Zombie Fiction
Bill: His story

Part 2
Back history
I was one of the lucky ones; I survived the Day of Release with little trauma. After that was a different story though. Who could have seen that being an Anthropology major working on his Masters would have been a survival plus? Or, being passed out drunk, locked inside a tornado proof Frat house would be an advantage.

Anthropology, I had let a friend talk me into that. He said it was a way to travel the world, meet exotic women and introduce them to the American way of sex. And, actually he was right, at least for us with Professor Savage as our advisor. Old Doc Savage specialized in primitive cultures and decided that we were the perfect assistants to do the grunt work for him. I spent the last four summers traveling to some of the worst hellholes you could imagine, working under the most primitive conditions you could imagine. After all, Doc said, to understand a culture you must live the culture.

And, there were women, exotic women. I found out that exotic always seemed to mean ugly, dirty, with bad breath and on my returns I found out that it also mean exotic strands of VD. I turned into a favorite of the Head of the Medical Department, her specialty was exotic strands of VD and I could be counted on to bring her a few different ones to study and be cured of every year. She was fond of telling me that some microbes that she found in me, she didn't know could be transmitted to humans. Between the vaccines for traveling and the cures I had to endure, I think I ended up with a resistance to almost every disease you could become develop a resistance for.

And, thanks to Doc, I developed a variety of skills that I would have never developed in more civilized settings.

Day of Release
We were about halfway through the semester, and except for a mild rash, I was cured of the latest diseases. My friend was already cured.

THEY gave parties on major university campuses that weekend, just a cover to release the disease. It was a sign of peace of solidarity with the rest of the world, with a side of Zombie infection. Free booze, free food, free music, and satellite hookups around the world. Even rumors of free drugs.

And, I couldn't go because of a stupid rash. After all of the brothers left, I got drunk, locked all of those beautiful tornado proof doors and windows from the inside, it would take a tank to get in now. Then I went to my room, put my headphones on set the iPod to continuous random playback and went to sleep. Drunk, asleep, and listening to my favorite tunes, how does that compare to how you spent the Day of Release?

Next morning, I woke up, realized what I had done, decided that they wouldn't get anymore angry with me if I waited to have breakfast before opening the doors. Took a cold shower to clear out the cobwebs from my head, turned off the water, then I heard it for the first time, the moaning. It seemed to come from everywhere outside. OK, I thought that is impossible, must be the pills and beer wearing off, headphones back on and to the kitchen. Nice breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and OJ. Got dressed, something I could run in, my brothers were going to have to work to catch me, and give me the payback for locking them out last night.

OK, now to check the security cameras and see if there was a way out. What I saw was the walking dead, milling around all sides of the house. Then, I noticed the lamp post, some had people on them holding on for their life, one slipped and the dead piled on them, before they had a chance to move. Looking at the other building nearby all I saw was dead faces staring out. I picked up a telescope; we used for spying on the girls' houses, and went to the roof to see what I could. The same thing for as far as I could see, a few others trapped on rooftops, and the walking dead everywhere. Of course I didn't know what was going on, I finally decided it was some kind of nightmare and to go with the flow. I did know that I was not going outside until things were normal, either I woke up or stopped tripping. So I decided to act as if I was in a horror movie, but not to do any of the dumb things they do in the movies.

Looking back now, I think I knew it was real but couldn't accept it. But, Doc's teaching saved me. As he said, many, many, time "There is no situation that a little panic cannot make worse".

I did a perimeter check of the house, to make sure nothing could get in, they don't do that in movies and the things get to them. Next, I checked the kitchen, buried power cables kept down the problem of poles being knocked down, the fridge and freezer were humming along fine, gas stove and water heater worked, plenty of food and drink. Check phones next? They never work in the movies, but they always check them, no harm, check the phone. Dial tone! But, I can't place a call, all circuits are busy, same with my cell, four bars and I can't place a call. Wait, you're supposed to text in an emergency that will get through better. I text my parents to tell them I am trapped in the Frat house, but safe. In the movies, people do stupid things trying to rescue someone else, and I didn't need rescuing. What next? TV, I flip on the boob tube and am convinced this is all a nightmare, the talking heads are talking about zombies, telling everybody to stay inside, and the authorities will have things under control shortly. OK, normal movie theatrics slip in a DVD and fall asleep watching the tube.

The end of college
Sleep at a time like that? Yes, I think the brain needed time to process what was happening and I slept to keep from going crazy. I woke up to the moaning the movie was over and there was nothing to drown them out. But, now I knew that it was real, there was no nightmare. This was going to be the longest field trip of my life. I had been adapting to new cultures every summer for years; this was going to be the biggest adaptation of them all.

I had a text message from my sister! Dad had got my message, was glad I was safe, and they were going to the family's old homestead on the island. One of dad's brothers had moved back there and had a big garden of stuff he sold at the framer's market, should be enough to see them through the near future with supplies they could pick up in town on the way out.

Phone service was still unusable for voice, so I text back that I would join them if possible, but I should be safe at the house for a while, after all dad had been the contractor that had made it tornado proof. He knew how strong it was. I recalled the supplies in the basement, emergency supplies that dad had placed there behind a hidden door. Five years old and still good, at least good enough.

Another thought, the campus Internet connection, was it still alive. Yes, for now anyway. OK, surf the web and find out what is going on in the world. This is when I found out that THEY had decided to cleanse the world of all that were different, the wrong religion, culture, color, politics, etc. THEY had the money to do it. THEY had hired a renegade Russian bio-chemical weapons researcher and set him up with the most advanced lab in the world with instructions to build the ultimate bio weapon to wipe out their enemies. They made a good choice, he was mad at the world, thought that Russia had turned on him and wanted revenge, he hated the West, the East and all points in-between. At least at first, toward the end he seemed to have a change of mind, he didn't make it weaker, he did make it non-resistant to some genetic groups and made it very virulent toward others. His employers must have really ticked him off, because THEY seemed to have vanished from the face of the Earth. This all came out of a broadcast he made, before blowing his brains out. Events seem to verify his claims. Total genocide against his employers and related genetic groups, with partial (?) genocide against the rest of the world. The closer a person's genotype was to his, the better their chance of avoiding infection. Also, it turned out that people that had recovered from a few exotic diseases were immune to the infection, most of which I had had.

Found out on the news that the city and, like many others, was quarantined, not very well as it turned out. The authorities managed to keep the utilities running for a few weeks, long enough for me to start to worry about running out of food. But, also long enough for the initial batch of zombies to die, and the second batch, there were very few in the third batch. I found out later that they moved toward the living around the edges of the city, leaving the center alone, mostly. One day, the utilities went dead, later I saw a new batch moving around through the telescope, they were in military and police uniforms, the perimeter had been breached in a big way. You know what happened, the vaccine developed against the zombie infection. It actually turned people into zombies after a few weeks.

Time for a change of plans, no one is coming to get me, so it is time to get myself out. Some brief trips outside had helped locate a variety of operational vehicles; I brought batteries back to charge up, no dead battery was going to hold me back. But which vehicle? It needed to be something rugged, reliable, and able to go wherever I needed to take it. I finally decided, campus maintenance had a special general-purpose truck. It was a ex-military 5-ton rig, on the back it had an enclosure from the military that had been fitted with a generator for supplying power at remote events, but it was also set-up with living quarters and radio gear for low-power FM transmission. Plus, they had attached the snowplow, getting ready for the winter snows. It was the same base vehicle I had seen in the hellholes where I had spent my summers, we had even used them a few times, I could drive and maintain it. At least till a major problem occurred.

To be continued.

Knife This will actually be added to the story later, just wanted to put it up now so it can be commented on.