The Dead Zoners are the wildest, and possibly the most dangerous gang in the Combat Zone.  They don’t directly control much territory, but even gangs like Stomp, Slaughterhouse and Maelstrom are wary of them and and avoid their territories.  The Dead Zoners are the monsters that roam the zone, they are the evil that hides under your bed and in your closet… they are what you fear when the sun goes down.

 

The Dead Zoners are made up people who were kicked out of other gangs, to crazy and unpredictable to ever join them in first place, or anyone who simply has no respect for anything or anyone save themselves.  If they could muster up any level of real organization they would be a serious threat, but as it is most of them are too smashed on drugs or just plain crazy to care.  Oddly enough, despite being utterly reviled and feared by nearly everyone in the Zone, their numbers are growing.  There are some who say they torture their captives past the brink of insanity and that’s one of the ways they boost their numbers… some say they even kidnap children for these purposes.  It is also rumored they may be cannibals.

 

What is known is that every last man, woman, and child in the Dead Zoners is a threat.  They almost never attack unless they outnumber their target at least 2 to one, and they strike from the shadows and disappear just as quickly back into them.  The Marsten area has been home to some form of gang almost since just was built, and as the city grew, the area just became the center of the violence.   The several things happened in a short amount of time.  First, all the worst gangs in the city were pushed into a relatively small area.  Then the walls went up, locking them all inside.  As the new gangs battled for dominance with the gangs that were already there, City Hall unleashed Carnival, and everything inside the walls went straight to hell.

 

In that short span, people lost their homes, families with no where else to go were gunned down in the street.  Entire gangs were slaughtered, and other gangs rose and fell like the tides. By the time it was all over and the rebuilding began, the gangs that survived and their territories were pretty much set.  The minor gangs either scrambled to the outlying like the Cauldron and East Hell where they still fight for turf like dogs on a piece of bone, or they were subsumed into larger gangs.  The only exceptions were the gangs and individuals no one else wanted anything to do with… they became the Dead Zoners, also known as the Dee-Zees, or just simply the Disease…

 

Perhaps the most frightening thing about the Dee-Zees is that unlike most gangs, they regularly move through other gang territories at night, respecting no boundaries.  2-3 Set and Slaughterhouse share their boundaries, and even there no civilian leaves their home at night.  Even gang members on the fringe have been attacked if found alone.  Dead Zoners have struck as far as Bushido Territory, though such things are rare.  Regardless of their incursions into other gang territories, NO ONE goes into Dead Zoner territory at night.  There are even rumors that they share the sewers and storm drains with the Zone Rats… and that’s how they move undetected through other gang territories…

 

 

The Dee-Zees leader is a man named Mongrel.  Rumors abound that he used to be a mental patient, or even a prison psychiatrist.  Others claim he was a teacher, or a cop.  No one is quite sure.  What they are sure is that he is utterly insane, and has somehow managed to gather a veritable army of bloodthirsty whack jobs around him.  Every punk rocker who ever screamed anarchy, every hippy who ever said that society would be better off without rules… well this is what you get when all pretense of discipline and order is stripped away… this is what you get from people who respect nothing, not even life, not even their own.