Living Deads

Zombies we know. They are overwhelming, restless and deadly, but at least we somewhat know how to deal with them. Demideads on the other hand... They're people, aren't they? But at the same time not. It's confusing, and brings up an unfair share of moral dilemma that we shouldn't have to deal with while trying to survive an apocalypse.

Living Deads, demideads or half-zombies are all different names to qualify the same things: people who have been bitten but didn't die before turning, for a reason or another. This is not to say they are immune to the infection. They do turn, but not in the same way most do.

The infection process

Usually, when someone gets bitten or scratched so badly a great deal of virus penetrate their bloodstream, the shock kills them after the lightning fast eclipse phase. For the most resilient, it can last for a few days, but at some point their body has more virions than cells and collapse by itself. Then, the pathogen takes control of the corpse, reanimating by parasiting the nervous system and drive the empty husk to be a new vector of propagation.

In some very rare cases, the infected doesn't die. They writhe in excruciating pain for about a day or two, but ultimately manage to stay alive and push through adversity. What allows them to do so is unknown and seemingly random: between two siblings, one may survive the infection and the other not. When someone survives, their brain never cease functioning and thus conserves its purpose even as the virus ravages the victim's body.

Stronger. Faster. Hungrier.

Considering it is puppetting a lifeless body stripped of its vital functions, the virus is an enhancer like none others. Thus, when it strive in a functional one, the abilities of the host grow beyond human limitations. The demideads are better in every physical way to a regular human, no matter their previous physical condition, have their pain sense dulled down, and regenerate stamina at ludicrous speed.

The changes are not all beneficial though. All living deads feel a great urge to propagate the disease, to feed upon the living, claw and bite the flesh of anything that breathe. Most of the time they are able to resist this calling through sheer willpower, but one slip and they turn into rampaging monsters. And as carriers, their bite spreads the infection.

Thralls

In a twist of events, the people infected by a living dead don't turn into mindless zombies. They die all the same and turn into zombies with no will of their own, but obey blindly to the one who turned them. A demidead can infect any number of people and control them all through mental or spoken commands.

This ability doesn't transfer to the thralls though, and the half-zombie must be the one who directly turn its victim in order to get a hold on their corpse. Some have developed strategies to extend efficiently their dreadful armies, like making their slaves force the prisoners to drink a vial of their blood, but most do it the old-fashioned way, a bite to the neck.

Kingdoms

Shunned by the post-apocalyptic communities, most living deads had to fend for themselves, in a world still inhospitable for them. The law of the jungle applied, and many of them created more and more thralls until they were safe from harm, building kingdoms of the deads and forbidding the livings to cross their territory.