This story starts where any classic Solanum outbreak story would. In the middle of nowhere, a small town in Indiana named Pekin. Nobody’s ever heard of it. Even the people who live in the same county. Now that’s pretty bad don’t you think? But anyways, this story however, has what every story also has, but makes every story unique. It’s not the way you tell it, or how you say it, the tone of your voice, or even how much you lie about your story. But, what it is about is your story of survival. What you knew, what you know, what you did, how you ate, who was with you, how you watched loved ones die or perhaps how you met them on the battlefield we once called home, how you managed to find your way to a safe haven, how you clawed your way towards safety, how you learned what to do and what not to do, whether it was from someone else’s mistakes or your own, and above all else, how you survived.

ZOM-BIE: (Zom’be) n. also ZOM-BIES pl. 1. An animated corpse that feeds on living human flesh. 2. A voodoo spell that raises the dead 3. A voodoo snake god 4. One who moves or acts in a daze “like a zombie.” [a word of West African origin]

The word zombie has been plagued by Hollywood for years, giving it the ability to jump super high, sprint, fly, or have any other super-human abilities, That is NOT what a zombie is. A human has to be reanimated by the Solanum Virus. The virus is 100% communicable and is 100% fatal. The virus works its way from the initial point of entry to the brain. It usually takes 23-24 hours for the virus to fully reanimate. However, there is only one way to stop it once the victim has came in contact with it. One bullet, straight through the head. Cutting off an arm or leg or finger won’t work and won’t be fast enough. But stopping an already re-animated body is a completely different story. Destroying the brain is the only way to kill a zombie, just like a person who has came in fatal contact with the virus. And it may seem simple, like anyone could kill these stupid, slow, corpses. But that is not true. Any person who doesn’t have discipline and panics easily would indefinitely die and become part of the walking plague. Just one little thought of switching your fire rate to “rock and roll” and going fully automatic could end you. Just one little wrong turn could put you face to face with one of them, just one little wrong thought without minding the rules of survival, one little tiny mistake and you could feel cold, torn, hands gripping your sweaty shoulders and sharp, broken teeth tearing into your neck ripping tendons. And feeling the warm fluid blood run down your body and then the final feeling of despair comes; knowing you have to end your life. Or suffer the worst pain you would ever feel in your life, going through the stages of reanimating while watching your enemies take their never ending time to stumble towards you and knowing your going to be torn into and bitten and eaten within minutes.

However, I am not writing a survival guide, I am no Max Brooks, and I am not telling anyone’s story but my own. Hopefully you will take with you what I am sharing and learn. But however you take this will be determined by the only one making your decisions, you.




I awoke facing the bottom of a mattress, hearing and smelling a combination of things. The smell of burning wallpaper, and wood entered my nostrils, but not only those scents but a putrid smell was right up in there too, It made me want to vomit. I heard eerie winds that seemed to not end. I pushed the mattress off to my side. I found myself in an unfamiliar place. I had never seen this place before, but it appeared to be an apartment of some type, or some hotel. No, not a hotel it was too home-like. I still smelt the burning smell. But when I went to stand up I almost fell over but caught my balance on a bed-post. I felt this feeling before, when I was about 5 or 6. After my surgery on my chest. I had been in a bed for almost a week straight and couldn’t stand up because of my legs being so week.

I slowly let go of the bed-post but the room was still spinning around me. I closed my eyes and stood still and straight. I tried to keep a cool head that way I could get out of this possibly burning building as soon as I could. So I let go again after about 20 seconds. I could stand straight but my vision was just a bit impaired, so I would take it slow.

First I looked around me to see if I might recognize the place. Nothing looked familiar. Well, in this room anyways. I now seen torn wallpaper and missing chunks of dry-wall, and a little smoky haze in the room. The windows were boarded up with big sheets of ply-wood. Only the edges of it shown a little bit of a reddish, yellowish light. I closed my eyes tight again because of the dizziness coming back. I reached for the bed-post and held on tight. I tried to take a deep breath in and coughed. The smoky haze was getting to me, bad. So I looked around and found the doorway. It had no door on it and was previously boarded up. But how would I have gotten in here? If I did that myself I sure didn’t remember it. And if I didn’t do that someone else did. I also found a backpack by the door, it was mine. Or at least the one I owned. So I decided to try to walk over to the doorway. And as I hobbled through the smoky room I noticed I was wearing my combat boots and MARPAT bottoms I used for playing Airsoft in. which made things even more confusing. The last time I airsofted was…I couldn’t remember. I tried to think about the last memory I had before I woke up in this place. I tried to think about where I ate, what I did, who I seen or, just think of anything I could to help me remember why I might be here. I don’t drink or do drugs so passing out here wouldn’t seem logical. I decided to continue my thoughts after I opened what I thought would be my bag. So when I finally reached it I seen that my name was on it. It was black Flip backpack. So I un-zipped it and looked inside, small pocket first. But when I opened the backpack I found my Browning High-Power Pistol. And not only that, but two full cartridges of 9mm ammunition with the clip already full in the gun.

Now this was weird, I don’t remember wearing the clothes I was wearing, nor the boots, nor do I remember bringing my back-pack with a gun in it. Something must have went terribly wrong and I don’t know/remember what it was. So I continued looking. I unzipped one of the other two pockets and found canned soups and foods, a lighter, and my shemegh, but I couldn’t really determine what the label on the food read. I had to close my eyes again and put my hand against the wall to catch my balance. When I opened my eyes again I zipped the open pocket back up and went to the last pocket. Contacts, solution, and the two parts to my plate-carrier I also used for Airsoft, a flash-light, a few razors, flint, my hydration bladder, batteries and a wool-blanket. I couldn’t believe this. I literally pinched myself to see if this was a dream or not. I stood up again and noticed some pouches under my backpack. They were the ones I put on my plate carrier to hold magazines, an admin pouch to hold various items and a dump pouch for holding empty magazines. And out of one of the magazine pouches fell a walkie-talkie with a note attached that said channel 12. So I picked up the walkie-talkie and turned it on to channel 12.

“hello?” I said into the walkie.… no response.“hello?” I repeated, louder this time.… still nothing. So I kept the walkie on and sat it on the floor.I opened my back-pack and pulled the plate-carrier parts out and buckled them together, then I put the pouches on and put my hydration bladder in it’s pocket, loaded an extra magazine of 9mm ammo and put it in the appropriate pouch. Then I proceeded to wrap my shemegh around my head so it would filter out the smoke and I could actually breathe. I then stood up with the plate-carrier on and was able to keep my balance. I then put the back-pack on and pulled out my Browning and looked both ways out of the room. My head was still spinning, and the dizziness was still there, faintly, but there. I seen another room at the end of the hallway and then an opening at the other end. I could only hear my heart pounding because of the loud constant gusts of wind. I decided to wipe my sweaty hands off and my pants. When I did so I found the combat knife my grandfather had given me. And my wallet in my back pocket. I decided to keep the knife drawn as well as my pistol.

So, I took another look outside the door and then aimed my pistol at one end and then looked down the other. I was trying to decide which way to go, and scolded myself for not deciding before I went out of the door. Checking the open space first seemed to be most logical solution, so I headed down the hallway, being as quiet as possible. I got the edge of the hallway and placed my back against the wall, I poked my head around the corner, and nobody was there. The only things there were more boarded up windows and a television set, two chairs, and a sofa that was torn to shreds. I proceeded through the building. It split into two more rooms and an exit. I kept my gun close as my sweaty shaking hand reached for the door knob. Pressing my ear against the wood paneled door I heard nothing. So I proceeded to open the door and aimed my gun as I did so, Still nothing. The room looked just like all the other ones. Plywood covering the windows, wallpaper ripped down and missing drywall chunks. The wallpaper seemed to have a pink tint to it, as if this was a young girls room. Only a few things remained on the walls of this room. A light fixture had been torn off the walls and broken glass lay right below it. And a stand of some sort was screwed into the wall with a candle on it.

I then headed out of that room and again pressed my ear against the door, and heard nothing. So I grabbed the door knob and opened the door with my pistol aiming ahead of me. Once again, the room was bare, same boarded up windows and the same walls. I backed out of the room, looked down the hall towards that last door hoping I wouldn’t find a dead person or somebody who wanted to kill me or something of that nature. I slowly walked down that hallway trying not to make any noise. Not that anyone could hear me because of the wind that seemed to be getting louder as I walked down this narrow, dark hallway. As I neared the door I got even sweatier, I wiped both my hands off and my forehead, took one more step and then, pressed my ear against the door. I heard a weezing sound, as if someone was out of breath and needed help. But thoughts of traps kept going through my mind as I prepared myself for entry.

“could this be a trap? Could it be that someone is seriously injured?”whatever it was I had to be sure of what to do. So I took one step back raised my Browning, and stepped forward with all the power focused on my hips into my legs I knocked the door open. I entered the room and was shocked at what I seen. More so than the initial shock I had received not knowing where the hell I was or what was going on.

But, two things were what caused my shock, first was the fact that I found a person filled with bullet holes and one large chunk of skin missing on the ribs, laying against the wall. Their skin was milky white with a bit of gray. They didn’t have a lot of hair, but had cloudy eyes still open. However, the person, whoever it was, had no blood surrounding them, or anywhere in the room for that matter. Just dried blood around the rib wound. The second thing was that a huge portion of the roof and southwestern part of the wall was gone. I then seen what was happening. People trying to kill other people, just a scattered crowd of people all over the a town square. Some crawling on the ground, some missing limbs, some dead, some running, some screaming, some even eating others. Buildings were being destroyed, cars burned. Gunshots, terrified screams, sirens, children crying, and explosions filled the air. The sky was dark and filled with smoke. The only light was the full moon and fire.

After the initial shock of this time I then gathered my wits and knew where I was. The Salem square, which was in the town north of mine; Pekin. I decided to run back into the room where I woke up and decide what to do before I was spotted by one of, whatever they were. I didn’t know what was going on. Could this be a major riot? Could it be a National Crisis? Could it be some viral outbreak? I had no idea and needed to think in safety. So I headed back to the door but before I even opened the door I heard “wait! Don’t shoot!”

I spun around wondering who would’ve said that. It was too close to be from the street but I seen nobody in what was left of the room I was in. Then I seen two hands pop up from behind a dresser with an M1911 in one hand. Then the subjects head came up. A male, short dark brown hair, wore glasses, with a black T-shirt. He was a bit stout but not over weight. His eyes shown as much worry and panic as I was feeling, I could tell. He was probably the one who killed the person in the corner of the room. But, I had no time to fool with some idiot who probably couldn’t keep a cool head in freezer.


I aimed my gun between his eyes, and yelled “freeze!”“pull the magazine out and put the gun down, now!” I shouted at him.

He took the magazine out and slid it to me was well as the gun. He still said nothing. But I couldn’t interrogate this poor guy out in the middle of what could possibly be Armageddon. So, I bent down with my gun still aimed and took the mag and pistol and put it in my vest.

“in front of me, and no sudden moves or I’ll shoot! I don’t need you dragging me down buddy, I WON’T hesitate to pull this trigger!”

He still said nothing but did as I said. But then again, anybody would who had a gun aimed at their head. Am I right?

When we got in the room I kept the pistol and mag but sat him down in the corner and started asking questions, with my pistol drawn of course.

“what’s your name?” I asked“William…William Marston.”“what’s happening here William?”“I really don’t know…uh…”“I’ll tell you my name later, I want information.”

“I don’t have any.” he replied with somewhat of an aggravated tone.“Are you sure?” I asked as I pulled the hammer back on my Browning.“I…, uhh, yeah, that’s it, I mean, i know uh, yeah, that’s it I swear!”“I don’t believe you!” I said as I raised my gun up“No! please no! don’t do it!” he begged.


I seen a look of terror in his eyes, a look of begging, and a look of sadness. I knew he was telling the truth. So I disengaged my pistol and put it in the holster on my plate-carrier, and held out my hand to help him up.

“name’s Preston.” I told him.

He dusted himself off and then shook my hand.“I know as much as you do bud, no more no less.” he said. “all I know is that I woke up here in a room with some…thing trying to climb over that dresser. As soon as I woke up I seen it, and put my feet on the back of that dresser and pushed with all I had in me. That sent the damn thing flying back into that wall it was against and then I looked around and found that gun on the floor and shot it until I ran out of ammo. The shots didn’t seem to effect whoever or whatever it was. Until I shot it in the head… I don’t know how long I’ve been here but I do know that I’ve been up for about 2 hours.”

“same here,” I began to explain. “I just woke up here in what I’m wearing. I can’t even remember the last thing that happened to me…”

“well, we can’t sit around here all day…or night. We need to move.”

“where are we going to go?” I said

“I know a place, but it’s quite a walk. Well, that is, if it is still standing…” William said as he looked down at the ground.

“your house?” I asked.

“yeah…but we don’t need to stand here forever.”

“alright, I assume you need more ammo though?”“well, there was an extra cartridge of ammunition in that room. Not a full one but there was at least half a magazine in it.”

“alright, but be careful.”

He nodded and opened the door ran, and grabbed the ammo. And as he started loading rounds in his mag I said “make sure you aim for the head. I think I might have a good idea as to what that was that was attacking you.”

Again, he didn’t say much. He just nodded and loaded his mag into the gun.

“you know how to get out of here?” I asked.

“should be an exit down-stairs.” he said as he pulled his hammer back.

“I’ll follow you then.”

We then proceeded, with pistols drawn, to find the exit which was behind the door located in the room I found him in and down a flight of stairs. When we opened the door we seen another creature at the bottom of stairs, William raised his gun and took the shot. Not a clean one but he still killed it. The shot landed above the right eye socket, and took a chunk out of his head. It landed with a thud against the door and part of the already broken glass fell out. As the chunk hit the ground so did clotted up blood. It looked like a reddish brown pudding had been tossed onto the floor and began to fall out of the open wound.

We proceeded to go to the bottom of the stairs and nudge the creature to make sure it was a kill. It was dead for sure, no movement at all. So we moved it out of the way by kicking it over and then William then told me where to head. Then he started to run out of the door. I grabbed his shirt and told him that we were going together. That this was no run-and-gun, Call of Duty, heroic story.

“walk with your gun raised and aimed, I’ll follow you and get both our backs, you just focus on the front. Now, give me a description of where we are heading, and what way.”

“we’re heading north east to that alley-way right there,” he said as he pointed with his free hand. “then once we reach the end of that, we’re going to be in a sub-division, from there just follow me, we’re going to have to sneak to not be caught.”

“alright, on three…one, two, three!”

William and I came out of there with our weapons drawn, raised, and ready to shoot. As we entered the ally-way he seen a creature shambling towards us.

“creature at 11 o’ clock, take the shot!” he said in a surprisingly calm tone.

I turned around, took aim, and shot it straight in the head. Then I turned back around and kept watching our backs. I could still hear the loud wind, and seen the shadows cast upon sides of buildings and the ally. It faded as we neared the end “Alright, now, we’re going to steer clear of the main road and go between that yellow house, and the red house. Then, we’ll hit a woods line and from there, you won’t have to keep watching our backs. Just keep watch all around, this is going to be a long walk.” William told me as he got up and ready to run.

Then, we ran though the grass and in between the houses and found the woods-line. And as we ran the gun-shots, screams, fire crackling, all faded away. But the eerie wind seemed to take all the places of those.

We walked for nearly an hour and then it stared to rain lightly. It was almost refreshing to feel it. But my adrenaline kept me from feeling any heat before, and I was surprised how well I could feel the warm rain falling on my head. So I took the shemegh off the top of my head. And let the rain fall on top of me as I walked. The rain continued and intensified as I went along. It wasn’t unbearable but it wasn’t light either.

Right as I was about to ask William how much longer it would be before we would reach his house, or just stop to rest, I heard a distant, noise. And it was getting louder. I looked back and seen blinking lights. It was a helicopter. A UH-60 to be correct.

“William! Get down!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

“wha-?” was all he could get out before he seen it too and immediately hit the muddy ground.”

I heard a suppressed gun-shot noise as the helicopter went over. And I stayed down until it was almost out of sight and then I heard William making a groaning noise. He was shot. I got up as fast as I could and holstered mine and his pistols. And asked him where he was shot at.

“right above my ankle..” he muttered.

I turned him over and took at look at it. He was definitely shot and the round had went all the way through his leg. Luckily it didn’t hit any arteries or the bone. So I looked around, nothing to help the bleeding stop. So I took his shirt off of him and wrapped it around the wound. He couldn’t walk now and could barely talk but I knew we had to move before that heli made another round. So I picked him up and put him over my shoulder. I started to walk as fast as I could.

I walked for five minutes before the I heard the helicopter coming towards us again. So I set him down and took my back pack off and took out the wool-blanket, which was black, and covered us up. With each passing second, waiting underneath that blanket, sweat dripping from my nose, and chin, hearing Williams small groans and frantic breathing, I wondered if they would see us. But the sound got louder, and louder, and louder. Then, it got quieter and I took the blanket off of us and back into the backpack, threw that and William onto my back and kept walking.

“William, where do I go?”

“keep going straight until you hit a highway.” he muttered.