Z's

Thank you for taking the time to read the first chapter for my book. Please note that this chapter is basically the main character starting to write in a journal, but future chapters will be in a third person reading and only occasionally will we see what Trudy writes in her journal. I'd appreciate any reviews, thoughts, suggestions and feedback.



Nobody believed it would ever happen, but it did. After years of books, comics, movies and TV shows people were finally living the nightmare: Zombies.



Now I'm not smart enough to know exactly how it happened; in fact during the time the Z Pandemic hit I didn't listen to the radio or even watch the news. I'd always preferred to listen to my own tunes on my MP3 player and watch my favorite TV shows, beyond that the only way I heard about what was going on in the world was through what my friends shared on Facebook or the Yahoo news highlights!



So to say that the, Zombie's, or Z's as those of us who survived began to call them, caught me by surprise would be a fair assessment. In fact, I'd say that the Z Pandemic happened so fast that it caught everyone by surprise.



I've decided to write down what I can about this new world. Mostly just to get my thoughts out there. There's not too many people to talk to anymore so this is one of the ways I feel like I can cope. And who knows, maybe some day in the future someone will read this account and find it interesting.



I mean all through history there was someone who wrote about what happened and I don't really know who's left out there to write this chapter of history for our world. So I'm going to write as much as I can, especially anything I can find out as to what caused this. Maybe it will help someone in the future prevent this from happening again.



It all started out during flu season. You know how most people will get the flu vaccine in hopes that it will prevent them from getting the flu? Well, it's been officially proven that vaccines aren't truly safe. Somehow the vaccine mutated when it was administered and that started a chain of events that lead to the world turning upside down.



This year the flu hit a lot of people really hard and in hindsight that was the first hint of trouble. Because so many people were getting really ill it caused a lot of others to rush in and get the vaccine. Unfortunately, it was too late for many, especially those who had received the vaccine. They were the first to fall ill and they became the carriers for a new deadly disease.



Now I was used to seeing my Facebook wall blow up during the flu season hearing about how friends and their family was sick- but this year the amount of those who came down with the flu was unprecedented.



It started out as a simple stomach ache or nausea but would quickly advance to vomiting and diarrhea. For many it was so severe that within forty-eight hours more than half of those who became ill were in the hospital from dehydration.



Because this flu bug was extremely contagious it spread quickly and the hospitals, emergency clinics and doctors offices were overrun in too many sick and not enough supplies or doctors and nurses to tend the ill. At first everyone thought it was just an epidemic, like the old days where whole towns or countries would become ill from small pox or some other kind of disease that would wipe out most of the population; but because of international travel people all over the world quickly grew ill making this the first worldwide pandemic.



After just two weeks there had been over two million deaths worldwide and many more were falling ill by the hour, becoming sicker and the death count slowly rose each day. But that was just the beginning.



Because of the massive amounts of deaths the funeral homes couldn't keep up and morgues became overrun with bodies. Therefore those who died weren't able to be buried right away. I suppose you can guess what happened after that.



People who had died weren't staying dead. To say there was worldwide panic is an understatement. Even though it was too late for most people, many were too afraid to go outside, for fear of catching the flu. And now people who supposedly had died were coming to life again? The world was quickly turning into a different place...a place where nightmares happened.



The amount of time it took for a body to come alive again varied; but usually within the first twelve hours a once dead person became undead. The streets grew more and more dangerous as the undead began to roam the streets. Military forces were already stretched thin due to the number of people falling ill so the amount of the Z's running around were quickly out numbering the people still alive.



By the end of the second month of the world I knew was in ruins and humanity was very close to extinction.