Zombie; Utopia | London, England, 2022.
Main characters.
Paul is a widowed truck driver. His daughter Anne lives with her grandmother, Paul's mother. Paul constantly travels between Europe and Britain on routes that keep him away from home all week. Paul promised his missing wife that he would have only one goal in life: Anne's happiness.
The call to adventure
During a trip to France, a terrorist attack occurs at the nuclear power plant located a few miles from Anne and her grandmother's small town near London. The explosion and subsequent contamination forces the inhabitants to flee to northern Britain, but the danger is great and England is cut off from the rest of the Kingdom and Europe. Paul never hears from his family again.
The conflict
Paul is stuck in France and has no way of knowing the fate of his family. Every route of communication is closed, but the desire to return home can overcome any obstacle. He steals a boat and crosses the English Channel, but when he reaches the island he discovers the truth: it was the military that blew up the nuclear power plant in a desperate attempt to stop the spread of a disease that unleashed a zombie invasion.
Key to the Plot
In an England devastated by nuclear disaster, crisscrossed by hordes of zombies, contaminated sick people and subjected to martial law, a man attempts to re-embrace his daughter and mother. From the coast Paul pushes inland, overcoming several trials. He discovers that collection cities have been established and attempts to reach them. The first is Birmingham, but it quickly turns out to be hell: there are zombies outside, the perimeter is manned by the military, and the city is in the hands of gangs of thugs. The search is fruitless, but Paul teams up with another man, Dick, an airplane pilot. They steal a helicopter and push on to the second pick-up city: Liverpool. But just as the man finds his daughter and mother the walls give way and panic breaks out. It will be the mother who allows the son and granddaughter to escape and they board the plane and head north, while the woman is swallowed by the horde.
The alternatives
Tension or horror stories are based on simple frames that exploit atavistic human fears. In this case we are looking at a story of courage and determination, in which affection for a daughter enables the Hero to overcome any obstacle and reach out to those he loves. Moving the location of the events to Japan or within a remote Norwegian fjord is very easy. Characters can also be easily adapted. What matters is to create a conflict between the impossibility of reaching loved ones and the desperate love that does not accept giving up in the face of any obstacle. In this type of story, I suggest you experiment with alternating narration: one chapter is told by the father, one by the daughter or grandmother. In this case, you have to be good at not revealing the facts right away.
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