Day 1

It's nine in the morning and I wake up to the sound of screams coming from the street. I got out of bed, pulled on my Boondock Saints T-shirt and walked over to the window to see what the commotion is all about. What I saw when I drew my curtains aside was the most horrible thing I had ever seen. Some of my neighbors dead in the street, a woman running from her own children screaming at the top of her lungs for someone to save her, and then my suspicion was confirmed when I saw what appeared to be humans eating a person alive. It was the zombie apocalypse. I've always been a bit paranoid that this might happen. Hell I own three copies of The Zombie Survival Guide which I proudly and smartly place on my bed side table, the coffee table in my living room and under the seat of my Hummer H3. So without a moments hesitation I quickly grabbed my jeans and put them on tucking in my shirt as I buttoned and zipped them up. I snatched up my belt and fed that through the pant loops and fastened that. Lastly before leaving my room I grabbed my Glock .45 caliber handgun and my Army survival knife.

Now running down the stairs I yell to wake up my roommates hoping I wouldn't have to waste time by coming back up stairs to wake them up. Now I've started to freak out and forget everything I've study and planned in case this happened. I start pacing through the entry hall into the kitchen then into the dining room and back to the entry hall making a giant circle. After walking into my dining room for the fifth time I finally notice the shoulder holster for my handgun and it snaps me back into myself. I take the holster, sling it on, fasten it and secure my Glock under my left arm. Now fifteen minutes have pasted since I have come down stairs and I still don't hear anyone else so I run back up the stairs and hang a right at the top. I open the door on the left which happens to be Barry's, my brother, room to see his girlfriend riding him. I clear my throat and she whips her head around with his blood all over her mouth. She slowly gets off the bed and starts towards me with bloody hands grasping out for me, dragging her feet, and now for the first time I hear the infamous zombie groan. Backing quickly out of the room I draw my gun, aim squarely at the middle of her forehead and pull the trigger. Bang! The shell is ejected from the slide at the same time the round exits the barrel and pierces precisely where I aimed sending blood and grey matter flying out in all directions behind her. With the sound of my gun going off in such a small space I hoped that Adam was finally awake because I heard a loud thud come from his room. Unconcerned with that at the moment I aim my handgun in front of me and cautiously re-enter Barry's room to see if he has reanimated. To my relief he was still lying motionless on the bed so I approached him. I lowered my gun and whispered "Good-bye. See you on the other side bro." With a single tear rolling down my cheek I aim, pull the trigger and send a bullet straight through his brain.

Now at this time I know for a fact that Adam is still alive and is now awake because his door flew open and he ran into Barry's room yelling "What the FUCK is going on?!" He then sees the hole in Barry's head and turns around to see his girlfriend dead in the hall way from the same type of injury. I calmly secure my gun and tell him everything that happened from the when I woke up to when he heard the second gun shot and ran out. Knowing what he needs to Adam ran back in his room to get dressed and I run back downstairs to the living room to open the gun cabinet. After I finally find the right key on my key ring and open the cabinet Adam comes running down the stairs then into the living room where I am pulling out a duffel bag, ammunition, two 30'06 rifles with scopes, and an extra bag for food and other supplies. While I loaded one bag with the ammunition Adam took the other out back to the shed and grabbed a crowbar and a hatchet then came back inside to fill the bag with all the food he could. We finished filling the bags at the same time when he asked "Where's Erin?" and I replied "She stayed at her parents last night because she was too tired to drive home after work." I zipped up the ammo bag, slung it onto my back, grabbed the rifles and headed to the front door. Once there I asked Adam if he was ready and he replied, with a Twinkie in his mouth, a muffled "Yep!"

So look out the window in the top of the door and when I decided the coast was clear enough I unlocked the car doors with the remote. Once I opened the door I let Adam go out first in the hopes that we wouldn't be that noticeable and as usual I was wrong. Once he took one step out the front door he tripped, knocked over our metal trash cans, and brought all zombie attention to us trying to make a quiet escape. "Good fucking job Adam" I shout as I shoulder my rifle and start firing rounds into their heads as they slowly approach and moan. We made quick work of them, toss the bags in the back seat, and I got in the drivers seat while Adam sat in the back reloading his rifle. I start the car, open the sun roof, and Adam takes the hint and stands up through the sun roof to pick off any zombies that get too close. We take off toward Erin's' parents house and after a very uneventful fifteen minute drive we arrive to see blood and dead bodies everywhere. When we pull into the drive I ask Adam to keep a look out and I rushed inside to see who, if anyone, was still alive.

Once inside I was confronted by a family of zombies. But not just any family, it was Erin's family turned all zombified. I quickly drew my Glock, popped off three rounds but unfortunately Erin's brother Ryan tripped and the shot aimed at him missed. Frantically, I shot four more rounds at him and finally hit him in the head with the last one. I hear Adam yelling "Is everything ok ?" When I hear the shuffling of feet and a what sounded like a paint can falling in the garage. I moved through entry hall into the living room where there was a blanket and a pillow on the couch. I could only assume she was sleeping on the couch when someone came home in the middle of the night with the infection, and woke up to the screams of her family dying. I turned towards the garage door, slowly opened it, and was attacked in a hug by Erin. She was covered in blood and explained that what a assume was correct and that she got covered in blood when trying to make sure her parents were ok. I told her to grab a change of clothes and we rushed back out to the car.

As we come out of the front door Adam asked " What the hell took so long and what was with all the gun shots?" I told him how her family had been infected by Ryan and that I killed her parents on the first shot but Ryan had tripped and dodge the bullet making me spaz out and fire four more at him before the last one hit. Once we finally got back in the car we decided that we had to find a safe place to lay low for a while. After about thirty minutes of deliberating we finally agreed to go to the Wal-Mart I worked at which was only five minutes away. Ten minutes later we finally arrived after having to back track and take a different route because the road was blocked by a flaming wreckage. The parking lot was deserted so we assumed the building was empty and drove the car straight through the doors and to the back of the store. We parked in the dairy section, grabbed our stuff out of the back, went though the doors to the back to the break room and barricaded the doors from the inside. We sat there in silence for the better part of two hours before I realised that we needed to move and grab more supplies. I told Erin to stay in the break room while Adam and I went out for the supplies. Adam picks up his rifle and we make our way out of the room to the front of the store to grab two shopping carts to carry everything with. We get to the front and we can hear the distinct sound of shuffling feet and moaning in the distance so we grab the carts and head off to the sporting goods section on the other side of the store.

We get to the sporting good department and the ammo cases are already wiped out so we run over to the grocery side to get food that will last us for hopefully the next month. We fill both of the carts as quickly as possible and rush back to the car to load it up when I realise that I didn't grab anything else I intended to grab in sporting goods. I ask Adam to get Erin and get her in the car while I run back over. Once back in sporting goods I grab a three man tent, three sleeping bags, cooking ware, mess kits, a propane stove, a propane lamp, and all the propane canisters there were. Just as I crossed in front of electronics I heard gun shots coming from the direction of the car so I set out in a dead run. I get there just in time to see Adam kill what we hoped would be the final zombie in this attack. The floor was covered in blood and about twenty zombie bodies. We load the car with the rest of our supplies and headed to the gun store across the street from Lynnhaven Mall.

Heading down Lynnhaven Pkwy it was nothing but people screaming, unrecognisable burning building, bloody messes we could only assume were bodies and a few dozen zombies that we prayed wouldn't follow us. We got almost there when we saw a flaming wreckage blocking our way so we were force to take a detour around the mall. As we turn into the mall we saw the worst sight yet. Standing in the parking lost was tens of hundreds of zombies and now that they heard the car they were all heading our way. Instantly I said "shit!" and for Adam to quit gawking and floor the damn thing. We circled around the mall a few times before heading out onto Lynnhaven Pkwy again and to the gun shop.

We pulled in and Adam parked right in front of the door. Now let me describe this building to you. It has two foot thick, steel reinforced, cement walls, two steel barred doors and a standard set of glass doors like all stores do. Immediately after pulling up i noticed a slight problem, the doors were wide open. Adam and I played a short game of paper, rock, scissors to see go went in to check it out, of course I knew I would win this since he always throws rock. So I get out of the truck, damn asshole decided to throw scissors instead, and pulled my gun while cautiously heading inside. So I slid next to the wall and peeked my head in to see if it was clear just to notice that there is no one there. I fully walked in, shut and locked the door behind me, and started to walk around inside checking every possible place for a zombie. I checked the back room and the shoot range first which were both quite obviously empty that left only the bath room. Now anyone who's seen a bad horror movie knows that the enemy is always in the damn bathroom. So instead of just opening the door I popped a round through the door hoping that whatever is in there will make a noise or luckily die. Not a sound so I figured why not and opened it. So now I was eye to eye with a blood thirsty zombie. Now I got my lucky shot alright a lucky shot that blew out his throat keeping him from making any damn noises. So I aim straight at its forehead and what does it do? Well at this point we see the exact IQ of the average zombie. It bit the damn gun. I pulled the trigger and sent the entirety of his neck bone flying to the wall.

Since I effectively and somewhat humorously cleared the building I went back and unlocked the door to help unload the car. Once everything was inside Adam and I carried the body of the zombie out to the parking lot and burned it so that no accidental infections occurred. We shut and locked all the doors looking to hunker down for who knew how long. The rest of this day was pretty unevent full. We sent up the sleeping bags, cleaned up the bathroom, checked for all possible escape paths, and set up our make shift kitchen. Once we had the sleeping bags out Erin quickly picked one and went to sleep. She had a rough day so we couldn't blame her. Adam and I decided it would be best to take shifts and keep an eye out for survivors. Another game of paper, rock, scissors and I was fast asleep next to Erin. Thank you trusty rock and predictable friends!

So now I'm tossing and turning on a tile floor trying to get a nap in. How old am I? Its 1:30 in the after noon and I'm trying to nap. This doesn't settle well on me so I look around for Adam and notice that he is no where in sight. So I went into the storage room and headed up the ladder in the back to the roof. And poof there he was sitting in a folding chair he found with his rifle in his lap, sleeping. Yep that's one good friend I have there, one lazy good for nothing friend. So now it's time for a little fun. I took his rifle, squatted down next to him, aimed at one of the many zombies, and popped off a round into its skull. The sound sends Adam flying out of his chair and face first on the roof. Now at this point I am laughing so hard that I can't breath and he well he is swearing up a storm. I compliment him on his stead fast watch over our safety and sat up there just talking about what we could possibly do. We decide it's best to just hold out until winter if we can. And considering what was around us that could either prove difficult or easy. Anything we might need is with in a fifteen minute drive but considering that we will end up needing gas and the possibility of the power grid going down at anytime staying till winter might be hard. At about 2:30 I heard Erin calling for us so we headed back down to see how she was doing. Seeing as how her entire family was just killed she was handling it pretty well. We filled her in on our plans and she agreed that staying as long as we could would be a smart idea. So after a little discussing our current options for entertainment and some food Erin decided she needed some practice with a gun. I picked out a little PPK hand gun for her, grabbed a few targets, a box of practice round, ear and eye protection and we went into the shooting range. I showed her how to completely break down and reassemble the gun, how to load the clip and fix a jam just in case it happens. She did everything I showed her, hung her target, and set it out at twenty five yards.

After she emptied the clip she reeled in her target to show that everything was going off to the left and that each round was about an inch away from each other. I complimented her on it, showed her how to sight the gun and told her to slow down in her firing. She hung a new target, sent it out, reloaded her clip, and emptied it again. This time when she brought it back in all the holes were within half an inch of each other and this time were all in the head. I told her to practice as much as she wants but only use no more than two more boxes of rounds. I walked out of the shooting range to find Adam trying to reach people on the store phone. Apparently he was trying to reach people the entire time we were in there. He called everyone and go no answer. He slammed the phone down when he got a voice mail box again. I told him he needed to calm down, that a hot head would not help us right now.

So there we were in the middle of bad horror movie sitting in a gun store trying to keep ourselves amused. That is not an easy feat to achieve when you have no radio, tv, internet, or even playing cards. Speaking entertainment Adam just so happened to work with one Erin Zerbe. We'll call her Zerbe so you dont get confused. Well Zerbe was a roller derby girl in her spare time. I went to a match once it was pretty brutal. I mean those chicks can really lay on the hurt. You might've been been on her website www.Zerbetron.com. ok so the site doesn't have a whole lot to do with roller derby but hey atleast if any girls are reading this they should know about it since there is a lot about make up application. So where was I? Oh yeah sitting in a store, no entertainment, and death literally a three minute walk away from us. So the hours just rolled on by and I was checking out the artillery on the wall. I managed to find myself a nice relatively light sniper rifle with a one hundred yard scope and also a night vision scope in a case. Since it was night time I told Adam I would take the first four hour shift. He hits the sack along with Erin and I outfit my new toy with the night vision scope and head up to the roof. Four boring hours later and Adam was there to relieve me. I hand over my rifle and tell him once the sun starts coming up to switch to his rifle. Now it's midnight in the middle of the zombie apocolypse and there is endless moaning. Now thats music to fall asleep to. No, not really.

Foreword

This is my recount of the zombie apocalypse. Let me start this by by telling you a little about myself. My name is AJ and I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia in a two story three bedroom townhouse with my fiance Erin, my brother Barry, and my friend Adam. I worked at Wal-Mart on Lynnhaven Parkway as an overnight stocker. I'm a bit of a computer geek, a hunter, and a mechanical genius. I decided to keep this diary after day nine while hiding in a book store. I thought that if I ended up no surviving this that the world, if there is one afterward, should know what I had seen and what I did. I will start this on day one and if I am alive at the end of each day I will make sure to insert what has happened. I found it necessary to inform you of all this so that you know of my background and can maybe figure out a little about me.