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Oh, by the way, welcome to New Orleans. Sorry about that zombie incident, but you might as well get used to it. We'd love to take some time to show you our lovely city, but you probably should get to work. Good luck finding out where this plague came from and where it leads.
-the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce

Date: January 25, 1965
Place: The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency, New Orleans Office

Your first zombie encounter in New Orleans hasn't left you with a lot of clues. All you have to go on are some ghastly-blue human remains arrayed on a stainless steel table inside the city morgue. The guy had no identification, no clothes, but hell, someone's got to know who he is. Maybe the autopsy results will help.

Kappa Tau Gamma

OK, so the report confirms your initial hunch. The guy was sleeping, zombies busted in, he dove out a window and one of them took a chunk out of his leg. He staggered off somewhere, passed out from blood loss and reawakened a few hours later as a zombie. Which means he couldn't have lived far from Audubon Park, the place where you found him. The coroner suggests the guy was a guitar player because of his fingertip callouses and well-manicured fingernails. A guitar player in New Orleans. That narrows it down to a few thousand! Now all you need is a name.

You call the office to see if your agents are making any headway. One of the investigators tells you that a 20-year-old Tulane University student was listed as missing yesterday after she didn't return to her sorority the night before. You head over to the sorority.

The sisters of Kappa Tau Gamma, with their beehive hairdos and frosty pink lipstick, are less than thrilled to see you. Of course, that could be because you still have the smell of the morgue on your clothes. They tell you that the missing girl, a sophomore named Tanya DeVoursney, went out to dinner two nights ago and never came back. They don't know where she went or who she went with. You walk out of the place, frustrated and tired. The humidity here has a way of sapping your energy. One of the sorority sisters catches up to you outside the sorority and tells you, in the manner of someone sharing a scandalous secret, that Tanya might have been dating a guitar player. The relationship was kept on the sly because Tanya was afraid her sorority sisters would disapprove. Beyond that, all she knows is that the guy's name was Pete and he played at a nearby club called the Blue Note.

Peter Lambke's houseboat, on the right in the distance

A half-hour later, you enter the dimly lit Blue Note and find a few people talking quietly at the bar. The manager, a chain-smoking women of about 35 named Darlene, perks up at the mention of Pete the guitar player. "Know him?" she says incredulously. "We're engaged." I wonder if Tanya DeVoursney was aware of that? When you show her a picture from the morgue, she wails, "oh Petie," and starts sobbing on the bartender's shoulder. "Petie" turns out to be Peter Lambke of the eponymous jazz trio. In between bouts of consoling Darlene, the bartender tells you Lambke lives in a houseboat out on the river past Audubon Park.

As soon as you see the houseboat, moored about twenty yards offshore, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Unlike vampires, zombies are sloppy hunters and always leave behind plenty of evidence. The deck of the houseboat is covered with muddy hand and footprints and the cabin door has been ripped clean off its hinges. Inside the cabin, you find Tanya DeVoursney, or at least what you think is her: the zombies didn't leave much behind. Only the sorority pin on the floor tells you this pile of bones was once a college student.

What else? Some leftover shrimp scampi in the kitchen, an upended bottle of wine, two glasses and a shattered window above the bed. The agents start throwing out a variety of elaborate theories, but you know it isn't that complicated. Driven by the smell of flesh, three or four zombies slogged into the water, climbed on board and busted their way in the cabin. A desperate Lambke dove out the window, leaving his unfortunate date to the zombies. The big question is, where are those zombies now?

Call in the Assault Team, requisition a fleet of swamp boats and launch a full-scale action against the zombie pack.

Put off the search till first light tomorrow. Issue a local zombie warning and maintain a high security presence in the area.

Have the investigators set up a security perimeter with the help of New Orleans PD. Meanwhile, call in the Assault Team for a limited search of the area around the houseboat, concentrating on the shoreline.