Prodigal Formula - Introduction

There’s no way to be certain how many people died in the wake of what so many
have called The Outbreak.  The mannequin anchormen and women of the evening
news tried to put their own spin on events by giving it names such as Super
Rabies, in the early stages, or The Armageddon Virus as of late.  One station,
a cable channel more concerned with pop stars than the real meat of existence,
even came up with the moniker Zompocalypse.  For most, though, it’s simply
known as The Outbreak.  “Who did you lose in The Outbreak?” or “I heard The
Outbreak has reached Europe.”  Given the neutered, grave apathy that most
broadcasters exhibit as a mutated form of professionalism, many preferred the
title Zompocalypse.  And while they may not have been much for the cable
channel that came up with the name, many had to admit that the name puts a more
solid face on things than The Outbreak.  Because no television journalist or
broadcaster or executive producer who wanted to keep their job – if they
survived long enough – dared to use the word zombie on national television.
Even in the face of extinction, they refused to reference a word that
previously existed only in fiction.  On one hand, it’s nice to know that there
are some things that this outbreak can’t touch.

On the other hand, there are zombies standing in the frozen food section of the
supermarket.

Before mass communication broke down, stories littered the airwaves of the
depravity mankind handed out in the face of extinction.  A young couple in
Houston, leaving softball practice for high ground, was shot and left to die
in a ditch for the mid-sized SUV they were driving.  A group of Latino survivors
in Tampa were torn apart after being turned away from a barricaded convenience
store.  “Get the hell outta here!  You rob from me, you vandalize my store.
You can go to hell!” the store owner cried shortly before firing three shots
through the debris blocking the front door.  The small group took flight and
was dead – depending on your point of view – in the space of four blocks.  In
their dying moments, any of them would have begged for a bullet in place of being turned inside-out by the infected.

In Utah, a prison warden took it upon himself to release the general population
in hopes of combating the siege and potential breach of his domain.  In less
than two hours, the majority of the inmates had killed the guards, the warden
and many of themselves before trying to escape.  Their attempt to flee took
them just beyond the prison gates before being overrun and given a seat on "Un" Death Row.

Society quickly fractured in the ways that most probably expect.  Many people
took it on the road or fortified their homes in the hope to outlast.  Some
armed themselves with anything and everything available and took to the streets
in an effort to decrease the threat.  That’s putting it politely, of course, as
many of these people probably dreamed of the day that they could walk down Main
Street with a fully automatic weapon, shooting anything that groaned or snarled.
Maybe they were hoping to run into their reanimated boss and exact a little
vengeance.  Or maybe they just wanted to destroy something for the sake of
destruction and to do it with the same extreme prejudice reserved for Chuck
Norris or Sylvester Stallone.  In either case, that’s the American Dream for
some and that was their only upside to the outbreak.  Everyone needs an upside.
Lovers reunited thanks to the outbreak.  Families are spending more time
together.  If you’re fast enough, quiet enough and have the balls, there are
some tremendous savings in what’s left of the Best Buy.  Odd circumstances, to
be sure, but man is the only species on this planet that can find and
appreciate an upside in any situation.

Whether or not looking for an upside in the aftermath of the outbreak is a
strength or a weakness is anyone’s guess, but that should come as no surprise.
Man has been pulled in two directions since the dawn of existence.  Through
greed, man has acted alone and killed his own kind.  But through understanding,
man has worked together to walk on an orbiting moon.  The scales of benevolence
have seemed to tip in one direction, but there is no escaping the dichotomy of
man.  Man never changes.  And the dichotomy of man is at the very heart of the
undead creatures that have taken hold of the majority vote.  They are made up
of the very best of us in their collective focus toward a single goal.  And
they are made up of the very worst of us in their merciless execution of that
goal.

Everyone blames someone or something for the outbreak.  Televangelists on the
AM band called down fire and brimstone for our wickedness and claimed that the
world was being purged.  “The end times have grown through the deeds of the
iniquitous and the failure of the righteous to stop it.  And the Lord shall
rain down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah and those that do not
perish shall be cleansed.”  The supernatural isn’t an inconceivable place to
lay blame, given the fact that people are still rising from the dead and
feeding on the flesh of the living.

Some blame the military for failing to safeguard them from watching their sons
and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers be torn apart and
devoured before their eyes.

Others blame the government or some medical experiment that caused the outbreak
to take shape and spread like wildfire.  There have always been those who could
find a way for medical experiments to take blame for any unexplained biological
happening.  Just as there have always been those who are certain that their
government means more harm than good.

There’s always enough blame to go around.  Whether it comes from ignorance or
fear, everyone blames someone or something.  Such is the nature of man.

And truth be told, they’re all correct.  Because one man cursed God for his
fate and through a medical experiment funded by the government, the outbreak
was born.

Born of man.

Fueled by man.

And man never changes.