So anyway, I was on the beach standing on the other side of a temporary barricade with my camera man, Dave.
Residents stood out on front porches with binoculars and video cameras looking out over the ocean. Then, a woman on the balcony of her apartment shouted out, “Zombie!”
Everyone looked to where she was pointing, and sure enough, one of those infected was slowly pulling itself out of the water. There was a loud bang, and then the back of its head exploded out.
A sniper on the roof of the Holiday Inn took it out quick and easy. Then two soldiers ran to the shore and pulled the body into a large circle the army made in the sand. Once there, another soldier with a blow torch set it on fire.
God, the smell of those things was bad enough, let alone setting it on fire.
When that lady shouted out “zombie,” nobody flinched.
Remember, nobody in the press or government was using that word. They were “infected.”
A zombie was something from a movie. A made-up monster.
These monsters were real.
People on the streets had been using the term “zombie” from the beginning. I think because saying “infected” seemed disingenuous. Telling someone to avoid “infected” individuals painted a very clear picture to everybody.
This infected person is contagious and dangerous.
Everybody higher up made sure to call them infected. Nobody wanted to use the word “zombie” because even in the thick of the crisis, everybody was thinking about their image.
Which potential political leader wants to run for office with a video of them warning people about Zombies?
It’s stupid really. A rose by any other name—
After the first infected appeared, it was about another two hours before the next one showed up. This one was a man. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties. Facial characteristics were hard to identify because he had been in the water so long.
Another loud bang, and his features turned into a red mist. His body was collected and burned in the circle where the previous one was destroyed.
It was terrifying, but everything felt like it was just a part of the plan.
Twenty minutes later, about a dozen made their way ashore, and headshot after headshot ended them all instantly.
Dave ran camera while I reported the success of the mission.
Meanwhile, every other Gulf Coast city was putting up fences. They were easier to protect. The terrain on the floor of the gulf was tougher to navigate along the Louisiana and panhandle areas. Plus the bottom current was stronger up there, pushing any that might be north further to the south.
But, we had this covered, right?
The greatest country in the world showing everybody how we do it— or so we thought.
Around two AM, they came en masse.
We were expecting a few hundred.
Gunshots were ringing for miles up the beach. It was dark outside, but the water looked darker than it should have.
I know it was late and dark, but the water looked pitch black.
The military spotlights lit up the water, and you could occasionally get glimpses of them—Thousands of them—Marching.
The soldiers on the ground near the shore were overwhelmed quickly. The soldier with the flamethrower sprayed about a hundred of them before they took him out.
Now there were a hundred zombies on fire walking towards homes along the beach. The snipers tried to take out as many of the burning ones as they could, but a handful made it to homes.
Some fell on front porches, setting them on fire. Others collapsed in front yards burning for hours.
Houses were burning, and scared residents were running into the streets.
The gun fire never stopped.
I was frozen with fear. Dave grabbed me by the shoulder and said, “There’s no way they have enough bullets for all these things, man!”
We ran to a lifeguard station. It wasn’t the safest structure, but it was high enough to keep us out of harm’s reach. There were a few people up there helping us onto the deck. Once Dave and I made it, we pulled that ladder up.
A few hundred? There were hundreds of thousands marching up the beach. There were times when I looked out over the literal sea of the undead and it didn’t look like infected people walking. It looked like they had an army of their own and their army of the dead had ours outnumbered by astronomical numbers. They were all moving at the same steady pace, none of them were fighting to get ahead.
Later, we got a more accurate count as to how many came up on the beach that night—One point five million infected came onto American soil that night.
The military did everything they could. They just weren’t prepared for the sheer magnitude of how many there were.
Dave continued to shoot footage while I described everything I saw.
Around six AM we saw a little girl—not a little girl— an infected. She had been a little girl before this, but now… She was infected.
She was wearing a little sundress, and I’m not sure what color it was originally, but now it was a filthy brown color.
Like old blood.
She was dragging a dirty, sopping wet teddy bear out of the water. Who knows why she was holding it, or why she never let go of it.
Maybe she was originally attacked while holding onto it, and when she eventually changed, her tiny little hand never reopened. Maybe the attack caused some sort of nerve damage that wouldn’t allow her to unclench her fist.
The girl—the thing, was dragging the stuffed bear.
Every other one of the infected was just that— An infected.
You have to dehumanize them so you can shoot at them.
There was a study done right before the infection made it to the western world. The professor who wrote it said that humanity would be wiped out pretty quickly once the infected got to America.
The key to his ominous prediction was a person’s inability to shoot another human.
Meaning if you give an average person a gun, and say, “Shoot that infected person!” Some wouldn’t be able to do it.
They don’t see the infection, they see a person who might be able to be cured.
They see a father, or a mother.
Everyone laughed at his findings, and people said, “If I see one of those things, I’d shoot it. It’s him or me!”
I agreed at the time. I thought that in a life or death situation, I would kill something that looked human in order to save myself.
But, watching this little girl with her teddy bear walk right up the beach made me doubt that belief.
Mind you, a majority of the infected had already passed. She was part of the stragglers at the tail end of the invasion.
She walked from the water all the way to the streets where she kept walking till we couldn’t see her any longer.
Later, I interviewed the soldiers who were there that day. When I asked the snipers about it, every single one of them remembered seeing that little girl and her teddy bear.
All of them.
But not one of them took the shot. They kept hoping another shooter would do it.
My boss said I would win an award for my coverage that night. We all know what happened to Florida after that night too.
The wall.
The army stationed right outside the Florida border. Shooting anyone trying to get out.
Was it the right thing to do?
Maybe.
Did it stop the infection from spreading into the rest of the country?
No. But, it did slow it down.
I can’t help but wonder how many more people could have gotten out alive? What if they’d set up check points, tested people, tried to help people get out of Florida instead of trapping them inside.
I know, I know— There weren’t enough testing kits.
Another failure due to the pride of those who were leading us. They didn’t order enough tests for the rest of the country because they were afraid of what they would find.
> People have asked me if I would have gone through that night again.
Knowing that I survived the night and could win an award for my coverage of the siege, my answer is a resounding “no.”
Not because I was scared, and not because I will never swim in the ocean again.
It’s because every night when I close my eyes, I see that little girl and her teddy bear.
I can’t escape the image of her walking up that beach, dragging the bear behind her.
I hope that someone was able to do what nobody else there that night was able to. I hope someone stopped her.
We may think we have a handle on the situation now. We’re just mopping up the stragglers while we clean up the mess and reopen our Starbucks.
But remember this “flu” started with one person.
A single person was the first infected, and it was probably a child that nobody wanted to stop. I really hope this is over, but who knows?
I’m not sure if we could really survive another outbreak.
Amy
Amy (Unknown last name) was a striking woman in her late thirties or early forties. Her face had pain etched overtop of every other expression she might have tried to convey. When she looked out over the crowd, I’m not entirely certain she was even seeing anything. There was hardened agony deep in her eyes, and as she told her story, it became more and more clear why.
My husband was in Afghanistan when the flu was first reported in the news.
I mean, when it was just announced.
Before anyone really knew what it was all about.
I talked to him as often as I could. He said he was hearing things about the flu, and that it was really bad. But you always hear about some weird flu. Bird, Swine, and now Nanjing flu. The last time I talked to my husband, he told me that they came across some people with the flu. I asked him if they had to wear masks, and he said “yes,” but that it didn’t “spread like that.”
I wanted to hear more about it, but then something happened. I heard screaming in the background and then gunshots.
I remember yelling into the phone and him not answering for what seemed like an eternity.
Finally, he picked up the phone and told me he was fine. Some other soldiers bit him and another soldier.
“Just fucking around!” He said.
I asked him if he was okay, and he said the bite was pretty small. “Barely broke the skin.”
I asked about the gunshots and he laughed. He said it wasn’t gunshots. Some of the guys were setting of fireworks in the background to scare him while the other prankster was biting them. He laughed and assured me he was fine. Then he told me he had to go.
His voice sounded different.
Not like a different person, just a different tone. He said. “I love you Amy. I love you very much.” Then he told me to go kiss and hug each of our kids and tell them it was from daddy. I offered to wake the kids so he could talk to them himself, but he said he had to go. I told him I loved him, then we said goodbye.
Later, when the world found out the truth about the infection, I knew my kids wouldn’t see daddy come home.
We had three children together. Sam, Parker, and little Sara. Five, Three, and one and a half. I remember thinking at the time, will they remember their father? Sara never even met him, but I made it my duty to tell them everything about this wonderful man, and how he died fighting for our country.
He was over there fighting terrorists. All of our soldiers were stretched too thin all over the world fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. They really didn’t know what they were getting into.
I hope—I fucking pray that nobody had any idea what these things were before sending our loved ones out to fight. If you knew that bullets wouldn’t kill the enemy, wouldn’t you tell the people who are out fighting and dying for you?
“Shoot them in the head!” That’s what they said on TV.
Next thing I know, the government was dropping loaded weapons and instructions on how to us an M-9 handgun, or the M16A2 Rifle.
Can you imagine? We all watched and waited for that package to land, and before you knew it, average folks like you and me had government issued weapons. I remember the diagrams that came with the guns showing you how to load it, shoot it, and turn the safety off and on. The pictures were like the ones on airlines with the expressionless people shooting other expressionless people in the face.
I took my kids with me everywhere I went. There were too many stories at this point of people kidnapping children and robbing people at gunpoint.
Even in the face of Hell people still manage to be relentless assholes.
I locked the front door to my house and strapped my kids into the seat belts in the back seat of my car.
There was supposed to be a medical supply drop on the football field of the school about a mile from my house.
You had to get there and stake out a good spot. People were armed and in need of supplies.
For the most part, the supply drops were pretty straight forward. Everyone ran up to the package once it hit the ground and whatever you touched was yours. People tried to be civil. But then you would hear stories about shootings for Band-Aids and shit like that.
Getting shot so someone can steal Band-Aids from you—How’s that for shitty?
The package was coming down, and everybody started running. I locked the car and set the alarm. Miss Judy from the elementary school was sitting by the car to watch the kids. She always did that for me, so I would always grab an extra bottle or two of pain medicine for her. The kids would be fine, they always were. If someone tried to get into the car, the alarm would go off and I would be there in a heartbeat to shoot the mother fucker who tried to hurt my children. Besides, Miss Judy was there and for seventy-three years old, she was a crack shot with the double-barreled shotgun she always carried with her.
The package looked like it was heading directly on target, so we’re all running out towards the middle of the field.
This huge breeze suddenly picked up, and the package starts drifting off course. It soars over the north side of the stadium, and everyone is scrambling to get to it.
All of us run around the stadium to see the package hit the ground, but it didn’t land on the ground.
It landed right in the middle of Lake Dawn— the small lake next to the school. It wasn’t too far out.
A bit of a swim, but not unreachable.
Some people dove right in. Others started taking their clothes off before wading out into the water. I was just starting to untie my boots when I looked to the far side of the lake and saw another huge crowd of people going into the water.
I squinted to try and make them out, and I wanted to see if I could figure out why they were all the way over there to begin with.
The drop was always at the school.
Were there THAT many people who were in the wrong location? Was there another drop happening that I didn’t know about?
Then, I saw the people on the other side of the lake just walking into the water. There were more of them than I thought.
They just kept coming out of the woods and headed right into the water. Walking into the water until they disappeared into it.
They were infected.
I tried screaming to the people who were already swimming out to the package, but it was too late.
Swimming people were quickly getting yanked down under the water. Some would get pulled down, and for a brief moment they would pop back up screaming and trying to make their way back to land, then they would get pulled back down for good.
And the ones I noticed on the other side of the lake? They weren’t the first ones in the water.
Before I knew it about a hundred of them came out of the water like a scene in some sort of horror movie. They didn’t stop. They just walked in a straight line until they saw someone to go after. Nothing seemed real. There was so much confusion. It’s not as easy as you think to distinguish between who is safe and who wants to
kill you. There were so many people all running in different directions. Everyone was screaming. I turned to run, then I heard the sound of Miss Judy’s shotgun.
I ran as fast as I could back to the front of the stadium, and when I got there, there was complete and utter chaos.
There were infected already there, they were streaming into the crowds of people who had been waiting by the cars.
I ran to my car and my heart stopped.
Miss Judy was dead.
It looked like she put up a fight with a few of those…people.
She must have fallen backwards because her head hit the back window of my car and smashed it open.
I could hear my kids screaming out, and as I got closer, I saw two of those THINGS pulling themselves into the back seat with my babies!
I pulled one out by it’s feet and spun it around. I pulled my M-9 out of my belt and shot it right between it’s eyes. I could hear Parker scream a scream that every mother knows is the sound, not of fear, but of injury.
I fired through the smashed back window and my shot hit that thing in its shoulder.
I fired again and missed. The bullet smashed through the front window and hit the front hood.
The thing’s head was out of view.
I grabbed the car keys from my pocket and hit the unlock button. I pulled the back door open and that thing looked up at me with blood on its face.
Fresh blood.
I yelled and grabbed it by its hair.
It was a man at some point. I don’t care what anybody says, they aren’t human!
Not anymore.
It looked at me and tried to bite my forearm. I shot it once right across the bridge of its nose, then fired three more times into its right eye at point blank range. I closed the back door and jumped into the front. All three of my kids were crying... I just had to get them the hell out of there.
The car didn’t start right up, and when it did start, there was a rattle in the engine. I think the bullet that missed the infected man hit something important under the hood, but at least it started.
Zombies' End: Aftermath Page 3