The Campion Virus

*This box provides all the infomation on the Campion Virus that is currently known*

The Campion Virus

Obviously the Lost Zombies Timeline plays a strong part in this story so getting to know it inside and out will help.

The Campion Virus initially hits the US and is misdiagnosed as a seasonal flu. Infected people attempt to treat it as they would the flu. They attend doctors, hospitals, stay at home and other struggle on at work. When the true nature of the virus is discovered all infected people are moved to secure camps beggining with camp St. Teresa. The initial flu is contained with moderate success however the quarentine camps quickly collapse letting loose 'runners'.

These fast moving infected humans are alive but extremely violent. The virus causes extreme anger and no reasoning skills are apparent. The vast majority of infections from this point on are caused via transfer of infected bodily fluids (ie bites or open wounds). The initial 'airbourne' cause of infection seems to have ended having starting off the initial issue.

Runners

The most common held thought by surviving scientists is that a form of Influenza cross hybridizes with the rabies virus. The result is a highly communicable disease from the influenza with high mortality from the rabies. Infected are extremely violent and highly infectious.

These infected runners share many of the physical attributes from their pre-infected life and are still essentially human and alive.

The scientific community is split on whether the infection is viral or bacterial, howevergathering evidence is starting to rule out a bacterial infection as the cause.

As the infection begins to take hold of the body, one of the main targets is the adrenal glands and as a result of the attack adrenaline production is increased exponentially, the result is a higher pain threshold and stamina but permenent brain damage occurs, one of the side effect is wild and violent behaviour.

As more and more body systems and structures take damage from giving and recieving attacks, blood begins to coagulate throughout the body restricting the cardiovascula system. As the Runner ends it's life cycle it is very similar to a shambler in appearence due to its lack of coordination and slow movement

Death occurs as in humans, when the body take so much damage it is unable to support the cardiovascular system.

Shamblers

When a runner dies or a normal person is attacked sufficiently by an infection person that they die immediately the body as we know it shuts down and all body systems are defunct.

The scientific community has various theories regardling how reanimation occurs, the most popular is the belief that when killed the anaerobic conditions revives a dormant bacteria which depends on these conditions (possibly a strain of Clostridium or Botchulism) already present in the hybrid infection which causes a massive release of adrenaline from the adrenal glands. This causes 'reanimation' and change to the 'shambler' phase. Success of the reanimation process is estimated at 98.9%. Reanimation does not occur if the brain has been destroyed.

The now reanimated body still has all the former attributes which the Influenza/Rabies hybrid infection caused (highly infectious bodily fluid plus extreme violent behaviour). The reanimation technically does bring the body back to life but in only a rudimentary and basic capacity. Due to the lack of aerobic conditions during the time between death and reanimation, all higher functions of the brain and some body systems are defunct, essentially only the brain stem is functional. Behaviour and intelligence levels are reasonably comparable to Paleolithic man but with additional disabilities such as lack of the use of tools and problem solving capabilities.

True death can be inflicted upon the Shambler via massive trauma to the brain stem.

There are no known cases of secondary reanimation.