The morning sun was a pale, watery yellow, peeking through the perpetual gray haze that covered the sky. It was the same as yesterday. And the day before that. And every day for the last three years.
Leo wiped his hands on his dirt-stained overalls and stood up, his back giving a satisfying pop. He surveyed his kingdom.
Rows of vibrant green lettuce stood at attention. Plump, red tomatoes hung heavy on their vines. The corn was taller than a man, rustling softly in the faint, sickly breeze. It was a picture of perfect, pastoral peace.
Surrounded by a sea of corpses.
Beyond his split-rail fence, the world was a monument to ruin and death. The forest was a tangle of blackened trees and rot. The crumbling highway in the distance was a graveyard of rusted cars. And between them, moving with a slow, shambling purpose, were the dead. Thousands of them. Maybe millions. Their low, collective moan was the white noise of the new world.
Leo paid them no mind. He picked up his wicker basket and walked towards the tomato plants.
A zombie in the tattered remains of a business suit was crouched by the fence post, its gray fingers pawing at the wood. Its milky eyes were fixed on the farm with a mindless hunger. As Leo approached, the creature's head snapped towards him. A guttural rasp escaped its throat.
"Morning, Steve," Leo said cheerfully, not breaking his stride. "You're looking a bit peaky today. Need some compost?"
The zombie named Steve let out a confused groan. Its aggressive posture slumped. The furious hunger in its eyes dimmed, replaced by a vague, vacant emptiness. It took a step back, then turned and began to shamper away along the fence line, losing interest entirely.
That was Leo's gift. His curse. His class.
[Peaceful Farmer - Class Trait: Aura of Tranquility]
[Effect: Suppresses aggression in all non-plant entities within designated farmland. Imparts a compelling sense of 'mundane normality'.]
To the zombies, Leo wasn't a juicy piece of meat. He was part of the scenery. A mildly interesting rock. A tree that sometimes moved. And his farm? It was just… land. Not worth the effort of breaking through the fence.
Most humans in the fortified bunkers would have given their last bullet for such an ability. Leo used it to grow prize-winning zucchini.
"Alright, crew, rise and shine! We've got work to do!" Leo called out, clapping his hands.
From behind the toolshed, from under the old truck he used for parts, from the shaded corner of the pumpkin patch, they emerged. More zombies. A dozen of them. Their clothes were rags, their skin was various shades of decay, but they moved with a docile, placid demeanor. They lined up near the shed, standing idle.
These were his regulars. The ones who had wandered too close and gotten permanently stuck in the aura. Their aggression was not just suppressed; it was erased, replaced by a blank slate that Leo had painstakingly reprogrammed with simple, repetitive tasks.
"Frank, Moe, Larry— irrigation duty. The west field is looking thirsty." Three zombies shuffled forward. Leo handed them a sprinkler head and a length of hose. They took the items with clumsy, careful hands and shambled off towards the field. They wouldn't do it perfectly, but they'd do it.
"Alice, Betty— weeding. The carrots are getting choked out." Two female zombies in tattered floral dresses accepted small hand trowels and lurched towards the vegetable beds.
"Big Tom, you're with me. We're checking the perimeter fence."
The largest of the zombies, a hulking brute missing an arm and most of its jaw, grunted. It followed Leo like a monstrous, obedient shadow.
This was Leo's life. Simple. Purposeful. Isolated. He knew, intellectually, that the world had ended. He'd seen the collapse on a stolen radio before the batteries died. He'd heard the screams. He'd buried his parents behind the barn when the Fever took them, before his class manifested and the dead stopped knocking.
But out here, on his ten-acre slice of hell, he could pretend. He could focus on the soil, the seeds, the harvest. The screaming of the world was just a distant buzz. The horror was just… fertilizer.
He and Big Tom reached the northern edge of the property. The fence here was reinforced with scrap metal and old wiring. Beyond it, the terrain sloped down into a valley teeming with the dead. Among the shamblers, Leo could see larger, darker shapes moving. Mutated ones. Some crawled on too many limbs. Some had bone blades protruding from their flesh. S-Rank threats, the radio had called them before it went silent. City-killers.
One of them, a creature that looked like a bear skeleton fused with razor wire, paused and stared directly at Leo. Its hollow eye sockets glowed with a pinprick of red light.
Leo stared back, a frown on his face. He pointed a stern finger.
"Hey. You. Yeah, you, Sparky. You stay off my lawn. Last week you scared the crows away from the corn, and that's my job."
The S-Rank abomination, a being that could level a battalion, let out a low, confused chitter. It took a step back, the red light in its eyes flickering. Then it turned and lumbered away, disappearing into the horde.
Big Tom grunted, as if amused.
"Don't encourage him, Tom," Leo muttered, checking a fence post. "He's just showing off."
He was tightening a wire when a new sound cut through the constant moaning.
Bang. Bang-bang.
Gunfire. Distant, but unmistakable. Human gunfire.
Leo froze. He hadn't heard that sound in over two years.
It was coming from the old state road, east of the farm. It was rapid, frantic. Then came a different sound— a scream. Human. Female. Filled with pure terror, the kind that doesn't happen on a peaceful farm.
Leo's cheerful facade cracked. A deep, weary sorrow filled his eyes. He knew what was out there. He knew what those screams meant. He'd chosen his fence, his land, his silence. The world beyond it was not his concern.
Another volley of gunfire. A roar— not human, not zombie. Something else. A mutated beast. The screams multiplied.
Leo closed his eyes. He saw his mother's face, feverish and pale. He heard his father's last words: "Take care of the land, son. It's all we have left."
The land.
His land.
The gunfire was getting closer. They were running this way. Towards his fence. Towards his peace.
He sighed, a long, slow exhalation of a man accepting a great inconvenience. He patted Big Tom on his cold, hard shoulder.
"C'mon, big guy. Looks like we're having visitors for lunch. Let's go make sure they don't trample the tomatoes."
As he turned and trudged back towards the cottage, the idyllic morning shattered. The peaceful farm was about to meet the desperate apocalypse. And Leo, the oblivious farmer, was the only thing standing between them.
In the east field, the zombie named Frank slowly, carefully, placed the sprinkler head upside down and stared at it, confused.