As I checked under a bench, I noticed something which appeared to be a blood stained journal. I picked it up and skimmed through the journal and noticed that it was from the zombie apocalypse that happened a year ago. Just thinking about it sent a chill down my spine. An estimated 71 million people died in it, and it destroyed the far western US. I decided that I should copy the journal down, so it could be preserved as an actual account of what it was like to live through the apocalypse. Now I’m no scholar, I’m just a 25 year old from Harlem who works for one of the many cleanup crews called in to help remove the dead bodies, and other unsanitary things from the West coast, but I know that these first-hand accounts of the 2015 zombie apocalypse are rare.

11am, February 28th, 2015
I was at my grandfather’s house and my phone rang.  It was my mom.  It was hard to understand what she was saying, as she was crying so hard.  Something had happened to my sister.  It’s hard to understand and it doesn’t make much sense, but my mom seemed sure.  I am trying to work it out, but here’s what seems to have happened.  My sister was playing at the park with my mom.  Some guy – he looked disheveled and kind of crazed – came out of nowhere and bit my sister.  Bit her bad.  My mom said there was lots of blood.  And then he just ran away.  My mom called 911 and the fire department came.  The paramedics took my sister in the ambulance and my mom followed behind them in the car.

Apparently, my sister seems to have died en route to the hospital.  My mom asked to see the body.  The paramedics opened the body bag and my sister sat up.  None of this makes any sense, because they said she had died.  I don’t understand.  And then my sister bit the paramedic.  My mom said she managed to run away.  I just don’t understand, why would they say she was dead if she wasn’t?  You just don’t come back to life once you’re dead.  I guess these paramedics are really incompetent or something, because I guess they can’t tell if someone is dead or not.   From the way people were talking, you’d think it was a zombie attack, but obviously THAT’s not true.  Zombies don’t exist.

My grandpa took the phone from me.  He talked to my mom for a while, and he seemed fearful.  I think those paramedics don’t know what they are talking about. 

But then my grandpa hung up the phone.  He went to his basement and came back with a hand gun and the old shotgun he kept for duck hunting.  He told me he’d seen something like this in Viet Nam and he hoped it wasn’t the same thing, but that things might get really bad.  He was going to go help my mom at the hospital.  He would call me every hour, on the hour.  If more than two hours passed and I hadn’t heard from him, I was to get out of Seattle, any way I could.

Noon, February 28th, 2015
My grandfather called at noon.  He sounded grim.  He said that his fears seemed to be true.  He told me what he had seen in Vietnam during the war. 

What happened there was that a marine had come back from a scouting expedition, with large bite marks all over his body. He was rushed into the hospital where he immediately died. As the doctors cut into the corpse to try and figure out what had happened, the man proceeded to reanimate and attack the doctors and pretty soon the camp was flooded with the men who had died and come back to life – almost like zombies. My grandfather was on guard duty, and he quickly figured out that headshots were the only ways to destroy these beasts. My grandfather then told me to get the hell out Seattle.  He said to go to Scotland and stay with my dad’s family there.

I grabbed my grandpa’s guns and my backpack that had been packed while I was waiting, and I decided that I needed to go to my house before leaving Seattle.  I knew it wasn’t smart, but I had to take my dogs with me. I picked up the hatchet that my grandfather used to cut wood for his fire place, and headed out the door.

2pm, February 28th, 2015, Seattle, Washington
Finally some good news, as I turned on to my street, I saw a familiar sight. It was my best friend, and fellow middle school student, Nico. He was one of the few people alive who I could trust, and I knew that I had to take him with me. I shouted “Nico!” he ran over and replied “Ewan! I thought you were dead.” I told him what had happened and Nico burst into tears.  His parents had heard about a disturbance at the park and had gone to help.  Tears streamed down his face.  He’d seen them get bit by a man that matched the description of the guy who’d bit my sister.  He said he saw them die.  He had survived by running as fast as he could, and had gotten away.

I told Nico everything I knew, about my sister and my grandfather’s story about the “zombie” attack in Vietnam.  I told him I didn’t believe in zombies, but we couldn’t figure out any other explaination.  It had been over two hours since I’d heard from my grandfather, so I figured things were not good with him and my mom.  I told Nico that the two of us should try to get ourselves to Scotland.  Hopefully things would be safe there.  Certainly he had nothing here left to stay for and I was starting to fear that I didn’t, either.

We figured we should bring some provisions.  Also, we decided to take my dogs.  They are obnoxious guard dogs and they bark anytime anyone comes near our house, so we figured they would be good to have with us – they would give us warning if we tried to sleep and someone tried to approach us.

I went to my house and collected the dogs and some camping equipment. 

Nico’s family still had a bike trailer from when he had been a baby.  We put the dogs and some of the gear in that.  The rest, we strapped to our bikes or put in backpacks. 

It’s hard to pack when you are frightened.  Bungee cords and shaky hands aren’t such a good combination.  But we managed to get most of what we needed.  We had the handgun and the old shotgun from my grandfather, but we didn’t have much ammunition.  Also, my grandfather had said headshots were the only way to kill these “zombies”, so I figured a shotgun wasn’t the right weapon. 

We rode our bikes to a gun store.  Nobody was there and the door was locked.  The wind changed and a horrible smell wafted from down the street – it smelled like rotting meat.  It was horrible.  I could see in the distance a man staggering toward us with bite marks all over him.  I knew it was one of those things.

I was so scared I couldn’t even move, but Nico gave me a shove. 

“Come ON!  MOVE!” he shouted.  I fired the pistol into the glass of the gun store and we smashed our way in.  As fast as we could, we gathered up a couple of rifles and as much ammunition as our backpacks could hold. 

We ran out to our bikes.  The “zombie” (not that I believe these are zombies, but I don’t know what else to call them) was maybe 20 feet away, and the smell was overpowering.  We jumped on our bikes and pedaled as hard as we could.

11pm, March 7th, 2015, Ewan, Washington
I am sorry that I haven’t written for so long. We have been biking across Washington, and I haven’t had a safe space to write. I’m finally in a safe place, so here is what you missed from today.

I noticed that it was getting dark, and I saw a town that was close by. I called Nico over and said we should try to find a barn to hide in.  Nico said ok, and we packed up.  Our legs ached, but we biked into town.

I don’t think we’ll make it – nobody else seems to have – but we had to keep trying.  There is nothing else you can do.  I never thought of myself as courageous, but when death is the only other option, you find you can do amazing things.  I am grateful also, to have Nico with me.  Sometimes each of us falls apart, but having the other one makes you have the courage to keep going on.

As we approached the town, I saw a sign that said “Welcome to Ewan.” I told Nico that I had always wanted to go here, and seeing it made me smile. Not many places or people in American share my weird Scottish name.  We biked ahead, and I saw what we needed -an abandoned barn. Nico and I biked in and immediately went to work. We first put everything other than the trailer up in the loft, and then Nico tied a rope to the trailer, and he pulled the trailer up while I pushed from the floor.  After the trailer was in the loft, we went back down to the ground, and cooked up porridge for dinner. After dinner we put the dogs in the loft and I stood took first watch. 

8am, March 8th, 2015, Ewan, Washington
D**n it Fuzzy why do you have to screw everything up! Ok you may be wondering why I’m raging at my puppy, but you’ll understand after you read this.

At 1am I woke Nico up, and I went to sleep immediately.  I probably slept for an hour, before I was suddenly awoken by the barking.  Fuzz had found a barn cat and was trying to play with it.  The cat started hissing and Fuzzy started barking like crazy. 

It appears that the “zombies” are attracted by loud noises.  [I don’t really think zombies exist, but something weird is going on here.  I don’t know how else to describe these people.  They have bite marks and they seem like monsters.  They smell horrible and they moan all the time.]

Anyway, so with all the barking and commotion with the cat, I guess the “zombies” got interested.  I tried to calm the dog down, but as I looked over the edge of the barn loft, I saw something horrible.  Maybe fifty or so of these monsters were lurching around the barn floor below us. 

I pointed at them to Nico.  He threw up, but then I could see an icy calm take over in him.  We looked around.  We didn’t have an unlimited supply of bullets and we figured there were so many of the zombies, we had to come up with a different plan. 

We looked around the barn loft.  There were several pitch forks and the ladder which we had brought up with us.  We had all our gear, too.  I pulled a portable speaker and my phone from the trailer.  I figured this was probably our last stand, so we might as well listen to some epic music for this fight.  I put on Danger Zone, by Kenny Loggins.  The music would attract the zombies toward us.

I grabbed a pitchfork, lowered the ladder down, had Nico grab on to me, and the second the air filled with “Highway to the Danger Zone, Gonna take it right into the Danger Zone,” I started stabbing the zombies as they scrambled up the ladder trying to get to the noise.

All in all, the siege lasted for 3 hours, and at the end, I was exhausted. Nico had been holding me up the whole time and we were both exhausted.  He’d slept a little, though, already, so I told Nico to organize the supplies, make breakfast, and wake me up in two hours.  I went to sleep.

Two hours later, I was wakened by Nico, who served me some canned corn beef hash for breakfast. I had been so focused on guns and survival gear that I hadn’t remembered to bring food.  I was grateful that Nico had not forgotten this detail.  As we ate, we discussed where we should go next, and after a while we decided to head to Salt Lake City.  Nico said that we were low on supplies – biking all day (and with two dogs in tow), we were eating more than Nico had counted on.  We decided that we would spend some time in Boise looting what we could, and then go to Salt Lake City before turning east toward Boston.  We hoped that there were still flights out of the East Coast.  

We had no idea how fast the infection was spreading, but so far, we had not seen any “live” people – only the zombies.  There wasn’t any news and our phones weren’t working anymore, so we didn’t know what to expect, but we figured the only thing we could do was try to get as far as we could from Seattle and hope we found an airport that was still working. 

Note: there is a large gap before the next entry in the journal, and it is in different writing. There is also a lot of dried blood throughout the remainder of the journal.

1pm, April 8th, 2015, Salt Lake City.
Nico here, and it's been a month since Ewan last wrote. Before I tell you what happened, I need to say a few things.  Ewan is dead, and as I'm writing this, I'm bleeding from a zombie bite on my right hand.  I’m certain I won't make it. I gave Ewan’s pets to a farmer who had great defenses, and I hope they will be safe there. I'm currently writing this on a park bench at the Great Salt Lake. I know it's not safe, but I don't care since I'm already dying. I don't even know why I'm writing this, since I doubt anyone else will still be alive to read this.

We spent a week looting Boise.  As we were leaving town, Ewan stepped behind some bushes on the side of the road to pee.  Apparently there was a zombie behind the bushes, because I heard Ewan scream.  I knew it wasn’t good.  I walked over to my friend.  He told me that the only thing he cared about was that he not become one of the monsters.  He asked me to shoot him in the head.  I couldn’t do it.  I started crying and I wanted to do what he asked, but I couldn’t.  He asked me to give him the hand gun.  I could barely see him through my tears, but I did it.  I attached the trailer to my bike and reluctantly started to pedal away.  When I was maybe a quarter mile from my friend, I heard a shot.  My heart felt like it broke at that moment.  I was truly alone, except for the dogs.

I kept biking, but now I had very little hope. 

As I approached Salt Lake City, I saw smoke rising from the chimney of what looked to be a farm house.  I came nearer and saw it had a massive stone wall around it, with barbed wire piled around it.  Finally, I thought, I would be saved. 

As I approached, I shouted hello.  An older man came out of the house with a panicked look on his face. 

“Be quiet!” he screamed.  “You are attracting them!”  They are all around us!

He ran toward the gate, but he was not fast enough.  I got the dogs in the gate, but as I was pushing the bikes in, I felt teeth on my arm. 

Seeing that I was bitten, the farmer slammed the gate shut.  The dogs were safe but I was not.  I shouted at him to take care of our dogs, and I would go as far away as I could. I figured I should give him all our supplies – I certainly wouldn’t be needing them.  He already had the bike trailer inside the fence.  All I had was my backpack.  I opened it and rifled through it, looking for any useful supplies I could give him.  I threw him the last of the food and a Swiss Army knife.

At the bottom of the backpack, I found this journal.  I knew it wouldn’t do him any good, so I figured I would keep it with me.

I don’t know how long it will take me to die.   The wound on my arm is pretty bad.  I made it a couple of miles away from the farm and found a bench.  I figure I will just sit here and wait for whatever happens.  I wonder if anyone will find thi [the journal abruptly ends here].