World War Z Fan-Fiction

[ZombieApocalypseSurvivor]

Hey you guys. I'm new here, so I thought that I'd start a new topic for World War Z style RP and short stories and other fan fiction. I'll post the stories I have so far from my fan fiction sequel to World War Z which is written by Max Brooks for all you that don't know ;P  

[ZombieApocalypseSurvivor]

Beginnings


Pueblo, Colorado, USA

[I sit with Justin Weir, who hands me a pre-war picture. In it are eight teenage boys, standing next to each other in front of what appears to be a sign. The sign is a man with an apple head, holding a sign pointing to a road that led to a local pre-war market, apparently advertising the business. Of the eight teenage boys in the picture, several of them have red ‘X’s over their heads.]

It was a simple get together, that’s all. We did it all the time. This time, though, this get together was different. That night, it changed our lives forever. Sure, we’d heard about the first sightings, the first attacks. We didn’t worry, why should we? We had the best damn army in the whole world. We thought that, by the time we’d be in a safe place to wait it out, the problem would be over. So we didn’t even bother to take basic precautionary measures, like stocking up on water or food, or anything like that. Boy, were we stupid. And by “we” I mean everyone, not just kids or Americans, but everyone in the world. Anyway, the night everything changed, we were at Cameron’s house [He points to a boy in the picture]. It was the usual crew: me, him, Tim, Wilson, Noah, Lucas, Pat, JoeJones, and Cameron’s bro Collin. We’d usually play Dawn of the Dead, which was always an interesting experience, especially when JoeJones would play.
What is ‘Dawn of the Dead’?
You mean besides a bad remake of a good movie? Essentially, it was just a form of Hide-And-Seek in the dark. One person would start off as a zombie, usually decided by a nose-goes round. After that, the loser would close their eyes for about a minute or so, giving the other players a chance to run and hide around the yard of the house. Whether was in bushes, behind a small fence just barely inside the boundaries, in trees or on top of the shed. After that minute, they’d walk around, like a zombie, moaning until they saw another player, and then chase them. You became a zombie if you were tagged by a zombie player. However, you did have a “gun”. You could use your hand and say bang, freezing the zombie for at least ten seconds. You only had three shots though, until me and Cameron would shout reload or new weapon. The only other guns you could have were a shotgun, which had six shots, and an Uzi, which had three three-round bursts. Please, note that we didn’t make this game up to make fun of or ridicule the situation at the time. We “created” the game years before the first reported sighting. Heh, only now do I realize the irony of the game.
Anyway, we didn’t get that far into the game. We waited around for 45 minutes for Lucas to show up. When he finally did, he had a huge dent in the hood of his car, like he had it a person while he had been going at least 60 miles per hour. When we asked him what had happened, he had said that this guy just walked into the road right in front of him, and before he could hit the brakes, the guy was flying over the top of his car. As soon as he stopped the car and calmed his breathing down, he got out and ran back to where the guy was laying face down. When Lucas bent down to help him, the man turned over, grabbing his hand and biting it. Lucas withdrew his hand and backed up several paces as the man slowly got up and walked toward him, dragging a dislocated right leg behind him, a left arm dangling by the threads of the man’s shirt, and several holes oozing a brown puss-like substance pocketed his torso. As the man shambled toward Lucas, he ran back to his car, flooring it out of there down three miles of road to Cameron's house. As he was telling the story, he showed us his hand, and said he recognized the guy, who was a druggie, so he thought he was just hyped up on PCP or something. JoeJones, however, wasn’t as convinced. As Lucas wrapped his hand back up with a torn piece of shirt, JoeJones got into his dad’s blue Toyota Corolla and drove off without saying a word.
Why did he just drive off like that?
He knew. He had an obsession with the zombie apocalypse. He read up on zombie survival, killing methods and how to purge a selected area or even the whole world from the undead filth. And this was well, well before the first “reported” sighting. He was just one of those people that liked being prepared. Like a fortune he got from a fortune cookie he once got said: “over prepare, and then go with the flow.”
And did he over prepare?
Hell to the yeah. He had a zombie plan and everything. He knew where to go, how early in the “apocalypse” to go, who to take with him, what supplies, three back up plans, escape routes, everything. He didn’t overlook even the smallest detail. He also knew how to beat off a zombie in hand-to-hand and blunt weapon combat, which was why it was so interesting to play Dawn of the Dead with him.
When he left, we just thought he couldn’t handle the sight of blood, which was stupid of us, because he wanted to be a cop and a soldier. Anyway, after he left, the game started. When Lucas started counting, Cameron turned off the outside lights, and Tim and I made a run for the shed. He climbed onto the ten-foot-tall roof and lied down on his belly, and I straight jumped, grabbed a branch ten feet in the air, and climbed up five more feet, crouching down. We did this one for a better field of view, so we could quickly jump down and run if a zombie player came at us, and it made us a helluva lot harder to catch. We waited there for what seemed like an hour, but in reality it was about ten minutes. We listened to the moans of the “zombies”, the screams of people that were found, curse words by people who had been tagged, and people shouting bang, getting a chance to run away. We saw Wilson sneak around to our side of the house and jump in some bushes. After about a minute, Tim and I heard leaves move over in Wilson’s direction. We turned just in time to see him jump outta the bushes shouting “Why’s it always me!” as Cameron chased him to the road, which was practically in the front yard, and tackled him to the ground. Cameron's mom pulled out of the garage and drove down the gravel road after Wilson and Cameron had gotten out of the way. Suddenly, we heard a scream, then shouts for help. Tim and I looked at each other, jumped down from our hiding spots, met eyes with Cameron and Wilson, and took off in the directions of the shouts.
When we got to the source of the shouts, over by the white picket fence I mentioned earlier, we saw Lucas lying unconscious on the ground, Collin and Noah standing next to him. They said that he was chasing them, and right before he tackled them, he just collapsed and didn’t get up. Cameron bent down and checked his pulse. After he said he was still alive, Pat ran over, saw Lucas on the ground, and pulled out his cell phone to call 911. We stopped him, however.
Why did you do that?
We were kids. Hell, do you remember why you did everything as a kid? We were teenagers. Besides, we didn’t want to have to give directions to the ambulance, and we could be at a hospital by the time the 911 operator took us off hold. We also didn’t want to be harassed by the police with questions all night either.
So what did you do?
We tried to decide who would take him to the hospital. Pat jumped at the opportunity. He’d just gotten his license and was eager to drive as much as he could.
So Pat took Lucas to the hospital?
Well, he was the only one that got in the car with him.
What did the rest of you do?
We stood in our usual formation: a circle. We talked for about ten minutes, decided we were bored, and went inside to play some [Video game name withheld for legal reasons] in Cameron's basement. After about half an hour, we had crushed the stash of [soda name withheld for legal reasons], so Wilson went up to grab some more. We should’ve noted that he was gone well over 15 minutes, but we were so involved in the game and screwing around that we didn’t even notice until Noah complained about how long it was taking Wilson to get the soda. After shouting for a few minutes for him to hurry up, Cameron got up and went upstairs to get it himself. Almost immediately we heard a crashing, a thud and a scream. After waiting to see if anyone was going to get up to investigate, I got up and took the 12 step stair case four at a time. When I got to the top, I entered the kitchen and saw a horrific sight: a strange man had Cameron pinned against the cabinets by the sink, trying to bite at him anywhere he could. Cameron screamed for me to do something, so I grabbed the nearest object to me: a fruit basket, and threw at the man, not even fazing him. Cameron shouted “really?” as I looked for anything else I could use against the man. I saw a set of cooking knives, so I grabbed the four biggest ones: a butcher, bread slicer, chef and santoku knives, two in each hand, and thrust them to their ends into the man’s back. This did nothing but push him farther onto Cameron, who he was trying to furiously bite at. In a panic, I grabbed a kitchen chair and hit the man as hard as I could in the back, shattering the chair and turning the man’s attention on me. He let go of Cameron and slowly came towards me as Cameron held his throat and side, trying to catch his breath and pull himself together.
When my eyes met his, it was almost as if time stood still. Those eyes, yellow and sunken back into the skull, froze me. I couldn’t move, could hardly breathe, as the thing in front of me slowly closed the gap between us, dragging a dislocated right leg behind him. As I stood there in an almost eternal freeze, I realized that this guy, this thing, wasn’t human at all. I was still thinking this when I felt the cold, cracked, pale hands grabbed me, and I closed my eyes and prepared for the inevitable.
Only it never came.
Well, obviously.
Then what happened?
A ******** miracle, that’s what happened. After I didn’t feel teeth tearing into my flesh, I opened my eyes. The world was in real time now. I looked straight ahead, and instead of the man, I saw JoeJones, just standing there. His face was calm, almost peaceful, as he stood there, shovel at his side, his huge-a** black army back pack. I looked to my right, and I saw the man’s body just lying on the kitchen table where the chair had been taken from, the right side of his skull totally crushed, brains, skull fragments, and a brown puss-like substance spilling out over the table, dripping onto the ground, pooling onto the floor beneath.
I looked back at JoeJones as the thuds of several pairs of feet came rushing up the stairs. As the rushed up, Tim saw the body and said his most common phrase: “Jesus Christ JoeJones!” JoeJones just stood there as Cameron got up and stood behind him. Before the others could reprimand JoeJones for killing the man, Cameron explained what had happened in the one minute I had been upstairs. After the encounter was explained to everybody, JoeJones walked nonchalantly over to the sink and rinsed off his shovel, taking great care not to get any of the brown puss on himself. He saw Collin and Noah go near the body, Collin reaching over to touch it, and said it wasn’t a good idea, that you can still get infected even though it’s dead…again. As Noah and Collin rejoined us, we all gathered around JoeJones in a semi-circle kind of formation.
“Was… was that…a…a…” I stuttered.
“Yes. It was a zombie. Not anymore.” JoeJones said, still washing his shovel off, his back to us.
“So that means,” Tim said in awe.
“Yes,” JoeJones said, turning around to face us, putting the shovel over his right shoulder as he stepped forward. I could almost see a glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes. “It’s the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse.”  

[ZombieApocalypseSurvivor]

New Taneytown, Virginia, USA

[As I sit in the living room of Tim Dunn’s house, his wife offers me a glass of lemonade, and then walks off to tend to their children in the backyard of their small-town suburban home. Close to a fresh-water river, and in the middle of farming country, it’s no surprise that this war-time refugee haven is still thriving, aside from its impenetrable perimeter walls along with survival shelters strategically placed around the ever-growing town.]
What do you want to know about the Baugher Incident?
What happened after JoeJones killed the zombie, after he said that it was the start of the Zombie Apocalypse?
Right. Well, after that, we all started talking at once. Hell, I make it sound like such a calm and organized event. In reality, we were shouting so loud I thought people in town could hear us. The only one not panicking and shouting was JoeJones. He stood there calmly, listening to us argue and shout at each other. After a minute or so, he pulled out his cell phone and started texting. Not ten seconds after he closed his phone, we all stopped shouting and reached into our pockets and looked at our phones, then looked at JoeJones. Before we could shout at him for sending a mass text to all of us, he spoke, said that he had a plan. He stated that we go to the Wal-Mart in town, fortify the hell out of it, and wait it out, if not ‘til then, then until we could find another place to wait it out. Noah objected to this, saying that we should go to the police station, or even the nearest military base. Wilson agreed with Noah, but JoeJones immediately shot down the idea. After Noah asked why, JoeJones said that everyone and their uncle will think “oh, hey, police and military keep us safe, let’s go to them.” He also said that not only will thousands of people flood them, but many of them will be infected, or take infected or turned family members with them, thus turning the entire place into nothing but an all-you-can-eat buffet. Tim suggested that we just stay here, fortify this place as best we can, maybe put up walls around the farm and wait it out. After also shooting down this idea, he said that, by the time we’d get even the house fortified, we’d be up to our head in the undead. Then Cameron came out with a valid point. He said that this was probably just an isolated incident and that if it wasn’t an isolated incident, that if it was an outbreak, then they should just sit tight and wait for the military and authorities to handle the situation, that this wouldn’t last more than a week.
Upon hearing this, JoeJones went over to the TV in the living room, setting his back pack down at his feet. On the screen were images live from New York City. They showed panicked citizens running and screaming in all directions as hundreds of zombies slowly moaned and ate their way down the street. The camera turned to show a crude barricade made up of police cars, dump trucks, SWAT trucks, taxi’s, and a variety of other vehicles and objects. The police and soldiers started to open fire, hitting the majority of their targets in the chest, with the occasional headshot. The female reporter behind the barricade was talking about how this group had made its way from Manhattan Island to where they were at that moment, and that thousands more were making their way all across the city, devouring everything in their path. Suddenly, the reporter screamed and the camera turned to the right, getting a shot of the rear of the barricade as several dozen more zombies came from behind it. The police and soldiers turned around to face the new threat. But the panicked shots went wild, hitting objects not even close to the zombies. A three-round burst from an M-16 hit near the reporter, who had moved in front of the camera, but still faced the new group of zombies. Suddenly, a city bus came flying around the corner, zombies hanging on the outside. The camera man zoomed in and kept the bus in the frame of the camera as it raced toward the barricade. There were several zombies inside the bus, chewing on the still-living driver and passengers. The driver of the bus was swerving, taking out both the panicking people and zombies. Before the police and soldiers could get out of the way, the bus slammed through the barricade, flipped onto its side, and skidded to a halt just into the original horde of zombies, which many turned their attention to the doomed bus, like a swarm of ants onto a moth that just fell in their path. The now exposed would-be defenders were surrounded and devoured. Then the camera quickly switched back to the reporter, who was being pulled down by her arms and hair by several zombies. The last thing we saw before the footage cut out was the camera fall down and several zombies pin the camera man down several feet away from the camera. The zombies blocked the camera man, but bits of flesh and intestines flew up from the group of zombies as the screaming man was devoured.
JoeJones turned his head to his left, away from the TV, and looked at us. We must have looked unbelieving, because he kept flipping through every channel, one by one, which all told similar stories: barricades being overrun, authorities being outnumbered and eaten, etc. not once during this did he take his eyes off us, adding to the emphasis and the seriousness of the situation. Apparently Noah had changed his mind, but Wilson hadn’t. He stepped forward, saying that he was going to the police station whether we liked it or not, and turned to leave. JoeJones dropped the remote and his shovel on the floor, walked briskly over to Wilson, and grabbed his shoulder to stop him. Wilson grabbed JoeJones’ arm, trying to get him into a position where he couldn’t defend himself. But JoeJones was too quick for him. He grabbed Wilson's arm, twisted it behind his back, pushing his arm up against his back all the way to his shoulder blades, and pulled a black-bladed machete from a hidden sheath under his shirt, putting it to Wilson’s throat. He said that he’d rather kill him here, when it was easier to kill him, than let him be turned into a zombie and be able to come back and keep the infection going.
After Wilson agreed to stay with the group, JoeJones let him go, sheathing his machete. At this point, we all knew that JoeJones meant serious business. He said that we should go to the Wal-Mart and so on, explaining his plan in greater detail. Everyone agreed, and then the next issue came up: how do we get there? I suggested we all hop in one car and make a run for it. Collin said we should make a convoy kind of thing, two people per car, stack them with supplies, and then go for it. JoeJones immediately shot down any ideas involving roads, because the first thing people do in a dangerous situation is hit the road and drive crazy. Also he said that the roads were backed up so far that we’d never make it into town. He suggested that we go off-road. Take the four-wheelers, load them with supplies, and stay off the roads. The only problem was that we couldn’t all fit on the two four wheelers with supplies, so we decided to go down to the garage used to repair the company trucks to get the golf cart, along with gas and close-combat weapons. After agreeing on this, we set off.
I thought you said you all couldn’t fit on the four wheelers.
Yes, that’s right. Oh, when I say we I mean Justin, Cameron and I. Cameron got on one, and Justin got behind me on the other. We heard the garage door close over the roar of our engines as we sped out of it, down the unpaved road to the company garage. We were lucky, we didn’t encounter a single zombie on the way to the garage, and even luckier when we found the golf cart with a full tank of gas. That’s when our luck ran out, however.
As Justin opened the door to the shed-like garage where the golf cart was kept, Cameron and I were in the repair shop, or the Shop, grabbing all the sharp tools, like machetes and saws, as well as any blunt weapon we could grab, such as hammers, sledgehammers and shovels. We heard a scream from the garage, and just as we ran outside the Shop to see what was happening, two zombies, one a child and one an adult stumbled into the garage. Before we could take a step to help, however, we heard the rev of an engine as Justin hit the adult zombie, sending it flying out of the garage, its head getting crushed underneath one of the front tires as Justin swung out of the golf cart, kicked the zombie child in the chest knocking it down. Before it could get back up, Justin picked it up by its feet, slamming it like a human flail into the side of the garage, its head flying off its shoulders, rolling across the ground, still biting at him. By this time, we had run over to Justin, standing next to him as the still-biting head rolled to a stop in front of one of the front tires of one of the four wheelers. Justin helped me load the back of the golf cart with the weapons we decided to take with us: several hammers, three machetes, a shovel and, by request and for his personal use, Justin held the sledge hammer next to him in the golf cart, the shovel next to it. We filled up the four wheelers with gas, and strapped each one with two spare gas tanks, along with the golf cart. After we were satisfied with what we had gotten, we headed back up to the house, Justin in the golf cart between me and Cameron. We only came across three other zombies, which Justin hit in the head with one of the hammers as he sped by.
When we got to the house, everyone burst out of it, each person was carrying a backpack full of food, water and medical supplies. JoeJones ran to his car, grabbing two bags and tossed one bag to Justin, then one to me. He said they were “72 hour” packs that they were filled with enough supplies to last each of us 3 days, and then climbed into the golf cart with Justin, Wilson getting onto the hood of the golf cart, as Cameron distributed the weapons among everyone. I took two machetes; Cameron took a hammer and the shovel JoeJones didn’t have, putting it on his back, under his shirt. Collin and Noah each grabbed two hammers, which were all that were left. As soon as everyone had the supplies they needed, we sped off to our hopefully safe place: Wal-Mart.  

[ZombieApocalypseSurvivor]

Stevenston, Rhode Island

[The breeze sends goose bumps up my arms as a winter breeze suddenly comes up as Chris Berringer leads me through a perimeter check of the town. We walk along a 15 foot tall wall, complete with peepholes for guns, retractable ladders, a solid concrete base, and walkways leading to the elevated homes that make up the small town. None of the buildings are below ten feet in the air, and only one road for supplies runs through it. Chris stops at the west side of the wall, leaning against the hand rail, staring at the sunrise.]

We were in the mall in Westminster, Maryland. Me and my girlfriend, now wife, I mean. We were just chillin’, walking around like we usually did. We never really bought anything, except for maybe a movie ticket or food from the food court. This day was no different. We were just walking around, when suddenly my cell phone rang. It was a text message from Joe. He told us that it was a situation alpha, and to get to rendezvous point Zulu.
[I have a blank stare on my face, which Chris must have noticed]That’s Joe for “it’s the zombie apocalypse, get Sarah and get the hell to Wal-Mart.” As I was about to reply to his text making sure it wasn’t a drill, there were screams from all around us. People were running out of stores and in all directions. So I grabbed Sarah’s hand and ran for the food court, which was the closest exit. We climbed a set of stairs, taking them probably six at a time. As we topped the stairs, we saw another hallway to our left. It was full of people running towards us as we ran passed where the two corridors met. Behind them, Sarah and I could see dozens of zombies taking people down and devouring them. Several people ran in a panic towards the fleeing people, but were quickly absorbed into the confusing mess of death and screams. I pushed Sarah in front of me, so that way if any zombies came up behind us they’d grab me instead of her.
As we came to the food court, it was full of people being pulled over tables, counters, and into stores. There was even a sit down restaurant attached to the mall by some Plexiglas doors. I saw a man run out of it, closing and blocking the outward-swinging doors behind him to prevent anything from following him. The man turned around from barricading and was taken down by three zombies. The people in the restaurant were pressed up against the glass, trying uselessly to escape the death trap. Blood was spurting all over the glass. Through the glass, I saw three people make a little makeshift fort out of tables and chairs, which was quickly torn down and the people devoured. I looked behind us to see if any zombies were close enough to immediately worry about. Suddenly, I heard a scream, then I tripped, flying two feet through the air before crashing into an over turned chair. I rolled over, wincing and holding my ribs as I turned to see what I had tripped on. Sarah was being pulled into a group of zombies, all trying to claw at her. I don’t really know what happened next. I apologize, it’s all a blur.
[We hear the sound of footsteps coming toward us. As we turn to investigate them, we see Sarah walk over and stand next to Chris, putting her arm around his.]
[Sarah] I’ll tell you what happened. As I was being pulled away by those zombies, I saw Chris get up, blood soaking the left side of his shirt. It almost looked like he had bruised a rib. But I saw him pick up the chair, hit one zombie so hard its skull totally collapsed. Chris used the two legs of the broken chair, stabbing them into two other zombies’ eyes. Then the zombie that was pulling me turned its attention to him. It slowly walked over to him as he frantically searched for something to defend himself with. As the zombie got within two feet of Chris, he saw a woman wearing high heel shoes who was being devoured a few feet away. He took them off her kicking feet and beat the zombie in the head with them until it was dead. He dropped them and ran over to help me up, and we ran outside the mall.
[Chris] It was total and absolute chaos. The streets were filled with people driving crazy, trying to get out of town as fast as they could. We ran through the parking lot. All around us people were running in all directions. I saw people getting pulled under cars, people trapped in zombie filled cars, I even saw one guy standing on top of his pick-up, just barely out of reach from the zombies. But the zombies were shaking the truck so much that he lost his balance and fell into the bed of the pick-up, where the zombies grabbed at him from all directions, tearing him to pieces as we ran by. When we got to the street, there was a pile up of at least twenty or so vehicles, just being swarmed by zombies. We ran across the street, almost being hit by a car whose driver was being eaten as he was swerving helplessly in a panic. Once we crossed the street, we took back alleys and less-travelled streets to the Wal-Mart, arriving about three hours later.
Why did it take so long to get to Wal-Mart? Wasn’t it in the same town you were in?
Yeah, it was. But let’s see you get there any faster when you have to stop every five minutes to decide which way to go, or to hide from or kill a zombie in your path. We also had to avoid any streets with stores, because the looting was so bad. Heh, it’s funny. With all the death and destruction and danger, people would risk their lives to grab a TV, or a VCR, or stuff like that. All it did was slow you down, and we saw many of them get cornered or taken down by zombies.
Anyway, when we got to the Wal-Mart parking lot, it was almost the same as the one at the mall. So much chaos and panic and death were everywhere. Sarah and I ran for the garden center. We ran passed a guy with a cross bow and quivers with what must have been at least 300 arrows in all, just standing there calmly, like it was just another day at the range. We ran up to him, and he said that he’d cover us as we entered the place, just as he shot a zombie in the head from a hundred feet away that was about to take down a man entering the building. The man with the cross bow shouted at us to get inside and clear out the building, that he could hold them off out here for a while, but not forever.
I grabbed Sarah, and just as we were about to run inside, we heard the hum of off-road vehicles. We turned around and saw two ATV’s and a golf cart, full with people and supplies. I immediately knew they were Joe’s friends because of how organized they were, but I didn’t see him with them. The first ATV and the golf cart pulled into the store. I flagged down the third one, which stopped next to us as Sarah and I ran up to it. It was driven by Joe’s friend Tim, and behind him rode one of Joe’s other friends Collin. They asked if we were friends of Joe, and we said yes, and then they asked the guy with the cross bow if he was too. He tilted his head to the side a little bit so we knew he was talking to us and said no. Tim tried to argue that he couldn’t be here, that it was only for certain people that they could trust. The man turned around, shot an arrow within inches of Collin’s head, hitting a zombie right between the eyes. When Tim and Collin saw what the man had done, they agreed that they trusted him, but that he’d have to go through an inspection to see if he was infected or not. He agreed, turning around and shooting another arrow, killing another zombie.
Then we asked Tim where Joe was, that we didn’t see him in the makeshift convoy. Tim looked at me and Sarah each in the eyes, and turned his head, following the others into the store. I knew then that Joe hadn’t made it. But I still couldn’t believe it. Sarah started crying as I grabbed her hand and ran into the store, the cross bow guy following us, closing the gate to the garden center behind him. As we ran inside, I looked down at the ground as a tear came to my eye.  

[ZombieApocalypseSurvivor]

Yellowstone National Park, Montana, USA

[This once world-famous wildlife park, complete with a number of endangered species, now barely contains a local white tail deer population. Every time one is sighted, it’s like seeing the legendary Sasquatch. I walk through the park with a routine patrol to scan the area for any zombies that survived the Eastern Push. The patrol is led by Captain Phil Duffy, a veteran of the Eastern Push, Yonkers, and the Battle of Hope. His pre-war profession was as a high school band director. He is currently in charge of the Yellowstone Project, the purpose of which is to attempt to restore and maintain what remains of the once thriving National Wildlife Park.]

I was on my way home from the high school when everything changed. It was about 2:30 in the morning. We had gotten back from a marching band competition about forty-five minutes before, but the kids liked to hang out in the band room as long as they could for some reason. Anyway, I was about half an hour into my hour drive home from the school. I was dead tired. I planned on sleeping in the next day, and then get ready to watch the Pittsburg Steelers win another game.
As I was thinking about this, I saw the car ahead of me suddenly start swerving all over the road. At first it was jus a little bit, like drifting in the other lane or onto the shoulder, then going back into the lane like they were driving drunk. Then, it got violent. They were literally swerving, doing sharp zigzags, almost like the driver was being attacked by something. We were coming up to a turn at the bottom of a hill when suddenly an SUV came flying around the bend, crashing head-on into the car in front of me as it went into the other lane. The impact had such force, what was left of the vehicles spun to opposite sides of the road. I slammed on the breaks, my KIA Sportage screeching to a halt ten feet from the closest car. After catching my breath for several seconds, processing what had just happened; I jumped out of my car and ran over to the crashed car in front of me.
The scene before me was horrific. The car that had been in front of me was totally destroyed. The entire front of the car was crushed in almost all the way to the shattered windshield. The driver and side airbags had deployed, but the passenger one hadn’t. The back windows had blown out and one side mirror was dangling by less than an inch of plastic, and the rear view mirror was gone. I ran over to the driver’s side and checked his pulse. Dead. As I rounded the back of the car, I saw the back of a child’s car seat. My heart jumped, and I quickly checked the pulse of the passenger, whose head was completely caved in from colliding with the dashboard, and he was obviously dead. I thought to myself that if the adults hadn’t survived, then there was no way in Hell a 5 or 6 year old child did.
I stood up, looking at the SUV on the other side of the road. The driver was getting out, running over to the passenger side of his vehicle. I had taken two steps toward the SUV, had almost gotten into a fast jog, when I heard crying from behind me. I stopped so fast I don’t know how I didn’t fall flat on my face. I turned around and saw the child’s head move. I ran back over to the car, shouting at the driver of the SUV to call 911. I tried opening the rear passenger side door, but it wouldn’t budge. The kid was really balling now. I ran to the other side of the car to see if I had any luck with that door. I pulled the handle, and it opened, with a little bit of force, of course. When the door swung open, it practically tore off the car and fell to the ground with a thud. I leaned into the car and unbuckled the kid, carefully taking him out in case any bones were broken. I rushed him over to my car, all the while he’s kicking and screaming and crying from confusion and what I thought what might be a concussion. I set him in the passenger seat of the car and turned to look at the SUV. It was positioned in a way where I couldn’t see the passenger side of the car, just the driver’s side.
I ran over to see if I could help him, since he hadn’t made any noise or shouted or anything since I saw him go around to the passenger side of the car. As I rounded the crushed engine and shattered windshield, I saw a woman, I assumed who was the passenger, bent over the driver. She was crouching where I could see her back and his legs, but nothing else. I reached down and touched her shoulder to see if she was alright, and I got the scare of my life, up to that point of course. She turned her head and looked me in the eyes. I could tell something was wrong right away, just by looking at her eyes sunk back into their sockets. Then I came out of the shock and saw that she had blood covering her face, a large chunk of glass sticking out of her head apparently not deep enough to destroy the brain. I got a glimpse of the motionless man before her, which was a very disturbing sight. The man’s upper body between his hips and ribs was totally ripped open. A trail of intestines led from the gaping hole to the woman’s hands and into her mouth as she gnawed on them. At this point, the woman was moaning, shuffling towards me. I immediately backed up, and then I heard it. That noise you remember forever.
I turned around and there were three of them coming from the woods to my left, and two more coming down the road no more than ten feet from me. I turned to run towards my car, which was also the way the two on the road were coming from. I rounded the front of the SUV just as another zombie walked around it. Now I was cornered. I jumped onto the hood of the SUV, pulling myself through the space where the windshield had once been. I was about half-way in when I felt hands on my leg. I used my free leg to kick the zombie with my size 12 steel-toe boot, crushing its skull. I pulled myself the rest of the way through the opening, crawling to the furthest row of seats back. The zombies had the SUV surrounded, trying to get in, slowly banging the windows with their fists. At this point I realized that I was done. I laid down on the floor and thought about my life, what I had done and what I’d always wanted to do. Then, I heard another scream. I peeked out the window and saw three of the zombies making their way over to my car.
You know how they say that when a child is in danger, people can do extraordinary things? You know, like lift a car by themselves, fight off a pack of hungry wolves, that sort of stuff.
[I nod my head]
Well, that’s what happened to me. I saw the kid was in trouble, and my adrenaline kicked into over-drive. With no regard to the zombies right outside of the SUV, I opened the back door on the driver’s side of the SUV and jumped out. Right away, a zombie grabbed my arms, making it so I couldn’t use them. I kicked the b*****d in the shin so hard it dislocated so far backwards that I thought it flew off. The zombie fell to the side, letting go of my arms. I pushed it the rest of the way to the ground, curb stomping it, brain matter spraying all over the road. I ran over to my car before more zombies could attack me. I ran at the closest zombie to me, which was furthest to my car, at a full sprint. I tackled it in the dead center of its back, shattering its spinal cord. As the two of us fell to the ground, I rolled to the side, jumped up and kicked the paralyzed zombie in the face, indenting its forehead. I ran at the next closest zombie, who had turned away from my car and was coming after me. I tackled it, my shoulders just below its rib cage, flipping it over my shoulder, ribs sticking out from its torn shirt from the impact. As it started to get up, I picked it up by its legs and slammed it onto the ground, destroying its head. The final zombie was near my car was pounding at the window, slowly but powerfully. The window had started crack. I tried to decide how to take this one out. I couldn’t tackle it because it would shatter the window and possibly hurt the kid. So I did the next best thing.
I ran to the back of my car and pulled out the fire extinguisher. I ran around the side of the car and slammed the fire extinguisher into the zombies head, causing its head to hit the cracked window and falling to the ground. The adrenaline was so built up that I just kept beating the zombie until I came back to reality. I looked up, breathing hard, chest pounding, to see the other zombies, followed by several new ones, shambling slowly in my direction. I stood up from my latest kill and ran to the driver side of the car, getting in and throwing the dented and gooey fire extinguisher into the back. I closed the door and looked at the kid. He was crying, and held his left arm and I could see bone poking out from just under the skin. I knew he needed to get to the hospital ASAP. I looked in front of me, and against the headlights of the SUV I saw seven silhouettes slowly making their way towards us. I locked the doors and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. I tried again. I heard the sputter of the engine trying to kick on, but it refused. Right when I thought we were done for, I saw a light to my left on the top of the hill.
I looked and saw the light quickly grow into two separate lights as a van crashed through the first five zombies that were in its path, sending them flying in all directions, one landing on the hood of my car, denting it. The van screeched to a halt, the drove backwards, hitting the two zombies as they walked past the other ones on the ground. The van had no windows and was white. It also looked like it could easily hold ten to fifteen people. It had a sliding door on the side that was facing me. On the door was a logo that took up most of the door. It was a crosshair, and in it were zombies going back to the horizon. Below the logo in big red letters was Z.A.P. just as I had read Z.A.P., the door slid open, and at least ten people with rifles and assault rifles, complete with what appeared to be SWAT gear, poured out of the van. They spread around, shooting the downed zombies, and anything that wasn’t moving, in the head, making sure they weren’t going to get up. They opened up the SUV carefully, making sure it was clear. Then one of the people, a woman with her gun pointed at the ground in a ready position, looking over at my car. She must have seen me, because next thing I know she’s pointing her assault rifle at me and yelling at me to get out of the car with my arms above my head as all but three of the others ran over and pointed their guns at me and the kid next to me, the other three watching to make sure no other zombies came and caught the group by surprise. I was still in shock from what had just happened in the last five minutes and from the orders of the armed strangers when I heard a countdown. I didn’t hear what they had said before the countdown, but I came out of shock when they said five, had processed the information by three, and was standing outside of my car just as they said one.
They told me to come around to the front of the car and put my hands on the hood as. I did so just as two of them came over: one patting me down and the other moving the paralyzed zombie off the hood of my car, shooting it in the head when it hit the ground, then pointing his assault rifle at my head. The rest spread out along both tree lines for a hundred feet each direction, putting on what I assumed were night-vision goggles, or looking through night-vision enabled scopes. After the pat down was complete, I was allowed to stand up and sit on the hood of the car. Just as I did, the passenger door of the van opened up, and a man stepped out, presumably the man in charge. He was dressed the same as the rest of the group, but with a black baseball cap instead of a helmet, and only a pistol holstered at his side. He walked over to me, waving the two men next to me away to help watch the tree line. He apologized about what had happened, that it was just part of procedure and that he couldn’t assume anyone is unarmed or uninfected and have them turn out to be. After he introduced himself to be Richard Cornell, he asked what had happened here, motioning to the accident and dead zombies. I explained what had happened up until the point him and his people showed up.
As I explained, there was the occasional gunshot as someone along the tree line picked off a zombie. When I finished telling him what happened, he looked around at the zombies that had been killed prior to his arrival. He looked at me again and said that I didn’t exactly look like the type to go Rambo and do this good of a job. Before I could reply to his comment, the woman who had originally seen me in the car came up to the man and said that the area was clear. She looked at me and nodded, acknowledging my presence. Richard said something quietly to her so I couldn’t hear, then she turned around, blowing a whistle three times. As the rest of the group filed into the van, Richard said that her name was Leslie and that she was his second in command of Z.A.P.
He must’ve seen the confused look on my face, because he explained what Z.A.P. was. He said that Z.A.P. stood for Zombie Apocalypse Protection. Their job was to pick up people stranded or alone and transport them to a safe location. He said that they were on their way back to the command post to report that the local town was overrun and rescue was impossible when they passed by here. Richard said that I was lucky, because the only reason they came this way was because the highway was congested with cars and infected. I thanked him for the help, and said that the kid in my car needed medical attention, pointing to my car. Richard looked past me to the crying kid. He said that they would take care of it. He shouted to Leslie to get the kid as he walked back over to the passenger side of the van, getting in the passenger seat and shutting the door as Leslie ran over to my car. I walked over to her as she picked him up, holding him like he was her own. I said that his arm was broken and he might have a concussion. She said “okay” and said I could get into the van. I got in the front row of seats in the back, sitting in the middle of the row next to a six-foot five inch tall giant and looked around at the half-dozen helmetless faces around me. They all had serious looks on their face, like they had trained for this for a long time. Some of them hid tears or sadness. Leslie got in next to me, the kid asleep in her arms. As the sliding door shut, Richard turned around, looked at me and said “Welcome to Z.A.P.” as the driver hit the gas, speeding down the road to a safe place. Or so I thought.  

[ZombieApocalypseSurvivor]

[b]London, England

[I stand on the sidewalk outside of a construction site in a community park. Workers are scattered over the site, doing various jobs. The project is that of a statue. The statue is still far from complete, but a “coming soon” sign displays what the statue will look like: a British soldier kneeling, looking at the rocky surface that he is on. Stuck in the ground before him is a rifle with a helmet on it, a cross hanging down below the helmet. In a caption under the picture, the word “Remember” is in bold, most likely what will be etched into the statues base. Kyle Powell shouts over the noise of the ongoing construction]

A bunch of my friends and I were on one of those white water river rafting camping trip deals. It was an eight day trip “full of fun and adventure.” That’s what the brochure said, so I booked the trip for me and three of my friends, Jeff, George, and Michael. It looked interesting enough. The four of us looked forward to it for months. When we left to go to the meeting site for the group, it was a beautiful sunny day. We made sure to pack extra food and water in case we got the munchies along the way. When we arrived at the meeting site, it was pouring down rain. On the drive up the radio announcer said it was supposed to be sunny with a high of 90. I guess it’s true when they say that the only job where you can be wrong 85% of the time and still have a job is as a weather man.
We arrived at the “Rolling Hills” campground about twenty minutes late. We would have been early, but there was a severe accident that congested traffic for miles on the highway we were on, so we had to take back roads through God’s country. We got out of the car and ran over to a group of people in a covered pavilion. They had already gotten their life vests and gear, but were waiting for the bus that would take them to the launch site of the river where they’d start their “adventure.” It was an adventure alright. The bus arrived ten minutes after we arrived. It was crusty looking, ill-kept, and it looked like it had on every dirt road in the country. Jeff and I sat in a seat in the middle of the bus, George and Michael in the back. The seat we were in had some sort of brown puss coming out of a tear in the seat. Jeff immediately reacted, standing up and cutting his hand on a piece of broken window next to him. I said it was probably just some mud that had come off of someone’s pants, and he sat back down, accidentally rubbing his cut hand on the brown puss, wiping it on my shirt.
Forty-five minutes later, we arrived at the launch site. When I stepped off the bus, my foot immediately sank into mud. I struggled to get my foot loose, and when it popped out of the mud, I walked over to the rest of the group. After going through the basic safety and what to do and not to do speeches, we made our way over to the rafts. George, Michael, Jeff and I grabbed ours, took it down to the river, and hopped in. By now it had stopped raining, and the sky was starting to clear up. The four of us were sharing a raft with a woman and her teenage daughter. The mom looked excited, while the daughter looked like she was being punished. They kept to themselves though, and we kept to ourselves. The first day went by pretty smoothly. After about an hour on the river, I couldn’t see a cloud in the sky. But then, night came around. We had pitched our tents about a mile from the river. We had pulled our rafts out of the water and tied them to trees, where two of the ten guides would sleep to keep an eye on them. The rest of the guides were scattered among individual tents throughout the campsite. After a big campfire get-together, we all went off to our tents for bed. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I woke up some hours later from being shaken by Michael. He said that something was wrong with Jeff. I sat up, looking past Michael to the other side of our eight person tent. There were four of us, but we liked our space. When I looked over to Jeff’s side of the tent, I saw George kneeling next to one of our battery-powered lanterns, shaking him, trying to do CPR. Jeff just lied on the ground motionless. I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive from this angle, and I don’t even think George knew how to determine if someone had a pulse or not. But that didn’t stop him from trying his best to revive him. I immediately jumped out of my sleeping bag and rushed over to Jeff. I stood behind George, hunching over so I didn’t hit the top of the tent. George frantically performed CPR, shouting and cursing as he did so. I told George I’d run and get help from one of the instructors.
I burst from the tent, looking around frantically for an instructor’s tent. Before I could find one, however, I heard a distant scream come from a tent on the other side of our little campground. I ran over to the source of the scream, a small two person tent where an elderly couple was sleeping that had been pitched about fifty feet away from the makeshift campground. The tent was dark, as well as the tents on the edge of the campground, clearly showing that no one had either heard the scream or wanted to help. I couldn’t find the zipper to the small tent in my panic, so I pulled out my Swiss Army Knife, one of those bigger ones with all those different knives, a corkscrew, tweezers, etc. I flung out the biggest of the knives and cut open the door to the tent. Before I could cut anything bigger than a head-sized hole, an arm shot out at me from the darkness and grabbed the collar of my t-shirt. I pulled back, trying to free myself from the iron grip of the arm. I dropped my knife as I tried to pry the hand off me with both of mine. As I struggled, another arm appeared in the hole, tearing it open. I screamed, but no one seemed to hear my screams.. Although I couldn’t see, I heard the tent rip open farther, I judged by now large enough for a person to easily come through. Over my screams, and a strange moan coming from within the tent, I could hear wet gurgles also coming from within the tent. There was another scream, coming from within the group of tents. People ran out of their tents, flashlights waving beams of light wildly around the woods, and gathered around the tent where the scream had come from. They screamed, but before I could hear anything else, the hand let me go. Before I could react, I was thrown to the ground. I could feel a great deal of pressure on me, and I could hear the sounds of something trying to bite me.
By now, my eyes had adjusted enough to see the elderly woman trying to bite at me. I held her at an arm’s length away from me. By now, the entire campground was in a panic. I could hear scattered screams and moans. My arms were growing weak from struggling against my attacker, and just as my arms were about to give out, I heard a heavy thud, causing my attacker to fly to the side. I rolled over and stood up to see a one of the guides beat down the old lady with an oar from his raft. He turned to me, but before I could thank him, three people came running out of the woods towards us. I guess we both thought they were nearby campers coming to help. They tackled the guide to the ground and devoured him in front of me. By now I realized that all the news reports, all the Twitter talk, was real. I ran back into the campground, hoping to get back to my tent and hide. I entered the maze of tents, dodging running people and zombies as I made my way to my tent. When I arrived to my tent, I unzipped it, jumped in, and quickly zipped it back up. I sat there, trying to catch my breath, when I heard a strange noise over the screams outside. I looked over to where Jeff and George were when I left. George lay in a pool of blood where Jeff was laying before. I tried to stop the bleeding, but before I could touch him I heard him stop breathing. I swore as I turned to my end of the tent and hurriedly stuffed food and water into my bag. I didn’t bother taking my sleeping bag, since it would only be bulky and unneeded weight. I pulled out my pistol and checked the clip. It was full, so I put it in the back of my pants, and then put the two extra clips in my front pockets, one in each.
Why did you have a pistol?
It wasn’t originally my idea. I’m a pacifist, but George talked us into bringing one, just in case we ran into a bear or got lost and had to be like Grizzly Adams or some s**t like that. And, of course, I got stuck carrying it, along with most of his other s**t. Fortunately for me, that meant I already had rations for two people. Now I just had to find Jeff and Michael and get the hell out of here. As I put the last of the supplies in my pack and zipped it up, I heard movement behind me. I stood up, putting my backpack on and turned around. George was standing in front of me, blocking the entrance. His throat was torn open, his entire black shirt soaked with blood. He was managing a stuttering moan, since his vocal chords had been mostly eaten. He was on me in the blink of an eye. I was still in shock at this point, so I didn’t have a chance to pull the pistol. He lunged across the tent, pinning me to the ground and thrashing me around. At this point my arms couldn’t hold him back, so I put my arms in front of my face in an attempt to protect myself. Then, all of a sudden, I felt a surge of energy. Adrenaline raced through my body in a last ditch effort to try and defend myself. Without any conscious thought at all, my arms flung forward, my palms making contact with his chest, throwing him across the tent. I had enough time to stand before he lunged at me again. I gave him a quick one-two to the chest, followed by a kick to his leg, breaking it. He collapsed giving me just enough time to pull out the pistol. “Go to hell, you son of a b***h,” I said as I blew his brains against the wall of the tent as he stood up.
I stood there, gun pointed where George's head had once been. I was breathing had, my thoughts racing. I didn’t have time to calm down before one end of the tent collapsed as a guide was thrown onto it, two zombies pinning him down as he swung a machete wildly, cutting open the tent so I could see his terrified eyes as he was devoured right there in front of me as he screamed at me for help. I aimed my gun, shooting the zombie closest to me in the back three times, and once in the head by a lucky shot. I emptied the clip into the next one, four going into her back, one in her right leg, and three total misses. I didn’t know how to reload the gun, so I put it back in my pants and grabbed the machete out of the guides’ cold dead hand. The zombie looked at me, her wild eyes shrunken back in her head, like a starving wolf on a fresh kill. She lunged at me, and I swung the machete at her neck. It flew off her shoulders, rolling across the ground, her jaw still snapping at me as it did.
Didn’t you know that you had to shoot them in the head to kill them?
Not then. Like I said, I dismissed the stories and the news reports as nothing more than the press making something small into something big. Combine that with the fact that I was just trying to get out of there alive, not cleanse the area.
So most of the zombies you defended against that night were still alive after you fought them off?
Well, yeah. We got some of them in the head, decapitated a few, but mostly we just shot them or fought them off enough to outrun them or get away.
I apologize. Please continue.
Right. Anyway, after I decapitated the second zombie, I remembered hearing something on the news that once you were bitten, you turned into one of them. So I cut the head off the guide and checked him for anything useful. I found a lighter and cell phone in his pocket. I grabbed those, turning the cell phone off so I could use it after mine died. As it shut down, a picture of him and who I assumed to be his girlfriend in a park, smiling and happy, then the screen went blank. I stood there for another brief second, looking at the situation around me to see where my best escape route would be.
You didn’t stay and look for Jeff or Michael?
I had no time. I was surrounded by chaos. If I would have tried to search the camp for them, I wouldn’t be here now. Besides, I knew they had enough common sense not to stick around while the s**t was hitting the fan.
As I looked around, I saw our raft mates, the mother and her daughter. The mother had a branch, trying to defend her daughter from the zombies. I immediately ran over to them, hoping I could distract it long enough for them to get away. As I ran up to it, I stabbed the machete into its back right between the shoulder blades so far it came out its front. I tried to pull it out, but I couldn’t. I ducked as it flung its arms at me as it turned around. I ran in a small, quick little circle around it, shouting at the mother and daughter to leave. Somehow I managed to trip over a branch, and the zombie was all over me. I tried to hold it back, not only to keep it from biting me, but also to keep it from impaling me with the machete sticking out of its chest. It was inching closer and closer, I could feel the machete lightly touch my shirt, when I heard a voice shout at me for a clip for the pistol. I held the zombie at bay as I reached into my pocket and grabbed a clip, throwing it wildly behind me. I managed to get my other arm back into a defensive position and used all my strength to push the zombie off of me. It rolled off to the side as I rolled the other direction, quickly getting to my feet just as the zombie did. It took two running steps towards me, then its head freaking explode. I looked to my right, and I saw the mother pointing the gun where the zombie had been, her daughter hiding behind her.
“LAPD, twenty year veteran,” she said, putting the safety on the gun and hugging her daughter.
“We need to get out of here,” I said, noticing the decrease in screams and the increase in moans. She tried to give me the gun back, but I declined. “You’re a helluva better than me,” I said as we turned around and ran into the woods.  

[ZombieApocalypseSurvivor]

No Place Is Safe

Yellowstone National Wildlife Park, Montana, USA

[I sit in Phil Duffy’s office near the pre-war visitor’s entrance to the park. Located in a trailer, I admire the pictures decorating the wall behind Phil’s desk. One picture is of Phil and a group of the rangers that manage the park. In another picture, there’s a beautiful pre-war picture of a herd of American Bison grazing in one of the many once-grassy fields that filled the wildlife park. I hear the door open and close as Phil walks into the trailer, walking over and sitting down at the desk.]

Sorry about the wait. What did you want to know?
What happened after the Z.A.P. van rescued you and the kid?
We drove for about three days, but it seemed like it was forever. We stopped a lot, to attempt to rescue survivors that were in unpopulated areas or move obstacles out of the road. We had picked up a couple of survivors about 20 miles from where I was picked up, on the outskirts of a small town that wasn’t even on the map. That’s the only kind of place we stopped, in a small town or just outside of one. We avoided the cities and populated areas for obvious reasons.
What did you do for gas and other supplies?
Gas was easy. We just found cars along the side of the road or even still in their driveways and took the gas from them. Supplies were harder to come by, however. Almost every place had been looted. It was only a three day drive, so food wasn’t an issue, and water was a mild problem, but we held out. Ammo was the biggest issue though. Each of the Z.A.P. members had only brought five extra clips with them, and most of them were down to their last clip. On the third day, I asked how much farther we had until we reached their base. Before anyone could answer, a deer jumped in front of the van. The driver swerved to avoid it, but ended up swerving after the deer was flying over the top of the van. Before he could recover, the van hit a tree head on.
The next thing I remember is being dragged out of the van by my shoulders. I could barely open my eyes, so I didn’t know if I was being dragged to my death or being rescued. Before I could make up my mind, I felt a sharp pain as I was slapped hard across the face to wake up. I sat up and opened my eyes. The van had hit hard enough to knock over the tree and kill the driver. The Z.A.P. members that could walk were all around the van in a defensive position, shooting a small horde of zombies as they stumbled out of the woods and down the road towards us. I heard someone shouting my name, and that’s when I looked up to see Leslie dragging me away from the van, which had a small fire burning in the driver seat. I saw the driver hunched over in his seat, the flames covering him, but the passenger door was open. Before I could observe anymore I felt Leslie slap my head again. I looked up at her and she shouted at me to get my a** up. I stood up, almost falling back over. She caught me, standing me upright, and shouted over to the rest of the group, letting them know I was the last one out. They each shouted an acknowledgement, not breaking their pattern of shooting. Suddenly, the area in front of my lit up as the van exploded. Two Z.A.P. members were caught by the blaze, running forward in panic as they burned and right into the cold, undead hands of several zombies near them. One of the members turned to give put them out of their misery, but was also taken down by two zombies. Richard came up behind Leslie and shouted something to her, but was cut short as three zombies burst out of the woods on the side of the road we were on, tackling him to the ground and biting him. I instinctively took a step back, but then charged the zombies on top of him.
I grabbed two of them by the shoulder and threw them back. The third one had already stood up and started towards me by this point. I ran towards it, tackling it to the ground and smashed its head in with a nearby rock. I stood up and turned around just in time to see the other two zombies drop from headshots. I looked at Leslie, who ran over to Richard, kneeling down beside him, the ground under him coated with blood and intestine. The two of them locked eyes, and I knew what they had discussed. I turned away as she stood up, and didn’t turn around until I heard the shot. I turned back around, Leslie walking over to me and giving me a pistol. She shouted at the remaining two members of the team, who ran over to us after finishing up the last of the zombies. She told us that the base was close enough to get to by nightfall if we left right then. We all agreed, and that’s when I remembered about the little boy, asking what had happened to him. The other two members looked down, Leslie telling me that he had died in the crash, and his body was dragged off into the woods by a couple of zombies. I was still standing in a stupor when I saw Leslie raise her hand to slap me into reality again, but I came back just in time. As we walked down the road, Leslie and the other two grabbed the ammo from the bodies of their fallen comrades, knowing they’d need every bullet they could get their hands on for the next several hours.