I knew what was coming, I'd seen all the signs. I'd read all the books and seen all the films. Human civilisation was in trouble, big trouble.
First there were the rumours of people returning from the dead in far flung countries and then the mobilisation of the military but they'd never get them all. But hey, I'm getting ahead of myself here, let me introduce myself, my name is Jack Richardson and I'm a 44 year old male living in a small town in rural Somerset in the UK. Nothing much happens in my hometown of Chideford, there's the very occasional murder (once every ten years or so) but normally the most excitement we get is drunk teenagers fighting in the town centre or the odd stolen car, that was about to change dramatically.
I've always loved horror and in particular, zombies, the first horror flicks I ever watched (at the tender age of 13) were 'The Evil Dead', 'Zombie Flesheaters' and Zombie Creeping Flesh' they had a huge impact on me but I never thought thirty odd years later I would ever be caught up in a zombie apocalypse! Over the years I've watched all the zombie films and read all the books and graphic novels I could get my hands on but never dreamed they would one day become my handbook to survival.
I'd loved the George A Romero films and even some of the remakes were okay though I was sure the reanimated dead would never be of the running variety, I would soon find out first hand. Books like 'Day By Day Armageddon', 'World War Z' and 'The Walking Dead' graphic novel series would soon be my reference guides by which my daily survival would depend on.
Right, that's enough about me, let me take you on my journey,
Monday 3rd June 2013
I bought the Daily Star newspaper as always, to read during my dinner break at work and my interest was peaked by a small piece about rumoured dead people coming back to life in a remote African country (I can't remember which one), I read it and laughed out loud before checking the date to make sure it wasn't April Fool's Day, it wasn't. There wasn't much info and I dismissed it as just some voodoo mumbo jumbo.
Tuesday 4th June
On my way to the daily grind I picked up a paper and had it in mind that I would see if there was anymore about yesterdays article, maybe a retraction and apology, there wasn't. On returning home I waited for the news to come on the TV and was shocked when there was a news item about some civil unrest in parts of Africa and the armed forces had been deployed to quell the troubles. No mention of the undead though, were the two news items linked?
Wednesday 5th June
With the rioting getting worse, the UK government announced our diplomats were being pulled out of all African countries and the foreign office were advising people not to travel to the continent. I was now glued to the news channels on getting home from work and scanning the Internet for any possible links to that newspaper article from Monday. The usual doom mongers on line were saying the end was nigh but surely this was just another case of the masses becoming discontent similar to the troubles in Syria or Turkey.
Thursday 6th June
Some of the reports coming out of Africa were saying that some crazed civilians were actually biting military and police personnel and sedating them wasn't working. The body count was starting to rise at an alarming rate and the trouble was even kicking off in some of the major cities and from the images on the news, there were road blocks everywhere and a night time curfew in place. Fires could be seen burning out of control and there were armoured vehicles everywhere. I was starting to worry that my worst nightmare could be about to come true. All foreign aid workers had been pulled out and all flights had been cancelled, Africa was becoming shut off from the rest of the world. News reports were becoming confusing and disjointed, some reports mentioned these crazed rioters that were trying to attack people and despite warnings from armed officials, they couldn't be reasoned with. Lethal force was authorised to try and discourage looters but some of the soldiers were reporting that it was taking several rounds to finally take them out.
