Not that the borders to any of these territories were a permanent thing. The war between the good and the evil that had raged in Gotham since he could remember had not ceased in the face of death. When word reached one gang that another gang had found a cache of food or weapons, war erupted before the rumors could be confirmed. The citizens of the Bowery held off not only the living dead, but marauders intent on having their medical supplies and food. Batman let them kill each other without much interference. They would have to come to terms on their own, they would have to face facts or die. They were all prisoners in Gotham.

It had been easy for the government to isolate the island city from the rest of the world. Easy for them to condemn it’s citizens to face the end of the world on their own. The argument had been simple, all major cities that showed signs of contagion must be segregated from the rest of the country. It had all been a farce though, the whole world was victim to the plague of rising corpses. Gotham was just another casualty.

He swung from his grappling line, working his way slowly towards street level. Over an abandoned apartment complex, he could just make out the lights of the survivors’ campfires. His feet slid on the wet pavement as he finally reached the earth. It was always damp here, the air was pregnant with condensation from the Sprang River. Batman moved to the shadows of ruin, skulking through a city that he had once walked with his head held high.

He could have been more the hero for the rising dead, in many ways he was. But, the citizens of Gotham had deemed it fit to turn their fate over to his hands at the beginning of the whole mess. Two hands to win an impossible war. The Batman had fallen from their pedestal, was still falling.

He rounded a sharp corner in an alley he knew well and came within spitting distance of the ‘fence’ that surrounded the camp of the survivors. The fence had been constructed of severed light poles, wrecked cars, and piles of rubble from collapsed buildings. Anything and everything was used to fill the gaps in the barrier. It was an ugly wall with an ugly purpose and it served them well against the dead and the gangs. Of course, Batman found his way over it and passed the stationed guards with ease. These men were used to hearing the death moans of their enemies long before they ever saw them. He was just another shadow in a world overcome by them.

He kept to the outskirts of the camp. Moving along the wall, weaving his way in and out of the shelters fashioned by the derelict remains of the city whenever he came near a guard. At the northern most end, he came to a large white tent emblazoned with crude red crosses. Batman slipped through the rear entrance of the tent.