The American West covers the western and central United States, plus Alaska and Hawaii. About 360 million people lived in the United States before 2035. About 12 million are alive in 2065. The big coast cities are dead. The strong places are dams, mountains, islands and the cold north. The Great Plains feed everyone through the Grange farms. Most travel is on foot, on horseback or by wagon. Ships are the safest way to move along the coast.
Hoover Dam Stronghold is the capital of the Gate Compact, the alliance of walled strongholds. About 6,000 people live on and around the dam. It still makes power, but its turbines are failing one by one. The Compact was signed here in 2049. It sets the gate laws, the value of the Credit and the rules of trade. Every gate tests blood. Undead are shot, and Mutated are sent to quarantine camps such as Black Canyon Camp below the dam. Las Vegas is a dead city full of dry Husk Zombies. Reno is a small Compact town called Truckee River Wall.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Sacramento are dead. Los Angeles holds one of the largest groups of dead on Earth. About 150 survivors hold the upper floors of The Haven Apartments there. The Pickers sell maps and guides into the dead cities from Sacramento Picker Camp and the Golden Gate Bridge. Folsom Prison Wall is a farm town inside an old prison. The Central Valley is farmed again. Wildfires burn every summer.
The wet coast keeps the dead fresh all year. Seattle, Tacoma and Portland are dead, and a big horde gathers at Space Needle Nest. Olympia and Salem are walled towns. Salem grew around the old state prison. Bonneville Dam and Grand Coulee Dam still make power for small towns. Idaho is ranch and farm land, and Boise is its only town. Elk, bears and wolves fill the forests.
These are high, cold and empty states. The dead freeze every winter. Helena is a walled mining town. Raiders hide in the Missouri Breaks. The Tollmen hold Interstate 80 across Wyoming. Cheyenne is their town, and Sinclair Truck Stop is one of their toll stations. The toll is 2 Chits a person and 5 Chits a wagon. Yellowstone Park is wild land with bison, elk, wolves and grizzly bears.
Continuity Command holds Cheyenne Mountain, a base inside a granite mountain near Colorado Springs. It is what is left of the US military. It has about 1,200 people, a training camp at Fort Carson and four working helicopters. It says it is the lawful government. Denver is dead. Red Rocks Wall, a walled town at the old amphitheater, trades with Continuity salvage teams. Salt Lake City is a Gate Compact stronghold of about 20,000 people behind Temple Square Wall. Its families kept stored food, and that food kept them alive through the Dark Years. Bingham Canyon Mine sells metal to the Compact.
Arizona and New Mexico are dry. The heat turns the dead into Husk Zombies, which are brittle and silent. Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque are dead. The Palo Verde nuclear plant west of Phoenix melted down in 2036. The land around it is a Hot Zone with radiation and no people. Los Alamos Lab holds sealed buildings that Continuity Command and the Gate Compact both want. Tucson Boneyard is a field of thousands of old airplanes. Water is the main danger.
The Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma are farm and ranch land. The dead are few here, and the Grange runs most farms. Bison herds are back, and Custer Bison Range in South Dakota is the best hunting ground. Oahe Dam, near Pierre, is the only working power on the northern plains. Williston Oil Camp makes rough fuel from old oil wells. The Tollmen headquarters is Kearney Arch Fort on Interstate 80 in Nebraska. Halvorsen Farm is a walled family farm in western Kansas. Tornadoes and blizzards are common.
Iowa is the home of the Grange, the farm co-op that feeds the strongholds. Its headquarters is State Fairgrounds Hall in Des Moines. Miller Grange is one of its big co-op farms. Every summer a horde of thousands walks west along Interstate 80 from Illinois. It gathers first at Iowa 80 Nest, then moves across the state. The Twin Cities in Minnesota are dead, but the hard winters freeze their dead, and clearing crews work from Cathedral Hill Wall. St. Louis and Kansas City are dead. Raiders at Old Penitentiary Camp chain the Missouri River at Jefferson City.
The South is hot and wet, so the dead stay fresh and never freeze. Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Little Rock are dead. Burners roam these states. They burn the dead, and they also burn Mutated and Undead people. Their main camp in this region is Ouachita Burner Camp in Arkansas. King Ranch in Texas holds its land with horses and rifles. Feral cattle roam the ranch country in the millions. Pantex Plant near Amarillo is a sealed weapons plant.
The long winters freeze the dead for months, so survivors cleared the towns one winter at a time. Anchorage lives behind Elmendorf Base Wall. Juneau is a stronghold that no road reaches. The only ways in are by sea or by air. Kodiak Island is clear. Bears, wolves and the cold are the real dangers.
Zombies cannot swim, so a cleared island stays clear. Oahu was cleared by 2044, and the other islands in the 2050s. Honolulu is a stronghold of about 60,000 people and part of the Pacific Islands Union. The Salt Fleet runs Pearl Harbor Docks, its Pacific harbor. Ships sail to Juneau, Suva and the West Coast. Mutated people are sent to Molokai Quarantine Camp, where Lifeline takes their blood for Booster Shots.