown D.C. she maintained a brisk pace as she constantly scanned her surroundings. Eventually a sly smile crossed her lips as she saw a small horde of undead hurrying parallel to her a few blocks over. Mary immediately altered her course, now heading to get behind the horde, wherever they were going promised to at least give her an idea of what was happening in the city. Flying blind was not her speed, she needed to at least get a feel for the state of the city.

As Mary rounded the corner onto the road the horde had been on she was surprised by well, the lack of a ravenous zombie horde continuing down the road. Instead she took a couple steps more before her brain registered the situation, several blocks down the road three humanoid figures stood outside an office building cleaning their weapons, the street in front of them littered with lifeless corpses. Mary reflexively dove behind an SUV parked on the street and pulled her pistol from it's holster. She didn't think they'd seen her, but if they had she was going to need her gun to be having a really good day. 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... Mary let out a sigh of relief, Fey were quick, if they'd been coming after her they'd already be upon her. Mary re holstered her pistol and swung her rifle out front of her. Laying prone she crawled partially underneath the SUV and took a look through the scope from below. One Fey was doable, but three meant move along, they hadn't even been wounded in the fray she assumed preceded the current situation.

Mary sighed and crawled out from under the SUV and brought herself up into a sitting position leaning against it. She resolved to wait for a distraction to make her move, it wasn't worth it to risk them spotting her making an escape. Something would happen eventually, she didn't know what, but she would know it when she saw it.