So I live in the up in the Rocky Mountains in the USA. These mountains are real mountains by the way, 8,000ft and up, not like them appalachian mountains(aka hills) back east. Anyway, just said that cuz I have friends from the east coast that have never seen real mountains before they came here.

Anyways,

my group is two sessions in, and they seem perfectly content with running off into the mountains and living out the apocalypse in solitude. What am I supposed to do with that? Im running the voodoo senario, so I guess I could get "teams" of zombies to go hunt survivors up in the mountains. But Im lacking in actual substance.

Any ideas?

As most zombie series will emphasize, the undead are sometimes the least of your worries in the apocalypse. Does one of them own land up there? If not then they'll probably be trespassing on some Mtn-folk-turf (see; armed militia), if they head to public land that's where everyone else is gonna head too so resources are going to be extremely stressed (see; starvation and "competition"). If one of them does own land, well every other schmo who can make it out of the city is gonna try to head up there too (see; looters).

And this is all assuming they *can* get up there. Ever tried to get up anywhere into the hills on a snowy weekend or beautiful Friday afternoon in the summer? Traffic is gridlocked even on interstate and highways (yeah, I'm a mile-high myself). In the apocalypse it's gonna be 10 times worse AND those gridlocked highways become zombie farms/thoroughfares up into the elevation they thought was so safe.

The great thing about the Voodoo scenario is the supernatural aspect. You can have them find what looks like a secure out of the way cabin. But there is a strange book bound in human skin in the cellar...

You could have one person get possessed and play out the "In Your Mind" location with everyone and keep track of the number of turns it takes. Then back in the real world the possessed character attacks his friends for a number of turns equal to the time in the "In Your Mind". Basically just run an Evil Dead type situation...

Maybe animals or even trees get possessed. Or up in the high altitudes at night evil spirits can take semi-physical forms, ghostly spirits, wraiths, or the truly horrifying Wendigo could appear.

Up in the Mountains could be a Voodoo place of power as well...

I'm wholly in favour of all the ideas suggested already. If your players want to run off into the mountains to escape the zombies, then let them. If they think they'll be safe, they would be wrong.

For starters, you've got weather to contend with. In the mountains, it will be cold. Possibly even snowy, depending on time of year and elevation. If the players aren't prepared for that with appropriate clothing and equipment, they may find it even more dangerous than hiding out in the city somewhere. There will be landslides and forest fires to deal with. Roads will easily get blocked, so having a vehicle (even a 4x4!) will quickly become useless. Winter could pose a serious threat all by itself, if the players aren't ready for it.

Then you've got the food issue. There won't be too many grocery stores up in the mountains - those that do exist won't have a whole lot of supplies, so there's a good chance they'll be picked clean by the few people who do live up there. Your players will need survival skills to hunt and gather berries if they want to eat. (Knowing which plants are poisonous vs edible will suddenly become important, too.) Plus, your players probably want to stockpile for winter, as above. If they don't mention doing that, the game will have a silent timer counting down.

You've got your mountain folk and wild animals, of course. Every bit as dangerous as zombies, perhaps moreso. Plus they already know the terrain and have the necessary skills to survive up there, which may put the players at a serious disadvantage if they come to blows. The people who live in the mountains may not be too receptive to taking in a bunch of freeloading city folk, either. Especially if they already know the world is going to Hell.

On top of that, you've got the absolute lack of any infrastructure or potential survivors. The players will be completely on their own, with no helpful NPCs to bump into. If they get injured, there will be no nearby medical stations (unless, again, they stockpiled before leaving the city or have first aid skills.) And so on. Basically, they won't be able to do anything that isn't on their character sheets. You can prey on that.

And then, as mentioned previously, you have all the typical horror movie "isolated cabin in the woods" tropes to play with. Including supernatural ideas due to the scenario you're using. If your players are trying to escape the zombie horde for a while, just let them do it. See how long they can last before they start thinking it might be worth the risk to go back to the suburbs. In the mean time, you can let the voodoo priests consolidate their power and prepare for the next stage of their plans.

Don't forget the obvious, other survivors. And I'm not just talking about land owners either. Imagine a city gang, that when the going got tough, were smart enough to get going. And some how or other, ended up in the mountains. Will they know how to forage for food? How to hunt? How to cope with exposure? Or even how to navigate (there is a difference between 'city' and 'rural' gps systems, and then there's battery life and how long the GPS system itself will last without maintenance). So, they'll either die, or survive by attacking other survivors. And it doesn't have to be a gang. We don't have to look to much further than The Walking Dead to see what a father 'might' do to keep his family alive in such a scenario. I don't think it would take long at all for 'bandit' groups to start forming after the events start that End the World.

Also, fast-forward past the dull parts. Maybe your group has the skills to hide and survive, so just jump ahead to winter time when they raid for food, or a military unit turns up and secures the area.

I love the idea that if your players were smart enough to go there, then so were other people - and if those other people died, there's a new batch of zombies to hunt your PCs!

Another thing to consider is a time jump. Your players may have been able to survive in the mountains for some time, but the isolated (and dwindling supplies) force them to have to return. Using the second part of the scenario, you can have your players exploring a world alien to the one they left.

I did a time jump when my players made it to - and turned themselves (and all their gear) into - a Narional Guard depot that was fortified. Basically narrated how they lived in a crowded refugee segment of the base, lived on minimal rations, in filthy conditions, being kept in ignorance by their government of what was going on out there (aside from the bomb blasts and gunfire they would occasionally hear), eventually conscripted as hard-labor workers, until it was eventually (2 years later) overrun from an outbreak on the inside, they were evacuated to a partially complete "Quarantine Zone", which is where we picked up again...

I was doing my "Last of Us" inspired campaign, so the time jump was planned.

Survivalism becomes a game of bookkeeping when you fast-forward. This can be fun, but it loses some of the immediacy of the role-playing component.

Instead, consider adding interesting NPC's. Interesting characters can make even the most mundane events seem riveting. A pregnant woman and her boyfriend show up in the mountains? What about a squad of gang-bangers from Five Points? Additionally, moving beyond stereotypes can make the experience more memorable. A US Geologic Survey team armed to the teeth. A meth cook and her boyfriend who don't know anything about the apocalypse. Etc.

Other random events may add up to an even more terrifying experience. A helicopter crashes in the mountains. Discovery of a cave system or abandoned bomb shelters. Being stalked by wild animals. There's a reason the Donner party ended up the way it did. The mountains can be even more terrifying than the zombies.

I live in a rural area in the northern foothills of the Adirondacks. Mountains in summer are a very different place to mountains in winter. Give real consideration to exposure, sanitation, food and water sources and supplies, medical care even for something as simple as a sprained ankle.

Ask your players to spend a week living off the grid in the mountains. That should give them a taste of their survival strategy. Let them take only what their characters had when they fled the fall of civilization. Assuming they are playing themselves they get their own survival skills.

No fast forward needed. Have the radio stations slowly, or rapidly, fall off the air. Now what do they do for news of the world? Do they see the smoke from burning cities? Are the lights still on anywhere?

Who might spot the lights, smoke, etc of their camp?

If you haven't read it yet, you really should read World War Z by Max Brooks. There is a part of this one of the early chapters that deals with people fleeing in the wake of the zombie outbreak. It might give you some ideas as to what kinds of other survivors your group may encounter out there.

Create the story such that the Zombie infection can also affect animals. So, if they run into the mountains, they have to deal with not having any sturdy shelters available and having to fight zombie bears, mountain lions, and wolves.

In that scenario, they will die quickly and are much better off staying in a town or city.

You could set up a scenario where they are being pursued by a horde of human zombies, but then some zombie bears show up and start eating all of the human zombies...but, then the zombie bears turn to the players and they have to fight off two or more zombie bears, maybe some zombie wolves; make the zombie bears and/or wolves be very fast, ferocious, and dangerous (i.e., difficult to kill). They'll quickly realize that running out into the mountains or woods will be certain death.